Severe Winter Weather

Nick Smith Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Labour Members may laugh, but they will remember this being a serious problem last winter, with people being afraid to clear snow and ice outside their homes and afraid to act as good neighbours. One of Quarmby’s recommendations was that we publish a snow code, compliance with which would give people a high level of protection from civil action. We have done that, and I hope that people will respond by acting in that neighbourly fashion.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that the Government have failed to keep the emergency grit stocks at full capacity? Despite warnings of arctic blasts for weeks, grit stocks have been rationed, and emergency supplies are said to be 80,000 tonnes lower than they should be. If this is true, why has it happened and which Minister will be resigning?

[Mr Hammond]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is new and was not in the House last winter. He asked whether we are keeping emergency grit stocks at full capacity. There were no emergency grit stocks last winter. In fact, there were no grit stocks at all last winter. Local authorities and the Highways Agency have bought grit for their own use, and this year, for the first time ever, we have a strategic stockpile of salt—more than 300,000 tonnes of salt have been ordered for that stockpile, 156,000 tonnes of which have been delivered, and the remainder of which will be delivered between now and the middle of January. A further 250,000 tonnes have been sourced, and we are currently arranging transport to get it to the UK. I do not suppose that he has the faintest notion of the logistics involved in trying to uplift 250,000 tonnes of salt from around the world at short notice and to ship it to the UK in specialist vessels, so perhaps, before asking such a silly question again, he will think about what is involved.