Penrith and The Border MP, Dr Neil Hudson today asked the Energy Minister about lessons learned after Storm Arwen, particularly on the need for generators and calling in the Armed Forces early. The question was during an Urgent Parliamentary Question session on power outages caused by Storm Arwen.
Dr Hudson asked:
Can I echo comments from colleagues in terms of thanking the government, local government, the armed forces, volunteers and engineers for their efforts to help people through this dreadful crisis. Can I also pay tribute to the resilience of residents in Cumbria, elsewhere in the north of England and across Scotland for facing up to this dreadful crisis. I fear that this resilience will be tested again and again with more and more named storms coming.
Can my Right Honourable Friend assure me that in the lessons learned process of all of this that the support for communities will get to them as soon as possible, in terms of generators and in terms of calling in the army? In Cumbria we know that when we have flooding and when we’ve had things like Foot and Mouth, calling the army early is an important lesson to be learned. So whoever’s job it is to call them in, please can we do this as quickly as possible.
The Energy Minister, Greg Hands replied:
I thank my Honourable Friend for his engagement throughout this process as well on behalf of his Cumbrian constituents. I think he makes some very good points there, I should be asking for all Members as well to give their input into the lessons learnt process. That might be anything from communications, through to extra resources, deployments and so on.
I can tell him that at its peak 755 generators were deployed in the most affected areas in the United Kingdom, that number is now around 500. In terms of calling out the armed forces, that is principally a matter for the local resilience forum in the first case to make that local assessment of what their needs are. I would stress in terms of repairing and rebuilding power lines that is a job for engineers. In terms of other relief and other workers and other people who can provide support for local communities that is a job for the local resilience forum to make that assessment.”
Commenting after the Commons session, Dr Hudson added:
My constituents in Penrith and The Border are no strangers to extreme weather but that does not mean that they should be without power when bad weather strikes. The Secretary of State and Energy Minister have been receptive to concerns of myself and colleagues across the north where our constituents were hit hard by this crisis.
In future I would like to the government to act quicker by working with local resilience fora to deploy the army early to help with the recovery effort. This issue is not going away and I will continue to press the government on this.”
