Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)

Meeting date: Wednesday, February 2, 2022

Official Report 1019KB pdf

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Storm Arwen (Response in Stirling) and Resilience Planning

I remind members of the Covid-related measures that are in place and that face coverings should be worn when moving around the chamber and across the Holyrood campus.

The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S6M-02784, in the name of Evelyn Tweed, on the response to storm Arwen in Stirling and future resilience planning. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament acknowledges the hard work and assistance given by communities and organisations during the emergency situation caused by Storm Arwen; recognises that the Storm was reportedly four times more damaging than the Beast from the East in February 2018, and led to large areas of rural Stirling being without electricity, phone signal and in some cases water, for up to a week, in November 2021; congratulates communities across Stirling for pulling together and ensuring that the most vulnerable were cared for despite the incredibly difficult circumstances; acknowledges the response from Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks and what it sees as the company’s great efforts to reconnect homes and businesses as quickly as possible, despite the widespread damage to the network; commends Scottish Water for the rescheduling of works in Callander to ensure roads remained open throughout the emergency; further commends Stirling Council, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, Police Scotland, Killin Mountain Rescue Team, Trossachs Search and Rescue, International Rescue Corps, British Red Cross, and local businesses across Stirling, for their response to Storm Arwen, and notes the view that action must be taken to review resilience planning and ensure communities across Scotland have confidence that resilience against future storms and emergencies is robust.

17:31  

First, I declare an interest as I am an elected member of Stirling Council.

Storm Arwen was one of the worst recent storms in this country. In parts of my constituency, winds reached 96mph, and the storm was much more damaging than the beast from the east. My office and I were inundated with requests for help and assistance, with those who contacted us ranging from people with critical medical needs to others who were concerned about loved ones who were unreachable.

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks estimates that 135,000 homes lost power, and that a quarter waited for 48 hours or more before being reconnected. Some homes in rural Stirling were reconnected only after seven days, while others across Scotland waited longer. That length of time off supply is unacceptable, and I thank every member who is in the chamber today to try to improve the response to such incidents.

SSEN is part of Scottish and Southern Energy, which is a multinational energy company and a member of the FTSE 100. We should remember that SSE is the product of a merger of two energy companies that were formerly publicly owned, and which were both privatised in the 1990s in the ideologically driven deregulation of the energy market. In 1943, the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board was formed to provide electricity to the Highlands. Scores of hydro dams and power stations were built across beautiful, but incredibly challenging, terrain in order to improve lives in Scotland dramatically. In 1948, the Southern Electricity Board was created in southern England. That investment was made by the public sector because no private business could see that there was any profit to be made in providing power to those areas.

The profits of the privatised utility companies, which should have gone into improving services, have since been diverted into generating dividends for shareholders and paying eye-watering director salaries. Last year, SSE’s operating profits were up by 7 per cent, to—wait for it—£1.5 billion. The chief executive of SSE earns a basic salary approaching £1 million and, with bonuses and other payments, his total remuneration package last year was more than £3 million. Other directors of the company earned well over £1.5 million each.

Perhaps if more of the company’s annual £1.5 billion profits had been diverted into creating better infrastructure, employing more local staff and putting in place better-resourced and better-tested resilience plans, this debate would not have been required.

I carried out a survey of residents who were affected by the storm in my area. The top issues that were raised with regard to SSEN were as follows. People could not get through to the SSEN hotline and, when they did, they were given incorrect information. SSEN did not publicise quickly enough how claims could be made for compensation for the costs of food and alternative accommodation when consumers were cut off for days on end. SSEN’s vulnerable-persons list relied on phone connections, which were knocked out by the storm and the subsequent lack of power. Other information was given via social media and text message, which, again, was useless where people had no internet or mobile signal.

One constituent wrote,

“Communication from SSEN was at best misleading and inaccurate”

and

“at worst non-existent … My 97-year old neighbour was totally and utterly forgotten about. We looked after her in the best way we could, but if we hadn’t, she would have been left cold and alone without food and I doubt would have survived.”

My survey found that there was a lack of confidence in the resilience planning by both SSEN and the local authority. For example, a manager of a care home with 18 vulnerable adults wrote to say that the home had

“had zero contact from any local authorities or the energy company. We had to move them all to a hotel which was extremely difficult ... Thankfully our staff team worked around the clock. But very disappointed that no one even contacted us to see if we were ok.”

I must make it clear, however, that there was very positive feedback for the staff of SSEN and Stirling Council, who worked hard in very difficult circumstances—

Will the member give way on that point?

I will, Mr Kerr.

I congratulate Evelyn Tweed on securing the debate, but I note that we should pay tribute to the front-line workers of Stirling Council. Like Evelyn Tweed, I am a resident of the Stirling Council area. We should pay tribute to those workers, but at the same time we should highlight the fact that the energy companies were incredibly poor at helping to pinpoint which households had power cuts, which meant that the help that the local authority wanted to offer was not able to be delivered expeditiously.

I had actually made that point.

I am sorry—I did not hear it.

I am sorry that you did not hear it. I will go on to make the same point at the end of my speech too, but I thank you for your intervention.

I welcome the 15 recommendations of the storm Arwen review that was undertaken for the Scottish Government and its partners, which were published last week. It is great that the review highlighted the vital role of volunteers and community groups, and the intention to bring those groups into the heart of local resilience planning. I thank the countless volunteers across Stirling, and Scotland, for their dedication and selfless efforts to help others directly when they needed it most.

I also thank staff from Stirling Council; the emergency services; the Killin Mountain Rescue Team; the Trossachs Search and Rescue Team; the International Rescue Corps; the British Red Cross and local businesses across Stirling for their efforts.

I hear your point now.

I had actually said it before.

I am sorry that I did not say that through the chair, Presiding Officer.

I also found the response by Scottish Water to be worthy of praise, and it perhaps offers a lesson for others. At the recent Westminster Scottish Affairs Committee session on storm Arwen, Peter Farrer, Scottish Water’s chief operating officer, said:

“Power supplies were lost to Scottish Water assets that supplied about 1.5 million customers. Fortunately we had proactively turned on our emergency generators prior to the event happening, which protected the majority of ... customers”.

It is perhaps no coincidence that Scottish Water remains in public ownership.

I am concerned that it is expected that the main burden of responding to a failure of a privatised industry should fall on volunteers and cash-strapped local authorities. I will be asking the Scottish Government to contact—

Ms Tweed, could you bring your remarks to a close, please?

Yes, thank you—I am just there.

I will ask the Scottish Government to contact the United Kingdom Government to ensure that Stirling Council and other local authorities across Scotland are directly financially compensated by SSEN for having to fill in the gaps in its woeful response.

I call Claire Baker, who is joining us remotely. She has a prior engagement but is keen to participate in the debate; I am quite happy with that.

17:41  

Thank you for your understanding, Presiding Officer. I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on storm Arwen and future resilience planning, and I thank Evelyn Tweed for bringing the debate to the chamber.

We cannot debate this subject without mentioning the impacts of storm Malik and storm Corrie, which are still being felt in parts of the country. Thousands of homes have again been left without power—some of them are still to be reconnected—and schools remain closed. Rural businesses that are only just emerging from the pandemic have now been hit again. There has also been a tragic loss of life this weekend as a result of the storms, and my thoughts are with the families that have been affected.

As with the response to storm Arwen, committees and organisations should be praised for the hard work and support that they have provided, and the efforts to reconnect homes and businesses as quickly as possible are welcome. Nevertheless, the weekend’s events serve only to underline the importance of resilience planning and the need to ensure that our communities are prepared to deal with storms and other emergencies.

The Scottish Government’s commitment to review the preparations for, and response to, storm Arwen was welcome. We know about the disruption that the storm caused to infrastructure, the power supply, education, travel, air services and the environment, in addition to causing loss of life for a driver in Aberdeenshire. Amid the talk of Arwen being an exceptional storm, we need to recognise that weather events like it, and like storms Corrie and Malik, are part of our lives in the changing environment that we continue to inhabit and have an impact on. We must learn from exceptional storms, as we must from the pandemic, and ensure that we are better prepared for the next time.

We should remember that storm Arwen was not unforeseen. It was forecast, but communities were not adequately equipped to respond. Part of our response has to address that aspect and improve on it. Resilience arrangements must always be evolving and improving, and communities must be kept up to date with them. When extreme weather is forecast, we need to maximise the communication routes that are available before it hits, and we need to ensure that people know where to go for help and whom they can contact.

When we talk about storms hitting a community, we know that that means not only power lines and roads but households, families and individuals. After the Deputy First Minister’s statement on storm Arwen, I asked him about the response in Stirling. I had received reports of people being left in freezing temperatures, with no rest centres open and no access to generators. Although for some people there was a swift local response with food, information and support available, for others, support was inadequate and they felt abandoned.

The recommendation from the Government’s review of storm Arwen to prioritise assistance to the vulnerable is welcome, but we cannot always predict who will be in need. The review acknowledges the important point that storm damage can make anyone vulnerable if they are without power, heat or food or are cut off by geography or from communication. Most people would find it difficult to deal with such circumstances, and we need to find ways to quickly assess who needs support and how to get it to them.

Communication is a key aspect of any response but, without power, options are quickly limited. The review recommends that

“subgroups of ... Resilience Partnerships should review and test ... plans”

and

“include ... more traditional means of communicating”.

We need clear information to be provided in advance where possible, and local networks can be part of that. We should also look at how to utilise existing community groups as part of our response. Throughout the pandemic, there has been a strong community response, and support networks have developed. We should be able to activate such networks in response to events such as storm Arwen.

I recognise the duty on statutory authorities to respond to emergencies. I also recognise Evelyn Tweed’s comments about the responsibilities of energy companies. However, a key recommendation in the review is to improve the integration of community and voluntary sector groups into resilience planning. Local groups are often best placed to respond quickly, and they should be resourced and supported to do so as part of a co-ordinated process. It is crucial that the review is now put into action. As we have seen this weekend, the matter is in need of urgent attention.

17:45  

I thank Evelyn Tweed for securing the debate, which is of great importance to the people I represent in Aberdeenshire.

Last week, the Scottish Government published a resilience review into how storm impact is managed between the Government, local authorities and energy providers. It is a welcome report. I think that I was the first to call for it in the chamber, probably straight after storm Arwen, which devastated my constituency, if truth be told.

The impact of the storm is still felt and, of course, my constituency has been severely impacted by not one but a further two storms over the weekend. Some homes still remain without power. Over this week, thousands of families, businesses and communities have been left without power and phone signal, so they cannot even communicate. There has been a bit of confusing messaging from SSEN about when they can expect their power to return.

However, it will be of the utmost importance in future that SSEN makes it clear how suitable the current infrastructure is and how we can ensure better resilience next winter and beyond. I refer to the resilience not only of the communities and the response but of the infrastructure, which needs to be much more robust if it is to withstand the extreme weather that we get in my part of the country.

I associate myself with Evelyn Tweed’s points about SSEN’s responsibility to invest in that infrastructure and, in particular, the company’s response to vulnerable customers. SSEN has a priority list, which seems to me, from the contacts that I have had from my constituents, to be not much more than token. Some of my constituents who have family members on medical equipment that they need to keep going struggled to get additional help.

A few recommendations in the storm Arwen resilience review stuck out for me. The first was about how information was relayed to the public. Many of us in this digital age use our mobile phones to access basic information. However, many mobile services were down and there was no way for people to access information. There was a resilience effort and community groups and volunteers were out providing services and help for people, but people did not know about that.

I was pleased that there was a recommendation for local radio to work more with the local authorities to get information out. Most households still have a battery-operated radio somewhere but, if they did not have one already, they might go out and get one for emergencies if they thought that it was going to be the conduit for information in the future.

I will talk about the contribution and response of the community during storm Arwen and over this weekend and highlight some of the community groups and organisations from Aberdeenshire East that went above and beyond when the storms impacted us.

I put on record my thanks to the Rothienorman community association, which provided refuge for residents. The community of Collieston—a windy place at the best of times—also came together to support their neighbours. Following the impact of storm Arwen, that community looks to form its own resilience group so that residents can continue to help each other locally in their time of need. In Potterton, Jenny Nicol and Shuna Jenkins took it upon themselves to set up a community hub. They worked with the council and volunteers to serve hot soup and food, although neither of them had power in their own homes. Many of the volunteers across Aberdeenshire East were without power but still went out and knocked on the doors of our most vulnerable people to see whether they were okay.

That is just a glimpse into my constituency. I thank every volunteer although I cannot name them all. I am proud of the schools, community centre staff, councillors, the Red Cross and all the community groups that provided support. I thank them for everything that they did. I also thank my constituency team, some of whom did not have power last weekend and after storm Arwen but still managed to get help to my constituents.

17:49  

I, too, thank Evelyn Tweed for bringing this important debate to the chamber. The ferocity and impact of storm Arwen isolated many communities across the Stirling region and plunged people into a prolonged period without power, water or any means of communication.

Many rural communities across the northern and western areas of the Stirling Council region, including Fintry, Doune and Killin, bore the full brunt of the storm. At such times, the strength of our communities shines through. There were countless individual selfless acts across communities to assist people who were most in need. Volunteer organisations such as Killin Mountain Rescue Team and Trossachs Search and Rescue Team responded immediately, as did many local businesses.

The staff of SSEN, Scottish Water, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and Police Scotland also responded immediately to those in need, and they were backed up by assistance from Stirling Council, International Rescue Corps and British Red Cross. In many instances, without that urgent assistance the consequences for people could have been incredibly serious.

The experience of those local communities during storm Arwen clearly demonstrates that the support that is offered by councils and the Scottish Government can be improved. I therefore welcome the review that the Scottish Government carried out into the response to storm Arwen. However, although it contains some useful initial recommendations, a great deal more work still needs to be done.

I have supported calls for Stirling Council to seek feedback from local communities and I am pleased that the survey and feedback mechanism are now available. Feedback and suggested improvements that come from the people who were directly affected by the storm will be invaluable. They should be the basis for building on the review’s initial recommendations. From information that I have received from constituents, I highlight the following key additional points that should be considered by local authorities and the Scottish Government.

When communications are down, the only way to assess a situation is through immediate presence on the ground. Decision making must be streamlined and resources must be prioritised. For example, mobile generators should be made available and installed at the most critical facilities immediately. That was not always the case during storm Arwen.

In many cases, the traditional land line remains the only working means of communication during a power cut, as Gillian Martin and others have highlighted. Many people in rural locations keep an old-style telephone for that purpose. However, land lines are due to be moved to internet-based connections by 2025. Thought needs to be given to how we will retain the fallback communication capacity that has proved so important on such occasions, because the mobile networks were out for a significant time during storm Arwen and other recent storms.

As for the Government’s emergency response, change is needed in how local and central Government use the capacity in our local communities. At present the approach is too cautious. Many people in communities across the Stirling region have the equipment necessary to help with the immediate response. During storm Arwen, a number of local community members helped to clear hundreds of trees and their efforts made a significant difference to how quickly crucial roads could be used.

Does the member agree that SSEN was at fault?

I am just coming to that. There were a number of issues with SSEN’s overall approach to the storm. I agree with many of the issues that Evelyn Tweed raised about SSEN’s response. For example, it was unhelpful to give short forecasts about the time when power would come back on that were not met. That generated unrealistic expectations among the community, which compounded the problem. I fully recognise the challenging circumstances, but more accurate forecasting would be helpful.

I am up against the clock, but my point is that we need a more positive approach that recognises how local communities with the appropriate equipment and experience can bring a huge amount of capacity at a time when official services are unable to cope.

My final point is that the Scottish Government should consider including Forestry and Land Scotland as an official responder organisation. Its extensive forest-road network is a vital asset that could be used to support communities that are cut off when their public road is blocked.

I wind up with a point that other members have made. Our climate is changing and there will be further challenges such as storm Arwen. The best thing we can do is to work together across the UK, Scottish and local Governments to ensure that different areas of responsibility are considered together and the necessary changes are made.

17:54  

First, I thank Evelyn Tweed for lodging the motion for debate. Storm Arwen has been catastrophic for us in the north-east, causing widespread and extensive damage. So much so that we might never see the return of parts of the landscape in my constituency in my lifetime and possibly that of my children.

On his welcome visit to the north-east in the wake of storm Arwen, the Deputy First Minister stated that it was a storm of an extraordinary scale. It affected most of Scotland, but it affected my constituency of Banffshire and Buchan Coast more acutely. The level of damage that was inflicted on the power network was colossal. Indeed, the level of casework and contact with my office throughout the crisis illustrated that people had suffered enormous hardship. One person from my constituency lost their life. For some, the level of suffering that they experienced was unique and devastating.

We in the office had to down tools on everything that we were working on and go into crisis centre mode straight away by acting as a conduit between Aberdeenshire Council and Moray Council, resilience partnerships, third sector community groups, welfare groups and constituents, and arranging welfare checks, water drops and more. We tried to liaise and assist as much as possible.

The good that can come from social media was evident, for a change, but we also needed boots on the ground to spread the word. We were also in continuous online and telephone communication with the power company and Scottish Water.

I have lodged several motions in Parliament recognising individual organisations and business for their response and help for others in their communities during storm Arwen and storm Barra, and in the days following. Those individuals, businesses and community organisations opened their doors to the public, provided hot food and water, charging points, places to wash clothes and, in some cases, even a place to sleep.

The local humanitarian effort was awe-inspiring and reminiscent of those first days of the pandemic, when the true meaning of “neighbour” was evident. It represented the best of humanity at a time when it was needed in the right places. From the military to the volunteers, as well as the brave engineers and staff of the utility companies, many of whom placed their own lives in jeopardy, each and every one of them is a hero in my mind. This is an experience that I shall never forget, and I know that that applies to all of us who witnessed so many going that extra mile. Each of them deserves a medal and praise for their unselfish hard work and bravery.

It should give us all hope and a desire to learn lessons and act upon them. On that point, conversely, the anger and frustration of constituents, the seeming underinvestment in our energy infrastructure in private hands, and the drip, drip of messages about missed deadlines and delays to reinstating power, creating hope and then dismay among many in the dark cold, including the elderly and the vulnerable, are matters of on-going concern and are among a long list of issues that must be addressed. Although we can be eternally grateful for the resilience of local support on the ground, we must reflect seriously on the issues that have been exposed and build on that for our planning for the future.

We must make sure that the resilience arrangements that we have put in place to support people when they go off supply are effective and adequate. I have grave concerns that lessons have not been learned in some regards, not least when SSE changed its policy for support and reduced available compensation at some point between storms Arwen and Barra and the latest storms to hit my constituency hard, Malik and Corrie.

We must hold those with responsibility to account, but I hope that we can do that constructively. I note that, following storm Arwen, SSEN has committed an additional £500,000 to its resilient communities fund to help communities to become more resilient in the face of storms, severe weather and prolonged power interruptions. I look forward to discussing exactly how that will be implemented, and when, and I hope that it is just a start and that the rest will be proportional to profit.

We will face more extreme weather because of our climate emergency, and what we do now will lay the foundations for the future. We must ensure that we can weather the storms together.

Due to the number of members who wish to speak in the debate, I am minded to accept a motion without notice, under rule 8.14.3, to extend the debate by up to 30 minutes. I invite Ms Tweed to move the motion.

Motion moved,

That, under Rule 8.14.3, the debate be extended by up to 30 minutes.—[Evelyn Tweed]

Motion agreed to.

18:00  

I thank Evelyn Tweed for bringing the debate to the chamber. I enjoyed her speech, especially her deconstruction of electricity market deregulation and the impacts that it has had on investment.

One of the most surprising aspects of storm Arwen was the arbitrary nature of how it hit Scotland. Although parts of the Stirling area were less affected, there were pockets of destruction, particularly in the area between Doune and Callander, where there was a huge amount of devastation. I remember going to look at the Wood of Doune the morning after the storm. It did not look as though a storm had hit it; it looked as though a twister had hit it. It is just a small area, but it was absolutely devastated. Many communities that live alongside the River Teith were affected and had power outages for many days.

We saw such environmental destruction across Scotland. I learned only recently that 800 seal pups were killed in the storm at St Abbs in East Lothian, and that an area of forestry the size of Dundee was flattened. Therefore, it is welcome that the Scottish Government has conducted an early review. I look forward to progress against the recommendations on lessons learned being reported to Parliament in June. I also welcome initiatives to engage with people who were affected by the storm on their experiences—in particular, I welcome Stirling Council’s use of its Engage Stirling website. I was interested to hear of Evelyn Tweed’s work to reach out to people in her constituency in an effort to understand how things could be done better.

I would like to focus on a couple of the recommendations from the Scottish Government’s review. One that struck a chord with me and many of my constituents was the recommendation about the need for better assessment and communication of restoration timelines. The power companies certainly had an extremely challenging situation to deal with. They had to deal with a succession of faults—they would fix one fault, put the power back on and it would trigger another fault down the line and they would be back to square 1 again.

However, the companies were not great at communicating when power lines would be fixed; they created an expectation among householders that it would happen within a couple of hours. People who used the app or the customer phone lines often got contradictory information about when energy would be restored. As the storm and its effects stretched from a couple of hours into days, it was clear that restoration deadlines were being missed and that power was not going to be restored for some time.

The power companies were also poor at communicating what compensation was available, which made it difficult for people to plan ahead. In such situations, householders need information that allows them not only to hope for the best, but to plan for the worst. I know that it is hard for the power companies to provide such information, but there needs to be a balance. They must not create an expectation that everything will be sorted in a few hours when it is clear that there are more significant problems that people need to plan how to deal with.

Another recommendation from the review is that processes for identifying those who are most at risk be improved. In Stirling, it is not clear that any door-to-door checks for the most vulnerable people took place. We really need to get a handle on that and ensure that there is consistency across Scotland.

I can inform Mark Ruskell that the council organised checks with voluntary groups.

That is good to hear, but we need to ensure that there is consistency within council areas and across Scotland. There is probably room for improvement, there.

Another recommendation was around the need for better voluntary sector partnerships. We need to understand what capacity exists in our community and we need to build that into resilience plans. My community—I was staying in Deanston at the time—started to gather blankets and food in order to set up its own welfare facility. It was not aware that another facility was being set up down the road in Doune. Better planning and training are needed.

I thank all the people who helped to restore power and to support communities. With climate change, we are going to see far more events like storm Arwen. The only silver lining is that we will, as a result, end up with stronger and more resilient communities.

18:04  

I thank Evelyn Tweed for lodging her motion. I do not represent the Stirling area, but I recognise the issues in Evelyn Tweed’s motion and in the speeches that we have heard in relation to the impact of storm Arwen on my South Scotland region.

As Stirling was, the Borders and Dumfries and Galloway were battered by 100mph winds. Tens of thousands of trees were uprooted, many homes were left with no water and huge parts of the region lost power. At one point, power was lost in 40,000 homes. Therefore, I echo others’ thanks to all those who, in such atrocious conditions, assisted in the response to the devastation of the storm—the emergency services, community resilience groups, councils and front-line workers from energy firms who worked to reconnect communities.

However, we know that there were significant failings in the response, in particular from energy firms such as Scottish Power in my area, in terms of information—or, rather, misinformation—that was given to people, many of them vulnerable, who wondered when their homes would have power again. There are also serious questions to answer about the robustness of the network in rural communities. The situation would not have happened in our cities, where the energy network is underground. I await the outcome of the review of the energy networks’ response by Ofgem and the UK Government.

I also welcome the Scottish Government’s review of its response to the emergency, and I agree with many of its recommendations. However, I think that we need to go further; I will highlight just two areas where we need to do so.

As the review highlights, the statutory responsibilities to ?manage emergencies in Scotland are set out in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (Contingency Planning) (Scotland) Regulations 2005. They place six duties on category 1 responders, and a seventh on local authorities in respect of business continuity. However, over the past 17 years, much has changed in how we respond to emergencies, and building resilience is now key.

In my home area—Dumfries and Galloway—I have seen the growing importance of community resilience groups, and the impressive work by the council in promoting, supporting and harnessing the huge commitment of volunteers in those groups. There are now over 80 such groups, all with community resilience local plans in place, and they really stepped up to the mark during storm Arwen.

However, given that the need for a front-line response will continue to grow as the frequency of such emergencies grows, I wonder whether it is time for the Government, in consultation with local authorities, to consider adding an eighth duty—that councils must promote community resilience, in the same way as they are required to promote business continuity. Crucially, that duty would need to come with funding, and one of my concerns is that current support for councils is not adequate for dealing with the emergencies that they face.

When we face events such as storm Arwen and the Government is asked what financial assistance it will provide to councils, it often announces that it has opened the Bellwin scheme. It sounds impressive at the time, but if we look at the fine print of the scheme—

Will the member take an intervention?

I will, indeed.

Does the member agree that, in this case, SSEN should be asked for compensation to help councils, given that the issue was down to SSEN?

Absolutely. SSEN was certainly responsible in the Stirling area, and Scottish Power also obviously failed in Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders. Compensation from the power companies is absolutely crucial. The confusion that exists around what compensation is available to households is another issue that needs to be tackled.

I will come back to the funding that the Scottish Government provides to local authorities for all the emergencies that they face. The problem with the Bellwin scheme is that it covers only what is classed as

“immediate action to safeguard life or property, or to prevent suffering or severe inconvenience”.

That rules out much of what councils face when it comes to costs.

Also, the scheme covers only costs over and above a substantial threshold—in the case of Dumfries and Galloway Council, that was nearly £700,000 in 2021-22, and in the Borders it was over £500,000. I therefore suspect that no council will have received support from Government through the Bellwin scheme as result of storm Arwen. Councils are often forced to look for funding elsewhere. It could come from power companies, but often it is a further ask of Government.

Just weeks before storm Arwen, my region suffered devastating flooding. In Dumfries—the largest town in Scotland that floods regularly but still has no flood protection scheme—the banks of the River Nith burst again. However, Government funding for flood protection schemes is oversubscribed for the next five years.

On the River Annan, two historic footbridges—the Cuthbertson memorial bridge and the Diamond Jubilee bridge—were washed away by the flood. Weeks later, in Drummore, in the west of the region, a 40-foot section of the harbour wall was destroyed by storm Barra. I know that the Deputy First Minister knows those issues very well; he visited Annan to see the damage for himself, and he told Parliament that the Government was considering what support it could give for reinstatement of the footbridges in Annan and of the harbour wall in Drummore. I hope that the Deputy First Minister and the Government will be true to their word and that funding will be allocated to those communities for the devastating impact of the storms.

In the long term, I hope that we will see additional support to councils and communities for building community resilience and continuing to improve our response to emergencies.

18:10  

I thank Evelyn Tweed for securing this important members’ business debate. As others have done, I thank our first responders from a vast array of services who put themselves at risk to ensure the safety of others. The impact of the efforts of local authorities and all emergency services and volunteers cannot be overstated. Both Karen Adam and Gillian Martin gave particularly warm tributes to the community spirit in their constituencies, which I certainly echo.

Storm Arwen brought with it a rare red weather warning, and the damage was indeed extreme. Unusual wind patterns from the north made mitigations in our built environment less able to cope and impacted particularly on trees, which do not usually have to sustain winds from that direction. That resulted in levels of devastation that, as many members have mentioned, continue to surprise and shock people across Scotland when they come into contact with it.

Our immediate thoughts in the aftermath of the storm were of the three souls who were lost in it, and our thoughts are with their loved ones. The broader impacts in Scotland were that 80,000 homes were without power and our energy infrastructure simply could not cope. Many of the people who were affected were in my region of North East Scotland, with Aberdeenshire bearing the brunt of the impact.

For too many, the response was unacceptably slow; there is broad agreement among members on that fact. The miscommunication in the following days became deeply frustrating. I echo Mark Ruskell’s comments about the management of expectations by the power companies. That was one of the greatest frustrations when people were trying to cope with the situation and to plan the days ahead to make sure that they had enough food and fuel. Grave mistakes were made in that regard.

On 8 December, almost two weeks after storm Arwen and following storm Barra, which came just after it, I raised an urgent parliamentary question, because 600 homes and businesses were still without power as winter approached. That is the sort of scale of the longevity of the problem, which I hope the current reviews will continue to deal with. The Parliament was told by the Government that, rightly, the response would be reviewed and that lessons would be learned to improve the reaction to such events in future. We have heard something about that review tonight.

Unfortunately, we did not have to wait long for resilience teams to be needed again, as storms Corrie and Malik last weekend left 118,000 homes without power in Scotland and claimed two lives across the UK. I focus on the realisation that we will have to deal with more of such events in the future and that we have to act now to ensure that we can cope with them. Science tells us that we are to experience more extreme weather events than in the past—there will be more of them, they will be closer together and they will be on a bigger scale than we are used to. We talk about the mitigation of climate change. This is one area in which we have to have adaptation as well so that we adapt our environment and begin to cope.

Colin Smyth touched on issues of infrastructure in his constituency, and on the fact that we have to improve storm defences, in particular for footbridges and the like. The Scottish Government is doing that, but more resource will have to be committed to it. However, we have to start the conversation about the large-scale infrastructure investments that are needed in the grid and energy supply, such as the undergrounding of power infrastructure. That applies to future expansion and to the existing network. I do not underestimate the size of that undertaking—none of us should—but if we are to deal with the reality of climate change and extreme weather events, they will have to feature more prominently in our scenario planning. I hope that the Deputy First Minister will reflect on those matters in his summing up.

I again thank Evelyn Tweed for raising the matter on behalf of her constituents and of all members whose constituents have had to deal with such severe problems in recent months.

18:14  

I congratulate Evelyn Tweed on securing this important debate and, as Michael Marra has just said, providing the opportunity for members from across the country to reflect on the implications of the very challenging instances of weather that we have had to face in storms Arwen, Barra, Malik and Corrie. Evelyn Tweed was correct, in her motion and her comments, to pay tribute to the significant contribution that has been made to the resilience effort by countless communities and community organisations. I will come on to say a little bit more about that.

As members have indicated, in the aftermath of storm Arwen, the Government undertook to review the experience of the handling of the storm. That review was carried out expeditiously by the Government’s resilience division, and the report was published last week. It is a comprehensive report, which contains a number of recommendations on how we should address and improve the resilience effort that is in place.

None of that should in any way detract from the enormous efforts of a range of organisations and the staff from power companies who worked in atrocious conditions to restore supply in complex circumstances. I saw that for myself when I visited Gillian Martin’s constituency in the north-east of Scotland in the aftermath of storm Arwen. It should also not detract from the efforts of local resilience partnerships and volunteer groups who put in such an effort to improve the situation. However, in all those instances, we must be candid enough to reflect on performance and identify how it could be improved.

Having spent most of my weekend involved in calls and discussions relating to storms Malik and Corrie, I have reflected on the fact that, following storm Arwen, two important factors changed in the handling of storms Malik and Corrie. The first is that resilience partners were notified earlier by the power companies of their identification and recognition of the scale of the challenge. We were therefore clearer, earlier in the handling of storms Malik and Corrie, that we had significant challenges to overcome in the restoration of power supply. In broad headline messaging to members of the public, it was clearer than was the case with storm Arwen that people might be off supply for a long period. That does not help anybody if they are off power, but it allows people to make alternative arrangements, and it commits the power companies to making alternative arrangements to support those individuals.

The second difference is that, as a result of that notification, the local resilience operation that has been put in place has been available more timeously than was the case for storm Arwen. Welfare support, access to hot and warm food, and access to leisure centres for phone charging and showering purposes and for a place to get warm have been more readily and quickly available during storms Malik and Corrie than was the case during storm Arwen.

Those are two areas in which the swift review of storm Arwen has helped us to improve the delivery of the resilience operation to members of the public in the course of the past few days. Having said that, there are important additional areas in which we must continue to build on the strong foundations that we have for resilience in Scotland. We have well-established and tested resilience arrangements, but we must constantly improve those arrangements because of the nature of the challenges that we are likely to face. Members are right to highlight the fact that crucial tests will be thrown at us by the weather due to changes in the weather systems that are becoming all too familiar.

In her speech and her motion, Evelyn Tweed made particular reference to the role of volunteers and, in particular, the Killin Mountain Rescue Team, the Trossachs Search and Rescue Team and the British Red Cross. I reiterate her thanks to those organisations and many other voluntary organisations—Gillian Martin and Karen Adam also referenced organisations in their constituencies in the north-east of Scotland. Those organisations are making a huge contribution to resolving the difficulties faced by individuals.

Colin Smyth raised an important issue, which I discussed yesterday with the Scottish resilience partnership, about the necessity of communities having the capacity to contribute to resilience efforts. In some communities, that capacity exists and does phenomenally well, but in others it is not so mature. I am therefore interested in Colin Smyth’s suggestion of an eighth duty to formalise, perhaps, the role of community capacity building. In saying that, though, I acknowledge the importance of that being adequately created and supported to ensure that it is effective in meeting the needs of individuals in their communities.

A significant issue that Evelyn Tweed talked about extensively is the work of the power companies. Power company staff are working extremely hard in very cold and challenging conditions to restore supplies to people affected by storm Malik and storm Corrie. Before I came into the chamber tonight, I was advised that Scottish Power has restored all supplies and that SSEN is optimistic that it will get very close to restoring full supply by the end of this evening, although it might well be late in the evening before that happens.

I thank those members of staff for all that they are doing and all the communication that is under way. In these circumstances, clarity of communication is essential to alert people to the likely challenges, but it is important to acknowledge that our network must be resilient to meet them, and Mr Smyth and Mr Marra made fair points in that respect. We lost power lines because of the amount of overhead cables that we have, and that issue will have to be resolved by Ofgem in dialogue with the power companies.

I am grateful to Evelyn Tweed for the opportunity to reflect on what has been a very stormy period in Scottish weather and what have been very challenging circumstances. A huge amount of effort from communities, local resilience partnerships and the power companies has gone into addressing the challenges, but assure Parliament of the Government’s determination to lead a process of constant improvement, to build on our strong foundations for resilience and, most of all, to act to remedy the challenges that members of the public face as quickly and as effectively as possible.

Meeting closed at 18:22.