Chamber and committees

Priority has been attached to ensuring that power supplies can be sustained for care homes and individuals with vulnerabilities. In my discussions with the local resilience partnership in Aberdeenshire, I have been assured that steps were taken to make sure that power supplies were assured to those organisations and institutions. In a number of cases in Mr Burnett’s constituency, the remedying of some strategic faults in the electricity network resolved the situation for a significant proportion of his constituency, but it is an indication of the magnitude and severity of the incident that such widespread effects arose as a consequence of it.

Many of those ventures have emergency supplies available to them, but we will ensure that the issues of emergency supply are reassessed as part of the work of the local resilience partnerships in order to guarantee that we have resilience in such circumstances.

As part of the resilience planning, we expect local resilience partnerships to establish very clearly those who face vulnerability. That knowledge is amassed through a lot of the work that goes on in local communities—I saw that when I was in the Annan area to look at some of the impacts of flooding. Many of the community-based organisations that I met are focused on providing adequate support to all the individuals who face any degree of vulnerability. That knowledge is built up as part of the preparation of the resilience arrangements, and it is crucial that it can be followed through and activated when an incident arises. Obviously, when there is a power-related matter, there is close linkage to the circumstances involving power companies, which have knowledge of the various issues involving vulnerability that exist in different parts of the community.

That is a significant issue. As householders and citizens, we are immensely more dependent than we were previously on mobile telephony and digital connectivity, which is all entirely power dependent. The issues of ensuring that we have adequate contact mechanisms in place in times of difficulty of such magnitude are exacerbated by the issue that Beatrice Wishart properly raises. We will reflect on that issue closely in the resilience exercise. The incident has highlighted, and was exacerbated by, that significant dependence on electricity power supplies.

There are numerous examples of ventures that local communities have brought forward, such as local organisations. We have generated a number of resilience forums through flood prevention activity, and they provide practical and tangible assistance to individuals. There is a network of those available around the country. The Government’s community empowerment agenda is designed to support them and encourage the development of similar ventures.

I am grateful to Mr Smyth for making those points.

In relation to the steps that are being taken to reconnect people, I assure Mr Smyth that the power companies are moving as fast as they can, although one of the individuals from SP Energy Networks with whom I was in discussions yesterday, who was down in the Eaglesfield area of Mr Smyth’s region, cited to me the specific complexity of the difficulties that were affecting a limited number of properties, which was a result of multiple interruptions to the power supply.

I cite that example to illustrate to Parliament the fact that the issues that are being wrestled with are of a greater degree of complexity because of the damage that has been caused. That makes it difficult to give a prediction on the numbers involved. However, the power companies are working as fast as they can to restore supplies, and I will get regular updates in the course of today about the progress that is being made.

On water supply, much of the issue depends on the ability to get power supply to installations, so electricity connection is at the heart of that issue, too.

On the question about contacting vulnerable customers, the power companies and local authorities are in regular dialogue on the existence and extent of vulnerability in communities. They have established lists of individuals to be contacted, and I am assured by local resilience partnerships and the power companies that they have been undertaking such contacting. However, I am conscious of the number of people in society who are now dependent on mobile telephony networks, which can be significantly interrupted as a result of loss of power supply.

I have had assurance on the issue of vulnerable customers, but I reiterate the point that, if anyone is in need of assistance, I urge them to contact their local resilience partnership to secure that.

It is important that the quality of communication that is available to householders is at the highest possible level. The power companies have shared with me the volume of contacts that they have had with individuals, and they have had a colossal number of contacts with members of the public. It is important that individuals pursue their rights in relation to interruption of supply, but it is equally important that the power companies make available to individuals high-quality and reliable information on when incidents are likely to be resolved following the kind of outages that we have experienced.

There is obviously a significant impact in the John Muir country park, to which Mr McLennan refers. Forestry and Land Scotland is looking at those issues actively and has provided guidance to individuals to avoid being in forest areas while the situation is being properly assessed. We must consider the impacts of the incident on our natural environment. A very careful exercise has to be undertaken to remedy those issues, particularly in the circumstance that Mr McLennan raises with me.

Those companies—[Interruption.] Mr Lumsden continues to shout at me, but as he might not know this, he might want to stay silent for a moment while I explain the position.

The power companies have access to mutual aid supplies across other power networks in the UK, but, as I said in my statement, other parts of the UK were under severe strain as well. Some of those resources are now becoming available, but that is happening only once power has been restored in the original network areas.

For example, let us consider SSE, which is a company that Mr Lumsden should be familiar with, if he is familiar with the north of Scotland. It has an operation in the south of England, which took a hammering as well. Once the damage was recovered in the south of England, SSE was able to relocate staff further north. That is the type of mutual aid arrangement that operates in the electricity market. It would be folly for me to intervene and interfere in what the power companies are doing to resolve the situation as quickly as possible. [Interruption.]

I have gone through the issue concerning the power companies, which have a mutual aid arrangement in relation to the network. We cannot send any old individual up an electricity pole to reconnect the supply—it defies belief that we are getting such suggestions.

When it comes to the financial issues, we have activated the Bellwin scheme. If local authorities are incurring expenditure that merits classification under that scheme, financial support is available to them. I assure Rachael Hamilton that the local resilience partnership in the Borders has been actively involved in discussions with the power networks and with the east of Scotland regional resilience partnership, to ensure that all the issues that need to be addressed have been addressed as quickly as possible.

I come back to my core point: there has been extensive damage, which is taking a prolonged period to resolve because of its intensity.

As I indicated in my statement, as we do in relation to all such incidents, we will consider the lessons that we can learn from the handling of storm Arwen.

As Gillian Martin acknowledged, we have had to wrestle with a storm of the greatest ferocity. The damage has been significant. We must identify whether there are other steps that we need to take to make networks, as well as individuals and households, more resilient. That discussion will start once we have got to the point where we have secured resolution of the issues and we can properly and fully learn the lessons, in consort with our resilience partnerships and the power companies, which have a critical role to play in it.