If the hon. Ladies will bear with me, I want to talk about the challenge of climate change and then I will give way.
The same approach should apply to climate change. There are certainly man-made causes to the recent flooding and the main cause needs man-made management. Policies on dredging, development and even tree planting directly affect our landscape, but the weather is a factor in itself. The debate on climate is highly charged and polarised between sceptics and zealots, but the conclusions should not be. We know that Britain’s weather and climate is fickle. If Britain was to have a national symbol, it would undoubtedly be the umbrella. Any expectation that the Met Office could have predicted
the amount and severity of that rain is simply unreasonable. It does not have a crystal ball, despite improvements in predictions.
The Met Office still does not definitively know whether climate change contributed to the recent weather patterns. This might be a short-term trend or a long-term one, but I would simply say this: the risk is there to our nation of a changing intensity in Britain’s weather. Given that risk, we should prepare. It would be irrational not to insure ourselves against that risk, and if there is a long-term trend, we should adapt to such change, as my noble Friend Lord Lawson has advocated.
“Just as science and technology has given us the evidence to measure the danger of climate change, so it can help us find safety from it.”
That seems a very reasonable statement and I commend it to the House. It is the view of a former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and I think he spoke very wisely.