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13. What plans she has to help ensure community resilience to severe weather incidents.
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Climate change brings an increased risk of severe weather. We are learning from the summer droughts and planning for what will likely be a challenging winter. As I saw when I visited the hon. Member’s St Ives constituency back in January, extreme weather can cause disruption to the essential services that we all rely on. We are working to make public infrastructure, such as telecoms, more resilient. We will also launch a public awareness campaign this year, so that people know the small but important steps they can take to be ready for emergencies such as severe weather.
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I am grateful to the Minister for that response. As he said, he kindly visited my constituency shortly after the significant devastation that was caused to west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly following Storm Goretti in early January this year. In his letter to me shortly thereafter, he committed to a comprehensive review of the response to the storm, to ensure that lessons are learned and that preparedness and response plans are improved. In what way have those plans improved? Given that communities are now preparing themselves to improve their own resilience—we are bringing them together this autumn—would he be prepared to visit west Cornwall again and meet my communities?
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I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for consistently and constructively raising those points. Having visited his constituency and seen the devastation at first hand, I am personally extremely keen to ensure that we learn the lessons from what happened during Storm Goretti. As the hon. Gentleman will know, Cobra officials have worked closely with Cornwall council on resilience planning. We are going to launch a public awareness campaign that will support people in Cornwall and beyond during future emergencies. I am also pleased to say that the hon. Gentleman’s constituency is receiving over £2 million this financial year to tackle flooding. He kindly invites me to visit his constituency, so I say to him: time spent in Cornwall is time well spent.
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Water privatisation and climate change have left us with the twin resilience challenges of water scarcity and flooding. To reduce demand on our drinking water supply, is the Cabinet Office looking at the Drinking Water Inspectorate’s landmark report from March, which sets out a governance framework for rainwater harvesting? Could we look at installing rainwater collection for toilet flushing in our publicly owned buildings? We could cut our costs, increase our resilience and make steps towards sustainability.
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My hon. Friend raises an important point, and I will look closely at the report she references and ensure that we are discussing it with colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
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Flooding during severe weather incidents is often predictable, because those same areas suffer from low-level regular flooding throughout the rest of the year. The issue affects multi-council areas, up and downstream, and covers multiple Government agencies. Bodies such as flooding boards that cover those areas are a great way of co-ordinating agencies and councils, but we do not have them across the whole UK. Would the Minister consider rolling out flood boards in every part of the UK?
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The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. I am proud to say that I think I was the first metro mayor to launch a catchment flood management plan. I recognise the importance his point, and I want to give it due consideration. I will consult with ministerial colleagues at DEFRA and come back to him.
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Returning to the topic of Cornwall, the Minister mentioned the possibility that Cornwall could be a pilot area for storm resilience measures, so it would be good to hear more about that. Measures to raise awareness would be very welcome, and guidelines for how people in Cornwall should act—on an individual, a local emergency plan, a council and a unitary level—would be useful going forward. Could the Minister say more about that?
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I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her championing of not only her own constituency, but wider issues relating to infrastructure and resilience in Cornwall. The Prime Minister has committed to meet with Cornish MPs. I will carefully consider her points, along with those made by the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George)—I get a sense that I am going to be heading back to Cornwall.