Starmer: Govt response to flooding not good enough
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer says the government's response to flooding is not "good enough" and vows he will take pre-emptive action as he tours clearing up in Loughborough after last week's deluge. Report by Blairm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 A flood resilience task force is what I would do. I've been here talking to
00:05 residents about the awful impact that flooding has had on them. Dam water gets
00:10 everywhere, it's not clean water, it's having a huge human impact on them. This
00:14 isn't the first time I've been out to talk to residents in this situation.
00:19 We've got to get ahead of this and that means earlier in the year, in the autumn, having a
00:22 task force that brings together local authorities, the emergency response, local
00:27 people to ensure that the prevention work is done. Some of the drains that
00:31 are now being cleaned could have been cleaned beforehand, the response wasn't
00:35 quick enough, so I just don't think it's good enough for the government to come
00:39 after the event again and express empathy, get ahead of this with a task
00:44 force. That's what I would do. Of course it does need money but the task force is
00:49 not just about money, it's about getting the basics done, getting those drains
00:53 cleared, getting the local authorities together, having a plan but doing it
00:57 early in the year. This flooding always happens in December, January, February. We
01:01 know that. What we've got to do is in the early autumn get a task force together,
01:05 get local plans together to make sure that all measures are taken to prevent
01:10 this and to ensure the response is very rapid.