Sarah Boyack (Lothian)
(Lab)
I thank the minister for advance notice of her statement. We in
Scottish Labour also send our condolences to the families who
have lost a loved one. The floods have had a devastating impact
on people’s homes, on businesses and on farming communities.
I also thank the emergency services and communities for coming
together to support people in their time of need. I welcome the
fact that the Bellwin scheme has been activated to support local
authorities, given the scale of the damage that has been caused,
but lessons must be learned urgently.
The Brechin scheme was built only seven years ago and was
designed to deal with a one-in-200-years incident. We urgently
need to understand why it failed to protect the communities that
it was designed to serve. That will be critical to planning for
new infrastructure. Can the cabinet secretary say what the
timescale is for publishing an analysis of why the damage was so
severe? What work is being done to review existing and planned
flood prevention infrastructure? What will be done to accelerate
flood resilience to support communities, businesses and farmers?
Finally, I agree that the climate crisis will lead to more
extreme and unpredictable weather. How will we make sure that all
our transport infrastructure—road and rail—is resilient and
equipped to deal with the more extreme weather that we will face?
The Cabinet Secretary for
Justice and Home Affairs ()
There was a lot in Ms Boyack’s question, so if I do not respond
to all of her points, I will be happy to correspond with her with
further detail or to ask my colleagues to do that.
The damage was so severe because the weather was so severe. We
had two storms within two weeks, and, there was two months’ worth
of rainfall in two days.
I absolutely concur with the point that Sarah Boyack raised about
learning lessons, as the Scottish Government contributed 80 per
cent of the cost of the Brechin scheme. Although such engineering
projects are vital, they are only one part of an overall plan. We
need to learn the lessons so that, as we move forward, we can
assess where engineering projects will be most beneficial and can
be targeted at areas that are most at risk. In short, however,
the engineering projects are only one part of the solution, and I
hope that I have managed to speak to that in my statement today.
The member’s point about farmers is very important. Our farmers
and food producers are on the front line of climate change and
the climate emergency. I appeal to retailers and supermarkets
to be responsive, respectful and, where possible, sympathetic to
the needs of farmers and food producers. There is a range of
support available—for example, through RSABI, which is the
agricultural benevolent fund, and the agri-environment climate
scheme.
The member also touched on the importance of a national flood
resilience strategy, which needs to capture all the actions that
we must pursue.
