Downing Street Says » Cabinet/COBR

The Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) told the press that Cabinet met for about an hour and a half today. There was an update from Hilary Benn on the flood situation. There was a discussion led by Alastair Darling on the economy and the spending review. The Home Secretary led a discussion on security matters ahead of the Prime Minister’s statement on security issues tomorrow. The PMS said that there was also a second meeting of the National Security Committee late yesterday afternoon in preparation for the Prime Minister’s statement tomorrow.

The PMS also informed people that at the meeting of COBR on Sunday which the Prime Minister chaired, it was clear at that point that the top priority was saving Walham power station, which supplied electricity to around 240,000 households in the Gloucestershire region. If electricity went out, it would obviously have major implications for water supplies, supermarkets, petrol station and other key parts of the national infrastructure. Therefore, there had been a huge effort in the last 48 hours to defend Walham, and the emergency services and the military were pulling out all the stops and working round the clock to strengthen the defences there and to pump out water.

The Prime Minister, on behalf of the Government, was very grateful for all of the efforts made by the emergency services to defend Walham. The PMS said that there had been increasing concern during the course of yesterday about the situation at Walham, which culminated in a Ministerial COBR meeting at about 2000 last night. That was followed by a meeting with the Prime Minister and a discussion with the Gold Commander in Gloucester, followed by more meetings with COBR until around midnight. These were not only to keep updated of the situation, but also to ensure importantly that help could be provided by central Government to people on the ground with regards to contingency plans should Walham power station be flooded. The Prime Minister chaired a COBR meeting this morning to be updated on the situation of Walham and elsewhere, as well as to take stock of where we were with regards to the various contingency plans should the power station fail.

Asked was it not extraordinary that given the responsibility that Government agencies had, places like Walham had to be protected at what seemed to be the last minute with temporary protection, and should it not have been identified much earlier by the agency, the PMS replied that it was not protected at the last minute. It was very difficult to predict exactly how the floods were going to affect the area. The defences were in place, but these were extraordinary events where we had seen a month’s worth of rain falling in some areas in just one or two hours. There had been a huge amount of effort over the past several days to shore up defences at Walham, and to ensure that all the pumps were in place to pump out the water, and all of the action that could have been taken was taken.

Asked who was going to head up the independent inquiry, the PMS replied that we were not in a position yet to give out that information.

Asked if there had been any discussion of other areas at risk, especially in Greater London, the PMS said that there had been a lot of discussion about the impact of the water surging to the east. People should remain vigilant and keep in contact with the Environment Agency (EA) who had the exact details of the current and forecast circumstances. The PMS added that it was not for him to make announcements about flood warnings.

Asked why the EA did not have overall responsibility for the floods, the PMS said that there were a lot of local agencies involved because decisions had to be taken at the right level. The PMS said that if people were referring to the Guardian front page this morning, action had been taken since that document was published in order to give a more strategic role for the EA. That would continue, and it would also be something that would be looked at as part of the review that Hilary Benn announced recently.

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» Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Cabinet/COBR

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