Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Gilbert Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

In my experience, most letter boxes are dangerous enough on their own without the dog behind them. However, I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point entirely—this is a serious issue. I can only repeat that we have been out to consultation, and that the results of that consultation, including the most popular outcomes, are all on the website. The Government are considering the matter now and, as I said, are working with the Home Office, and will make an announcement shortly after Christmas.

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

7. What progress her Department has made on implementation of the recommendations of the Pitt review on lessons learned from the 2007 floods on levels of flood protection for homes.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)]

Good progress has been made on taking forward the Pitt review recommendations. We are implementing the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 and have recently launched a consultation on our national strategy. We published the national flood emergency framework in July, and held a response exercise last month to launch preparations for Exercise Watermark, which will test responses to severe wide-area flooding in March next year.

[Stephen Gilbert]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s reply and was delighted to welcome her to Cornwall so that she could see for herself the recent flooding in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray). One of the lessons we have learned is that the Met Office gave a warning at 10.30 pm of an 80% chance of flooding some six hours before homes were affected and businesses destroyed, but that warning was never passed on to residents. Will she agree to meet me to discuss how we can improve early warnings?

[Mrs Spelman]

I commend my hon. Friend’s work in helping with the ongoing recovery in his constituency. I am sure that hon. Members will appreciate that it is hard to predict surface water flooding events. In the afternoon of that event, there was only a 20% risk of severe flooding, but by 10.30 pm, when most people are in bed and asleep, it had increased to an 80% risk. One lesson learned from previous flooding incidents is that flood wardens, who can knock on doors and alert, in particular, vulnerable members of the community of the increased risk, can assist a community’s resilience.