Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate Local Government Finance Bill (Fifth sitting).
09:49 Gareth Thomas (Labour)
Entirely discretionary, as my hon. Friend says from a sedentary position. One thinks of a situation where perhaps there is a large influx of refugees. I can foresee, sadly, another situation of flooding—the Conservative party has failed to properly protect our country from the impact of climate change—or coastal erosion, which I know the hon. Member for Waveney is particularly interested in. There will potentially be scope for discretionary section 31 grants to local authorities. There will be an assessment of need. We have no idea yet what that assessment of need for each English local authority will look like. We do not even have any sense of when it will be published. All we know is, mañana—it will be published at some distant point in the future, when the Minister and his officials can get around to it. Bearing in mind that the Minister and his officials cannot get round even to publishing the 400 submissions to last year’s consultation on the Bill, we cannot have much confidence that that assessment of need will be brought forward any time soon.
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