Flooding
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking in response to the recent flooding. (S4T-01262)
My sympathies go to those who have been affected by the recent severe weather, and I pay tribute on behalf of the Government to the first-class response that has been offered by local authorities, emergency responders and the public themselves.
The Scottish Government places a priority on reducing flood risk throughout Scotland, and we are committed to working with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, local authorities and other partners. SEPA’s recent flood risk strategy set out an agenda for the national direction of flood risk management, helping to target investment and to co-ordinate actions across public bodies. The strategies explain what causes flooding in high-risk areas and the impacts when flooding occurs. That information is used as a basis for better decision making across flood risk management organisations and for supporting actions such as flood protection schemes and flood warning schemes.
The minister has visited the upper Deeside area and seen for himself the conditions that have prevailed there. Is he at this stage able to tell us what support the Government can offer to the local authority and to individuals who have been seriously hit by the flooding damage?
There are two specific pieces of support that the Government is able to make available, but before I come on to those, I will say a word about the scale of the devastation in Ballater that I saw last Thursday. It is of a quite incomprehensible scale, to be frank, and I pay tribute to the efforts of the many individuals who worked very hard to protect their neighbours’ and their own properties and to support one another in that difficulty. I would single out a number of firefighters in the area who were out helping other people while their own properties were being flooded. That tells us something about the extraordinary commitment that we are lucky to receive from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.
I turn to the two specific areas of assistance. First, I have activated the Bellwin scheme, with which Mr Johnstone will be familiar. It establishes a threshold for what local authorities are expected to provide to deal with emergency situations of this type, and any costs beyond that threshold are met by the Government. I have invited and encouraged Aberdeenshire Council to submit an application for financial support under the Bellwin scheme.
Secondly, in the budget statement in December, I exceptionally made some support available to Perth and Kinross, Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders Councils because of the impact of recent storm incidents. I intend to make a further financial allocation that I will expect Aberdeenshire Council to use to relieve council tax payers of their council tax bills and business rates payers of their business rates bills and to contribute to the regeneration that will clearly be required to recover the situation in Deeside.
One of the features of the devastation in upper Deeside is the serious damage that has been done to the A93 trunk road. Is there any prospect of that damage being rectified in the near future, with all costs being covered by the Scottish Government under its commitment to our trunk roads?
It is a bit early for me to give the commitment about timescale that Mr Johnstone is looking for. The photographs speak for themselves. Serious damage has been done to the A93. It is a crucial access route, but currently it cannot be used to provide a route from Braemar to Aberdeen. That situation is unsatisfactory and we have to resolve it as quickly as we can. There is access from the south via the A93 through Glen Shee but, as we all know, that route can be vulnerable and susceptible to the normal weather conditions that we have at this time of year, with very heavy snow in Glen Shee. We are taking forward discussions with Aberdeenshire Council on the steps to ensure that the route can be rectified.
The Deputy First Minister will be aware of the good work that is going on in conjunction with Falkirk Council and the petrochemical industry in my constituency to provide flood defences for Grangemouth’s refinery and petrochemical plants. Can he assess the success of flood protection schemes to date in mitigating the impacts of the flooding and extreme weather over recent days?
We have been very fortunate in the sense that the flood protection schemes that we have in place have been successful to date. Last night, I was in regular discussion with Perth and Kinross Council and SEPA in my local area as the city of Perth faced a significant challenge and a significant test of the existing flood protection scheme. By the end of last night, I was, frankly, relieved that the flood protection scheme had been successful in Perth. It shows the wisdom and the value of the sympathetic investment that has been made, which protects householders and communities.
Today in Perth, we have had to wrestle with the challenges of surface water run-off and drainage challenges, although the flood defences proved themselves to be entirely secure in the face of the astonishing volume of water that came down from the catchment area of the River Tay yesterday.
I again pay tribute to the work of Dumfries and Galloway’s major emergency team in the latest flood. Many of my constituents with small businesses in the Whitesands area who have been flooded again already do not pay business rates, so they cannot be assisted through that route. Many have been unable to get insurance or have found that the excess payments are prohibitive. Might assistance be made available to those businesses? I make it clear that I am not referring to my office, which was under two and a half feet of water.
On the television footage of Dumfries that I saw, I regrettably saw Dr Murray’s name in lights, so she has my sympathies for the difficulties that she will undoubtedly be experiencing in wrestling with the flooding issue.
I take the point that Dr Murray made. It is a fair point that there will be many smaller businesses that will not pay business rates and will not be covered by the assurance that I have given. She will know that I made a financial commitment to Dumfries and Galloway Council. I intend to look again at that in the light of the events of the past seven days and the issues that have been wrestled with in Dumfries and Galloway. Given the financial commitment that I have made to the local authority, I would look to it to make any provision that it can to support individuals in restoring their businesses and getting back to operating in those localities.
There will of course be further discussions about flood prevention measures in the Whitesands area. I know that the council has recently come to some conclusions about the preferred option for those flood protection schemes. Those issues will of course be taken forward as part of the discussion about how the resources that we allocate to this area of activity are deployed around the country in the course of the next spending review period.
Communities around the whole north-east have been affected by flooding, but in Aberdeenshire in particular it has been unprecedented in its scale and scope. I hope that the Government can reassure us that its response to Aberdeenshire Council and local agencies will reflect that.
The Deputy First Minister mentioned access via Glen Shee, which he is right to say is at risk of closure if severe weather closes in. There is therefore an urgent need to move as swiftly as is safe to protect the remaining road links and to restore what is there. What temporary support can the Government give?
We are actively involved in discussions with Aberdeenshire Council about the recovery steps that are required to be undertaken. I am sure that Alison McInnes will realise that the scale of the damage to the A93 on Deeside is such that, frankly, the road has gone for large parts of its length. We therefore have to take considered and safe steps to recover the situation as timeously as we can. I assure the member of the prompt attention of the Government in that respect.
I have huge sympathy for the communities that are coping with the floods and, in the case of our communities, with inundations from the sea as well. However, I want to turn to the way in which ScotRail handles the Highland main line. I experienced a two-hour delay myself and a bus all the way from Inverness to Perth, although there is a breach in the railway only south of Pitlochry, which is in the cabinet secretary’s constituency. A problem has been going on since long before Abellio took over ScotRail, because information is dreadfully poor for the travelling public. Indeed, that is something that ScotRail needs to change quickly so that we can use our main, spinal route with some confidence.
The Minister for Transport and Islands is here and has heard Mr Gibson’s point about the information from ScotRail. Having spent virtually every day of the Christmas and new year parliamentary recess on telephone calls involving ScotRail, I feel as if I have heard a lot from ScotRail over the course of the past couple of weeks. We will take Mr Gibson’s point seriously, though, because the Highland main line is a significant part of our rail infrastructure.
The foundations and the ballast of the rail line at Inchmagrannachan have been swept away by the flooding. There is work on-going, but it is of course difficult to gain access to the foundations to execute a repair as quickly as possible because of the volume of water surrounding the site. The projected date for the completion of that work is 18 January, but that is of course dependent on being able to get access to the site.
Mr Gibson’s point about the essential requirement for good-quality information to be available to members of the travelling public is well made. Over the course of the incidents over the past few weeks, the use of social media by public agencies and organisations and travel companies has been first class. I have seen a number of organisations use it to tremendous effect, capturing great degrees of public involvement and interest to make sure that we can resolve and overcome some of the challenges. However, I will ensure that the transport minister looks carefully at the point that Mr Gibson raised about ScotRail communication.
Across my region of South Scotland, many communities have been affected by the floods recently and in previous years. I want to focus on New Cumnock. On 5 November last year, when my colleague Graeme Pearson asked the Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, Aileen McLeod, about the area, she told the chamber:
“To reassure the member, New Cumnock is ... very much part and parcel of the national flood risk management planning process and will be considered accordingly.”—[Official Report, 5 November 2015; c 8.]
That is no reassurance to my and Graeme Pearson’s constituents, who have yet again found themselves devastated by deluge.
Therefore, I ask the cabinet secretary whether he will look again at the Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s budget in view of the responsibilities that it has for flooding and the cuts that the Scottish Government has made. Will he also consider Scottish Labour’s call—made by my colleague Sarah Boyack—for the Government to carry out a review of flood strategy, working with all the local authorities across my region and more widely in Scotland?
I am a bit surprised by the line of argument that Claudia Beamish has taken, because I know that she takes a keen and acute interest in such issues.
The first thing that I would say is that SEPA has no responsibility whatever for flood protection measures. It has a responsibility for the flood warning system, which is fully and entirely funded by the Government and which was protected 100 per cent by my budget settlement in December. It is true that SEPA is facing a 6.8 per cent reduction in its resource budget. That is because I must require public authorities across the board to contribute towards meeting the financial challenge that we have to meet. Of course, it is up to Scotland Labour to change my budget, if it wishes to do so. We have heard so much from Scottish Labour about this question that I will expect it to seek to rectify that reduction in the budget that it has been going on about. If it does not, we will know that what it has been saying is just rhetoric.
My second point relates to the flood risk management strategies and the work that has been undertaken following Parliament’s passing of the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009. The reason for my being so surprised at Claudia Beamish’s question is that that act required us to do the groundwork of establishing flood risk management strategies around the country. We now have 14 of those strategies, which have reported to the minister. They have generated suggestions and propositions for 42 formal flood protection schemes that will cost an estimated £235 million, and I have made provision in the budget for that to be delivered as part of my commitment to the local government finance settlement.
Therefore, I would have thought that, instead of having another review, we should just get on with implementing the flood risk management strategies. Instead of having another talking shop, we should get on with delivering the action that Parliament legislated for in 2009, which the Government is getting on with and is putting in place the resources to deliver.
Yesterday, I visited the village of Carsphairn in my constituency, where almost every house has been flooded, some for the third time in three years. Today, my office has taken a number of calls from businesses in Newton Stewart, which the First Minister and the environment minister visited last week. Those people need financial help and they need it now. They are very aware that, just across the border in Cumbria, people in similar situations are receiving such help. Will the Deputy First Minister consider giving urgently needed financial assistance to every business and household that has been so badly affected by the recent floods, as is happening in other parts of the United Kingdom?
In my earlier answer to Alex Johnstone, I spoke about the specific financial support that I have made available. In December, I made an announcement about Dumfries and Galloway Council being able to remove any obligation for residents who had been removed from their properties to meet council tax bills and for businesses that had had to relocate to pay business rates. In the light of the events of the past couple of weeks, I intend to provide a further allocation in relation to the costs that will be involved in localities. That will inevitably have some additional consequences for Dumfries and Galloway, and I will make announcements in due course, once I have had due opportunity to have discussions with the local authority about how that can be taken forward.
I echo the words of the Deputy First Minister in congratulating the emergency services, the council workers and the army of volunteers in Ballater and Aboyne.
Yesterday, I was in Ballater again. The people there appreciated Mr Swinney’s visit, but they are asking who is going to help with the clean-up. There are caravans and cars in gardens—someone needs to recover those and dispose of them. Can the cabinet secretary give an assurance that that work will be done without penalising those people to whom the caravans and cars do not belong? Can he also show the businesses that remain open that they, too, will be given some financial assistance, given that Ballater is virtually cut off?
On the cleaning up of debris, there is a complicated interaction at the local level. Let us take as an example the caravan park in Ballater, where, I assume, individuals and the caravan park operators will be required to make wider insurance claims. There will be an interaction between their properly having the opportunity to secure their insurance rectification and the need for there to be a clean-up in the town. Aberdeenshire Council is best placed to co-operate with individuals in that respect, and we have an open dialogue with Aberdeenshire Council. I compliment Aberdeenshire Council on the way in which it responded to what was a very traumatic situation last week. That is the best way for that dialogue be undertaken, so that the issues can be resolved at the local level and the necessary support can be put in place to address the difficulties that individuals face as a consequence of a quite unprecedented event in that locality.
The Deputy First Minister has rightly focused on upper Deeside, but will he recognise that there have also been issues overnight in Donside in Aberdeenshire as well as at the mouths of both the Don and the Dee in the city of Aberdeen? These are whole-catchment-area issues. For example, the other day, the residents of sheltered housing in Bridge of Dee Court in Aberdeen had to be evacuated. Will he confirm that the Government is working with both Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeenshire Council on whole-catchment-area strategies? When will the recommendations in the flood management strategies for the Dee and the Don be taken forward?
I acknowledge the issues to be wrestled with in Kintore and Inverurie as well as in the city of Aberdeen following the incident that took place just before hogmanay and the events of the past couple of days. We are in discussion with both Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeenshire Council, whose response has been very clear and comprehensive, to ensure that the necessary support has been put in place.
The development of the flood management schemes will be part and parcel of the discussions that we will have with local government over the next few years about how we should prioritise those schemes. Ministers will be actively involved in that process and will report to the Parliament in due course.
Forth Road Bridge
To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made on reopening the Forth road bridge to all vehicles. (S4T-01264)
Following the successful completion of the complex and detailed interim repair by a dedicated team of highly skilled staff, who had worked 24/7 since 3 December, the Forth road bridge reopened on 23 December—well ahead of schedule—to 90 per cent of traffic. A permanent repair to allow heavy goods vehicles across the Forth road bridge will commence in the coming days and, subject to favourable weather conditions and no further defects being identified, the bridge will reopen to HGVs in mid-February.
What discussions have taken place with the Road Haulage Association?
There has been on-going dialogue with Transport Scotland officials, and reopening the bridge to HGV traffic is a clear priority. We have engaged with both the Road Haulage Association and the Freight Transport Association on that, and an action plan has been produced. The Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities and the Deputy First Minister have engaged with industry, and that action plan will support them in a range of areas while we work on repairing the bridge to ensure that HGVs can cross the Forth.
The reopening of the bridge to cars earlier than the originally indicated date was welcome, but the minister will be aware of the dismay among many businesses in Fife and beyond that the bridge did not reopen to HGVs on 2 January, as was hoped for, and will not do so for several weeks. What assessment has the Scottish Government made of the impact on the Fife economy of the further delay?
The works were ahead of schedule. We want to get the bridge reopened to HGVs as quickly as possible, and safety has to be paramount. We are working to that, and I again thank the dedicated staff who are making it possible. We have undertaken an exercise on disruption to the area and there will be on-going engagement with the local authorities.
I think that many people appreciate the effort that Government and our agencies have put in to ensure that the bridge reopened. We will continue that immense effort to get the bridge reopened to HGVs, to support commerce and the haulage industry. I would have thought that the Conservatives would support us on measures to ensure that everyone gets back to business. The Government’s interventions and handling of the issue have been right, in building the new bridge and supporting industry in the interim.
I welcome the minister’s announcement that the bridge will reopen to HGVs and I put on record my thanks and those, I am sure, of all members to the workforce for all the work that they have carried out in appalling conditions over the past month.
Will the minister confirm that it is the active plan of the Scottish Government to provide compensation for hauliers who have lost out during the period of the bridge’s closure and subsequent restrictions?
No. The action plan includes a number of other items, such as an HGV hotline to enable drivers to alert Traffic Scotland to incidents, extra support for the trunk road incident support service, fast-track maintenance along trunk road diversions, support from local authorities to keep roads clear, and relaxation of European rules on drivers’ hours, which we are pursuing through the Department for Transport. Those are the key areas in the action plan that were agreed with the industry, but dialogue continues and the priority has to be to get the Forth road bridge reopened to all traffic.
I thank the minister for his constructive engagement on the west Fife travel plan, which was causing particular problems for my constituents.
The temporary fix was supposed to enable all vehicles to use the bridge until the new bridge opened, when a permanent repair could be made. Why is the temporary fix insufficient for HGVs, and why has the permanent repair had to be brought forward?
I think that it is clear that we are phasing works. I give Willie Rennie credit for the active interest that he has taken in the technical briefings that have been offered to members of the Scottish Parliament. I am happy to provide even more of those.
The temporary repair allows more than 90 per cent of traffic to cross the Forth road bridge, and the further strengthening works will ensure that safety is not compromised and that the bridge can carry HGV traffic. That is all based on the engineering expertise on which we have depended, which is doing excellent work on the bridge. I am happy to share even more information to show how the phased works will give the certainty that is being sought.