South Lakes MP Tim Farron and Penrith’s MP Neil Hudson told ministers that lessons must be learnt when dealing with the aftermath of future extreme weather events, following Storm Arwen.
It comes as there are fresh concerns about more potential power cuts in Cumbria with Storm Barra set to hit the UK in the next 24 hours.
Speaking in Parliament, Liberal Democrat Mr Farron, who represents Westmorland and Lonsdale, said: “Communities in Cumbria have had 10 days that have been devastating, exhausting, even harrowing.
“I’m pretty sure that all of us would agree with the calls for a public inquiry to learn lessons.
“But with Storm Barra approaching those lessons need to be learnt literally overnight.
“The kind of lessons that will need to be learnt are about timeliness as much as anything.
“Why did it take five days for the Government to come to this House and address the issue?
“Why did it take until the middle of last week to deploy additional generators when this could’ve happened on the Saturday eight or nine days ago so that families were not without heat or light for so long?
“The relevance of the army is significant in boosting the capacity of the engineers but also in going door to door to reach vulnerable people who have no telecoms whatsoever and may have been elderly people with care needs in bed tucked up to try and stay safe.
“I want to say thank you, massively, to those communities and people within them who stepped up to this challenge and to the engineers who were out making things better overnight.
“But I wonder what he can say to my communities as to how the Government will act to make things better next time?”
In response, the Energy Minister Gregg Hands said: “Can I thank him for that. I don’t think a public inquiry is the right course. The public inquiry would inevitably take a long time.
“Better would be to use the established and effective review mechanism that we’ve already got in place which I would invite him and indeed all Right Honourable and Honourable Members to participate in to give their views to.
“I would say that the mutual aid scheme was deployed as soon as it practically could be, actually partly in advance of the storm coming in so I think that has worked well.
“I think in terms of the role of the army, it’s principally a matter for the local resilience forums to make assessments for what resources they have and what resources they need to then put in that call.
“But in my experience, particularly in Aberdeenshire on Friday that when the local resilience forum put in that call, the response was close to immediate.”
Dr Hudson, the Conservative MP for Penrith and the Border, said: “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 minister replied: “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.”
Afterwards, Dr Hudson said: “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.”
