Chamber
Meeting of the Parliament 24 October 2012
24 Oct 2012 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament
Item of business
Winter Resilience
Presiding Officer, thank you for the opportunity to update members on how Scotland is becoming more resilient, year on year, in the face of severe weather, and on the preparations that we have put in place for this winter.
As we all know, during the past three years Scotland has experienced some of the most prolonged and damaging severe weather that has been seen in modern times, mostly in the winter months but also at other times of the year. The one weather prediction that I can make with confidence is that Scotland will again experience severe weather, whether it is snow, a deep freeze, heavy rain or disruptive storms such as we had last winter.
As I said, severe weather does not happen just in winter. The summer flooding that affected neighbourhoods across Scotland—for example, in the Borders, Fife and Perthshire—is fresh in everyone’s memory. The volcanic ash cloud also tested the country’s resilience.
Only two fifths of the Scots who were questioned by the British Red Cross earlier this summer said that they were prepared for severe weather. They were most concerned about the loss of utilities—water, gas and electricity.
We cannot prevent the weather, but we can prepare for it. The Government’s priority is to get the people of Scotland to think ahead and plan, and therefore to cope better with all kinds of severe weather. The changes that we are trying to bring about will not happen in a year or even in a few years. Our efforts represent a long-term investment in building a more resilient nation.
This year, the public sector across Scotland is more prepared for severe weather than ever before. Year on year, with the measures that the Government is putting in place, we become stronger in dealing with the challenges of severe weather.
On Monday, the Scottish Government began its second national resilience campaign in partnership with the British Red Cross. We are undertaking a range of activities to highlight to people that they can do relatively inexpensive but effective things to prepare themselves, their homes, their families, their communities, their places of work and their businesses to withstand the worst effects of weather.
Our advice to the people of Scotland is that
“taking a few small steps now can save a lot of trouble later.”
That is advice that we are promoting and that we are trying to ensure gets into the consciousness of people throughout Scotland.
We are engaging directly with the public and businesses on the high street. There will be 64 information roadshows visiting communities in each local authority area in Scotland and all 56 British Red Cross high street shops will become information and advice hubs. That takes the campaign out to more than 80 towns, cities and villages across Scotland.
We are also engaging directly with schools. Pupils from primary 5 through to secondary 3 will tomorrow tune in to an online glow meeting hosted by Education Scotland, where they will take part in a conversation about preparing for severe weather.
Young people can be particularly vulnerable—both physically and psychologically—in emergencies, so it is particularly important that they are prepared should they be caught in an emergency situation. However, they also have resources of creativity, energy and enthusiasm. It makes sense to build the foundations of the knowledge required through schools.
In June this year, the Scottish Government launched the ready for emergencies web resource, which gives teachers a range of suggested activities to select from to enable children and young people to develop resilience as part of curriculum for excellence.
The ready for emergencies resource was designed by Education Scotland, with a team of teachers, parents’ representatives and resilience experts from the public and voluntary sectors, and it is already being well used in the classroom. To date it has been used by 3,300 people and has had 17,000 page views.
It is worth quoting the words of a teacher in a Scottish primary school that has been using ready for emergencies:
“It is great that whenever there is a major event in the news, we can follow it up with a meaningful activity, and think about what we would do if something similar happened here in the future”.
In my own constituency, that message was taken up by the pupils in Dunblane high school. In addition to ensuring that they were as well prepared for winter as possible, they took on the civic responsibility of trying to ensure that they looked after older people in Dunblane during the winter. They should be commended for that.
One of the key priorities of the Scottish Government in preparing for severe weather is to keep Scotland moving. Transport Scotland delivers its winter service programme on Scotland’s trunk road network from the start of October right through until mid-May.
Other measures that have been put in place ahead of winter include the purchase of two ice-breaking vehicles. I think that we can all remember the difficulties with trying to break down sheets of ice on the M8 after a prolonged period of very cold weather. We have made a commitment to have more salt stocked at the start of winter than was used across Scotland in the entire winter of 2010-11.
We also have a stock of more than 100,000 litres of alternative de-icers that will work in the severest of conditions when road salt becomes less effective—usually around 8° below freezing or below—and we are providing guidance for operating companies on when to use these de-icers.
We also have a strengthened network of weather stations and new cameras at 24 sites to improve decision making. We are publishing daily gritting plans to give the public and media more information about the treatments that are taking place. There is also a freight Scotland hotline for drivers to highlight network problems and provide guidance for heavy goods vehicle drivers. We also have a new YouTube video on winter service provision, which has been produced by key stakeholders and the public.
We will continue to alert the public to important information about travel conditions through a wide variety of communications channels including Twitter, Traffic Scotland internet radio and the Traffic Scotland website, variable message signs and mobile applications.
The multi-agency response team—MART—will continue to keep people informed and play a major part in the smooth running of the transport network this winter. Members may recall that it was an innovation two years ago that allowed all the key parties to be in the same place at Transport Scotland headquarters at the same time to aid decision making.
ScotRail has completed its £2.2m programme of investment, which includes reliability improvements to trains over the winter period through train modifications and the purchase of additional plant and equipment, enhanced facilities at stations and depots, and a significant upgrade to passenger information systems.
Network Rail has enhanced its infrastructure. For example, there is a new icebuster train, which costs between £1 million and £2 million and can quickly thaw out junctions and other key equipment. Network Rail also has many more four-by-four drive vehicles for operational and maintenance staff, and it deploys rail-mounted snowploughs at key locations across the network.
In addition, Network Rail, in conjunction with rail freight hauliers, has plans to maintain clear rail routes for critical freight train movements. That will ensure that sufficient priority is given to movement by rail of vital commodities, including fuel and food.
We recognise the serious implications for business and reflect airports’ commitment to their passengers. Scotland’s airports continue to devote significant resource to meeting the winter weather challenge, including investment in new equipment. For example, Aberdeen airport announced in August an investment of £1.3 million to upgrade its winter vehicle fleet to best deal with the worst conditions, and it has further investment plans for next year.
Severe weather can happen at any time and we have to be prepared for every eventuality. On 7 December last year the Met Office issued the highest level of warning—a red warning—for storm force winds across parts of Scotland. An Atlantic storm soon brought gusts of up to 164mph in some parts, with gusts of 77mph in Edinburgh. The advance information we received from the Met Office enabled us to take steps to prepare the people of Scotland for the disruption to travel that resulted.
The Met Office has done a lot of work since then to raise awareness of the meanings of its weather warnings. Red warnings are only issued when there is confidence that high levels of disruption will occur, and the public and responders must take action on those warnings to mitigate the effects of a potentially dangerous situation.
Farmers also have an important role during severe winter weather. In recognition of that, Transport Scotland, in partnership with the National Farmers Union and local authorities, has developed a code of practice to encourage and facilitate roads authorities and farmers to work more closely to get additional resources where they are most needed. I welcome Jim Hume’s amendment in that regard.
The storms of last winter caused some of the worst disruption to electricity supplies in recent memory, with more than 170,000 customers across Scotland affected. That is a significant number, although it is far less than the number during the previous comparable boxing day storms of 1998, which cut off over a quarter of a million users. With networks that are tens of thousands of kilometres long and which serve hundreds of thousands of customers over sparse geographical areas, there will be occasions when the power goes out. Scotland’s two distribution network operators have made network improvements in recent years, invested millions and enhanced their emergency arrangements in partnership with local responders.
In emergencies, the capacity to exchange information and provide direction and support through resilient telecommunications is vital. I will highlight two areas on which we have made progress in preparation for this winter.
First, we have acted to address issues that arose last winter regarding the Airwave network utilised by our emergency services. A tri-service group co-ordinated by the Scottish Government worked with Airwave Solutions Ltd to recommend appropriate action. Procedures have been improved to minimise site access problems during periods of intense and prolonged bad weather, generator maintenance scheduling has been enhanced, and engineering improvements have been delivered to improve electrical power reliability. Additionally, greater fuel, battery and electrical power generation has been provided to selected sites, to provide greater self-sufficiency in remote areas during prolonged periods of severe weather. We intend that a similar review of winter performance will be carried out in 2013 so that we can continue to learn lessons and improve reliability.
Second, we have installed a resilient telecommunications network—RTN—which, in the event of public network failures, should provide back-up capacity for strategic co-ordinating groups—SCGs—to communicate with each other and the Scottish Government. For the particularly challenging areas of Orkney, Shetland, the Western Isles and Argyll and Bute, we have added a new satellite communications service.
We have been making the most of new technology as well. The Scottish Government is introducing a new mobile phone application for iPhone and Android that is aimed at helping the public to cope during emergencies. By downloading and using the ready Scotland application, people will be able to gain quick and easy access—
As we all know, during the past three years Scotland has experienced some of the most prolonged and damaging severe weather that has been seen in modern times, mostly in the winter months but also at other times of the year. The one weather prediction that I can make with confidence is that Scotland will again experience severe weather, whether it is snow, a deep freeze, heavy rain or disruptive storms such as we had last winter.
As I said, severe weather does not happen just in winter. The summer flooding that affected neighbourhoods across Scotland—for example, in the Borders, Fife and Perthshire—is fresh in everyone’s memory. The volcanic ash cloud also tested the country’s resilience.
Only two fifths of the Scots who were questioned by the British Red Cross earlier this summer said that they were prepared for severe weather. They were most concerned about the loss of utilities—water, gas and electricity.
We cannot prevent the weather, but we can prepare for it. The Government’s priority is to get the people of Scotland to think ahead and plan, and therefore to cope better with all kinds of severe weather. The changes that we are trying to bring about will not happen in a year or even in a few years. Our efforts represent a long-term investment in building a more resilient nation.
This year, the public sector across Scotland is more prepared for severe weather than ever before. Year on year, with the measures that the Government is putting in place, we become stronger in dealing with the challenges of severe weather.
On Monday, the Scottish Government began its second national resilience campaign in partnership with the British Red Cross. We are undertaking a range of activities to highlight to people that they can do relatively inexpensive but effective things to prepare themselves, their homes, their families, their communities, their places of work and their businesses to withstand the worst effects of weather.
Our advice to the people of Scotland is that
“taking a few small steps now can save a lot of trouble later.”
That is advice that we are promoting and that we are trying to ensure gets into the consciousness of people throughout Scotland.
We are engaging directly with the public and businesses on the high street. There will be 64 information roadshows visiting communities in each local authority area in Scotland and all 56 British Red Cross high street shops will become information and advice hubs. That takes the campaign out to more than 80 towns, cities and villages across Scotland.
We are also engaging directly with schools. Pupils from primary 5 through to secondary 3 will tomorrow tune in to an online glow meeting hosted by Education Scotland, where they will take part in a conversation about preparing for severe weather.
Young people can be particularly vulnerable—both physically and psychologically—in emergencies, so it is particularly important that they are prepared should they be caught in an emergency situation. However, they also have resources of creativity, energy and enthusiasm. It makes sense to build the foundations of the knowledge required through schools.
In June this year, the Scottish Government launched the ready for emergencies web resource, which gives teachers a range of suggested activities to select from to enable children and young people to develop resilience as part of curriculum for excellence.
The ready for emergencies resource was designed by Education Scotland, with a team of teachers, parents’ representatives and resilience experts from the public and voluntary sectors, and it is already being well used in the classroom. To date it has been used by 3,300 people and has had 17,000 page views.
It is worth quoting the words of a teacher in a Scottish primary school that has been using ready for emergencies:
“It is great that whenever there is a major event in the news, we can follow it up with a meaningful activity, and think about what we would do if something similar happened here in the future”.
In my own constituency, that message was taken up by the pupils in Dunblane high school. In addition to ensuring that they were as well prepared for winter as possible, they took on the civic responsibility of trying to ensure that they looked after older people in Dunblane during the winter. They should be commended for that.
One of the key priorities of the Scottish Government in preparing for severe weather is to keep Scotland moving. Transport Scotland delivers its winter service programme on Scotland’s trunk road network from the start of October right through until mid-May.
Other measures that have been put in place ahead of winter include the purchase of two ice-breaking vehicles. I think that we can all remember the difficulties with trying to break down sheets of ice on the M8 after a prolonged period of very cold weather. We have made a commitment to have more salt stocked at the start of winter than was used across Scotland in the entire winter of 2010-11.
We also have a stock of more than 100,000 litres of alternative de-icers that will work in the severest of conditions when road salt becomes less effective—usually around 8° below freezing or below—and we are providing guidance for operating companies on when to use these de-icers.
We also have a strengthened network of weather stations and new cameras at 24 sites to improve decision making. We are publishing daily gritting plans to give the public and media more information about the treatments that are taking place. There is also a freight Scotland hotline for drivers to highlight network problems and provide guidance for heavy goods vehicle drivers. We also have a new YouTube video on winter service provision, which has been produced by key stakeholders and the public.
We will continue to alert the public to important information about travel conditions through a wide variety of communications channels including Twitter, Traffic Scotland internet radio and the Traffic Scotland website, variable message signs and mobile applications.
The multi-agency response team—MART—will continue to keep people informed and play a major part in the smooth running of the transport network this winter. Members may recall that it was an innovation two years ago that allowed all the key parties to be in the same place at Transport Scotland headquarters at the same time to aid decision making.
ScotRail has completed its £2.2m programme of investment, which includes reliability improvements to trains over the winter period through train modifications and the purchase of additional plant and equipment, enhanced facilities at stations and depots, and a significant upgrade to passenger information systems.
Network Rail has enhanced its infrastructure. For example, there is a new icebuster train, which costs between £1 million and £2 million and can quickly thaw out junctions and other key equipment. Network Rail also has many more four-by-four drive vehicles for operational and maintenance staff, and it deploys rail-mounted snowploughs at key locations across the network.
In addition, Network Rail, in conjunction with rail freight hauliers, has plans to maintain clear rail routes for critical freight train movements. That will ensure that sufficient priority is given to movement by rail of vital commodities, including fuel and food.
We recognise the serious implications for business and reflect airports’ commitment to their passengers. Scotland’s airports continue to devote significant resource to meeting the winter weather challenge, including investment in new equipment. For example, Aberdeen airport announced in August an investment of £1.3 million to upgrade its winter vehicle fleet to best deal with the worst conditions, and it has further investment plans for next year.
Severe weather can happen at any time and we have to be prepared for every eventuality. On 7 December last year the Met Office issued the highest level of warning—a red warning—for storm force winds across parts of Scotland. An Atlantic storm soon brought gusts of up to 164mph in some parts, with gusts of 77mph in Edinburgh. The advance information we received from the Met Office enabled us to take steps to prepare the people of Scotland for the disruption to travel that resulted.
The Met Office has done a lot of work since then to raise awareness of the meanings of its weather warnings. Red warnings are only issued when there is confidence that high levels of disruption will occur, and the public and responders must take action on those warnings to mitigate the effects of a potentially dangerous situation.
Farmers also have an important role during severe winter weather. In recognition of that, Transport Scotland, in partnership with the National Farmers Union and local authorities, has developed a code of practice to encourage and facilitate roads authorities and farmers to work more closely to get additional resources where they are most needed. I welcome Jim Hume’s amendment in that regard.
The storms of last winter caused some of the worst disruption to electricity supplies in recent memory, with more than 170,000 customers across Scotland affected. That is a significant number, although it is far less than the number during the previous comparable boxing day storms of 1998, which cut off over a quarter of a million users. With networks that are tens of thousands of kilometres long and which serve hundreds of thousands of customers over sparse geographical areas, there will be occasions when the power goes out. Scotland’s two distribution network operators have made network improvements in recent years, invested millions and enhanced their emergency arrangements in partnership with local responders.
In emergencies, the capacity to exchange information and provide direction and support through resilient telecommunications is vital. I will highlight two areas on which we have made progress in preparation for this winter.
First, we have acted to address issues that arose last winter regarding the Airwave network utilised by our emergency services. A tri-service group co-ordinated by the Scottish Government worked with Airwave Solutions Ltd to recommend appropriate action. Procedures have been improved to minimise site access problems during periods of intense and prolonged bad weather, generator maintenance scheduling has been enhanced, and engineering improvements have been delivered to improve electrical power reliability. Additionally, greater fuel, battery and electrical power generation has been provided to selected sites, to provide greater self-sufficiency in remote areas during prolonged periods of severe weather. We intend that a similar review of winter performance will be carried out in 2013 so that we can continue to learn lessons and improve reliability.
Second, we have installed a resilient telecommunications network—RTN—which, in the event of public network failures, should provide back-up capacity for strategic co-ordinating groups—SCGs—to communicate with each other and the Scottish Government. For the particularly challenging areas of Orkney, Shetland, the Western Isles and Argyll and Bute, we have added a new satellite communications service.
We have been making the most of new technology as well. The Scottish Government is introducing a new mobile phone application for iPhone and Android that is aimed at helping the public to cope during emergencies. By downloading and using the ready Scotland application, people will be able to gain quick and easy access—
In the same item of business
The Presiding Officer (Tricia Marwick)
NPA
The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-04518, in the name of Keith Brown, on winter resilience.14:42
The Minister for Transport and Veteran Affairs (Keith Brown)
SNP
Presiding Officer, thank you for the opportunity to update members on how Scotland is becoming more resilient, year on year, in the face of severe weather, a...
Alison Johnstone (Lothian) (Green)
Green
Will the minister give way?
Keith Brown
SNP
I give way to Alison Johnstone.
Alison Johnstone
Green
Speaking about new technologies—
The Deputy Presiding Officer (Elaine Smith)
Lab
Could we have Alison Johnstone’s microphone on please? Please put your card in, Ms Johnstone.
Alison Johnstone
Green
Speaking about new technologies, the minister may be aware that the Dutch are about to test heated cycle paths that will use heat that has been gathered duri...
Keith Brown
SNP
I made the point at the start of my speech that we want to keep Scotland moving. To the extent that they will help keep Scotland moving, I am more than willi...
Margo MacDonald (Lothian) (Ind)
Ind
I thank the minister for giving way near the end of his speech. I was waiting for what I thought would be the crescendo. What is the Government going to do a...
The Deputy Presiding Officer
Lab
Minister, you must conclude, please.
Keith Brown
SNP
I think that Margo MacDonald has stolen Alex Johnstone’s thunder. We have procedures in place to deal with potholes. My responsibility is for trunk roads, an...
Elaine Murray (Dumfriesshire) (Lab)
Lab
As the minister said, long-range weather forecasting is notoriously unreliable because weather patterns are influenced by many factors, including variations ...
Keith Brown
SNP
It is worth looking behind some of the figures that Elaine Murray cited. Last year, many local authorities had very high levels of salt but did not use it be...
Elaine Murray
Lab
I thank the minister for that clarification of the issues in the article. However, councils are implementing cuts not because they do not take winter resilie...
Mark McDonald (North East Scotland) (SNP)
SNP
It is my recollection from my time as a local councillor that the funding for repairs to the road network to deal with potholes, for example, came from counc...
The Deputy Presiding Officer
Lab
You are in your final minute, Dr Murray.
Elaine Murray
Lab
Capital budgets are under huge pressure as well—it is not just revenue budgets that are under pressure. I did not mention revenue budgets specifically and, w...
The Deputy Presiding Officer
Lab
You must close now, Dr Murray.
Elaine Murray
Lab
That information needs to be put in the public domain in advance of any prolonged period of severe winter weather.I move amendment S4M-04518.1, to insert at ...
Alex Johnstone (North East Scotland) (Con)
Con
I welcome the debate and thank the minister for bringing forward—for the second time, I believe, after last year’s debate—a debate on winter resilience at th...
Mark McDonald
SNP
Does the member agree that another issue that arises is when the road is dug up—by a utility company, for example—and then not properly filled in or patched ...
The Deputy Presiding Officer
Lab
Mr Johnstone, you are going into your last minute.
Alex Johnstone
Con
Absolutely, I would not dispute that what the member describes is an issue.I will have to move quickly to ensure that I cover some of the other points that I...
Jim Hume (South Scotland) (LD)
LD
The last days of October are fast becoming characterised not by gaining an extra hour, or by Hallowe’en, but by the annual winter resilience debate in the ch...
The Deputy Presiding Officer
Lab
We turn to the open debate. At this stage of the debate, we are tight for time and it is unlikely that I will be able to call all members to speak. Speeches ...
Chic Brodie (South Scotland) (SNP)
SNP
I, too, welcome the debate and acknowledge the considerable work that the Minister for Transport and Veteran Affairs, his officials, the services and the Red...
Claudia Beamish (South Scotland) (Lab)
Lab
I highlight the recent Citizens Advice Scotland energy briefing, which says that the Scottish Government and local authorities might be able to help with rur...
Chic Brodie
SNP
That point is well made and noted.The resilience programme should be packaged under the two themes of communication and equipment availability. It is good ne...
Margo MacDonald
Ind
Will the member give way?
Chic Brodie
SNP
No, I must finish.We do not just have to deal with domestic issues. It is critical that airports and cross-border rail links continue to operate effectively....