Flooding (West Cumbria)

My hon. Friend puts it better than I ever could. Mrs Barker has displayed remarkable integrity and incredible dignity and is a superb mother to her children. I am sure that her husband would have been very proud. PC Barker gave his life serving others and did it instinctively. Many of us either would not or could not do that. His sacrifice provides a definition of heroism for us all. His heroism was commended by the then Prime Minister and the heir to the throne, but the tributes from his wife, children and colleagues dominate all the others, in my memory. He was a devoted father and husband, an extraordinary friend and a supremely committed police officer. He elicited a rare combination of love and respect from those who knew him. He gave all he had for the people he served and will for ever be remembered by the people of west Cumbria. Last year, the towns of Workington, Keswick and Cockermouth, and the areas around them, were the places most seriously affected by the floods that hit Cumbria. In Workington and Cockermouth there was devastation that is uncommon in west Cumbria. Streets were swept away, homes were ruined, businesses were badly affected and lives were put on hold. As Alan Irving of the Whitehaven News remarked at the time, the whole community of west Cumbria came together in the wake of the floods. Rivalries were abandoned—my hon. Friend the Member for Workington and I need not talk about rivalry, as there is certainly none between us, but our towns have long been the best of enemies, in a friendly way—and the principles of community were reaffirmed across the whole of our county, with people in Whitehaven, Egremont and elsewhere showing incredible solidarity with their flooded neighbours. On the Friday night after the floods hit, I stood in the Cockermouth sheep and wool centre in my hon. Friend's constituency, helping as best I could, as the then deputy Regional Minister for the North West. I was overwhelmed to see my constituents fetching what food, clothing, toiletries, blankets and, in some instances, toys they could to help the people of Cockermouth and Workington who were stationed there. Those constituents of mine, who had travelled 20 or 30 miles to do so, saw it as their job and duty, and it is typical of them and of the constituents of my hon. Friend that they should have done so. There are many thank yous and stories from the days when the floods hit, and we will tell them for a long time, but we must first understand what happened. Credit must go to the Met Office for the ability it now has to predict extremes of weather with such precision. In the days prior to the floods we knew that they were likely. Heavy rain and gales affected Cumbria from 18 to 20 November, and the associated high river flows and flooding problems were made worse by ground that had already been saturated. By 18 November, Cumbria had already received close to the average rainfall for the whole month. The floods affected more than 1,300 homes and left many more without power and water. Of all the towns and villages involved, Cockermouth, as I have said, was the worst affected. Water levels there reached 2.5 metres. The village of Seathwaite set an unenviable record of receiving 314.4 mm of rain in 24 hours—a new UK record for the wettest November day in a single location. As the forecast heavy rain arrived, Gold Command, as my hon. Friend mentioned, was promptly established. I had the opportunity to visit Gold Command at Carlton hall in Penrith, with the then Prime Minister and the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). The work that was undertaken there was remarkable. I have worked in the nuclear industry and am used to planning for emergency events, including evacuations, the co-ordination of local authorities and emergency services. To see the command in action was, in a strange way, reassuring. From the point of view of someone who lives in west Cumbria, having been born and raised there-—and as a council tax payer there—it was incredibly reassuring to see that the system worked, and worked well. If there are lessons to be learned from that and rolled out across the country, I would urge the Minister, who I know is sincere in his desire to improve things, to understand those lessons as well as he can. The forecast heavy rain arrived and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Workington said, people were evacuated from Cockermouth by helicopter. It was a surreal experience to see on television Sea Kings hovering just above the Cockermouth main street—something we thought that we would never see and hope never to see again—irrespective of the extraordinary times that we have lived through in west Cumbria in the past 12 months. My hon. Friend was the pairing Whip at the time, and he had not let me off. Therefore fortunately—or unfortunately—I was stranded in London. My hon. Friend let himself off the Whip so he was not stranded, but that has not affected our relationship and I bear no grudges. The rapid attendance and full attention of the then Prime Minister and the then Secretary of State for the Environment was incredibly important. It gave everybody in the area a sense of solidarity and genuine togetherness. To know that politicians from all parties, but especially the country's leading politician and the relevant Secretary of State, were with us in a time of crisis, was important. It was unprompted and genuine.