Downing Street Says

Asked further about the flooding review and how did the Prime Minister see links with climate change, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) explained to journalists that Hilary Benn announced on the 12th July in a Written Statement that there would be a review of the lessons we learnt and how to manage and respond to the type of disaster we had seen in recent weeks. The review would look at flood risk management, the emergency response, and the initial moves towards recovery. The PMS said there was a long list of terms of issues covered in the terms of reference. However, although the terms of reference were quite wide ranging, this was not a review of climate change policy. One of the things it would look at was to understand why the flooding was so extensive this time.

Asked repeatedly how far would the review go into climate change, the PMS replied that there was the Stern Review, which was a huge piece of work on climate change, so this was not about climate change. In terms of understanding the nature of what had happened, the first thing people would have to look at was if there was any particular issues about frequency of such events. The PMS said that the focus was more on what we could learn about the emergency response, location of major pieces of infrastructure, or flood management and how that worked. That was the focus of the review, rather than any suggestion of re-opening the debate about climate change again.

Put that the Prime Minister did make a striking link between the rains and climate change and the beginning of the apocalypse, the PMS replied that the first item in the terms of reference of the review was to understand why the flooding was so extensive, but there were also many other things that the review he would look at as well.

Asked what the Prime Minister’s position was on climate change, and did he believe that it was man-made, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister believed very strongly in the findings of the Stern Review which did reach that conclusion.

Asked if the Prime Minister thought that a single agency to deal with floods would be a good idea, the PMS said that it was very premature to rush into those sorts of judgements. There was a review looking into the emergency response and how it was handled, but that was not where we were at the moment. The main focus for now was on doing what we could to help people on the ground. However, we had set up this review to look at what the lessons were that might be learned.

Put that DEFRA had had a review and they said that the system was "completely chaotic", the PMS replied that he had not seen a copy of the DEFRA review the journalist was referring to.

Asked who would conduct the latest review, the PMS replied that Hilary Benn had said this afternoon that it would be an independent review, but there was no name at this point.

Asked if there were any plans to look at the DEFRA capital flooding budget in the intervening years before 2010, the PMS replied that Hilary Benn was setting out the long term budget up to 2010/11. There was a separate issue about what immediate relief was available for flood affected areas, and again, for the floods in the north of England, we had announced changes to the Bellwin Scheme compensating local authorities, as well as additional support.

As the Prime Minister had said on Saturday, those changes that we had made to the Bellwin Scheme meant that local authorities would get full compensation from central Government for clean up costs would apply for this latest round of floods. As Hilary Benn had also said this afternoon in the Commons, we were also looking at what more we could do on an immediate basis to help the regions that had been affected most recently by floods.

Put that the current budget had been cut, and were there plans to cut any other budgets, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister had answered the same question comprehensively today already.

Asked if the Prime Minister had chaired a COBR meeting last night, and were there any plans for any more, the PMS confirmed that there was an officials’ meeting of COBR earlier today. The PMS’ understanding was that there would be another officials’ meeting later today as well.

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» Monday, July 23, 2007

Flooding

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