To ask the Scottish Government what lessons have been learned following the travel disruption and other impacts as a result of storm Éowyn. (S6O-04313)

Storm Éowyn caused major disruption. The immediate lesson learned is that the early issuing of the red weather warning for wind by the Met Office on Thursday 23 January, combined with the convening of the multi-agency response team, empowered Police Scotland to promptly issue early advice to road users to avoid any form of travel during the period of the red weather warning, which enabled the public, businesses, councils and schools to communicate clearly.

The sharing of proactive messaging at local, regional and national levels helped to bring about a huge reduction in traffic levels, of 80 to 90 per cent, across key trunk roads during the red warning.

The messaging also enabled specialist teams across the transport and energy sectors to be mobilised in advance of the storm. Intense co-operation between Network Rail and ScotRail supported recovery from unprecedented damage. I thank everyone for limiting their travel during the storm.

There will also be a more formal lessons-learned exercise, which will be closely considered by the Cabinet.

The cabinet secretary will be well aware that the south of Scotland—Dumfries and Galloway, in particular—was affected more than many communities, with the A75 being closed for some time.

Another lesson that can be learned is in relation to people in Dumfries and Galloway whose power was off for almost a week. One of the main issues was a failure to connect generators. Scottish Power was very reactive and responsive in ensuring that people on the priority list had generators, but some had to wait three or four days for electricians to connect the generators.

Will the cabinet secretary, given her remit, work with her colleagues to look at a potential scheme, whereby sockets could be provided in warm hubs and vulnerable people’s homes to allow generators to be connected as a matter of urgency, instead of the process taking three or four days?

I will discuss that suggestion with my Cabinet colleagues. We can always learn lessons—those that have been learned from storm Arwen helped to improve the response this time round. Lessons are learned from every storm, so I will take Finlay Carson’s suggestion to the relevant minister and ask them to respond on how that might be taken forward, if the energy companies think that it would be helpful.

There are a couple of supplementary questions and I will try to get them both in, but they will have to be brief, as will the responses.

Flood prevention schemes announced in 2015 have not been finished. Extreme weather is hitting people’s homes and our transport infrastructure increasingly hard, so what is the Scottish Government doing to accelerate investment now?

Regarding transport, which is my direct responsibility, the Scottish Government has produced a climate adaptation plan to try to tackle a number of the issues affecting the transport network. Flood defence schemes are the responsibility of one of my ministerial colleagues. I understand that extensive funding for that is available in this year’s budget. I do not know whether Sarah Boyack has decided to support that budget, but flood funding is part of the budget offer.

We know increasingly that adaptation, mitigation, flood prevention in general and tackling the implications of climate change for our road and rail networks all need action and investment. I am working with cabinet secretary Gillian Martin and others to ensure that investment can be brought forward to realise that. I hope that the member will support the budget and support flood prevention.

One of the United Kingdom’s largest food distributors, Bidfood, chose to ignore the warning of danger to life during storm Éowyn and told its workers that it would be a normal working day. Does the cabinet secretary agree that that was completely unacceptable, and will she review the legislative obligations to ensure that companies such as Bidfood ensure their workers’ safety in red weather warning situations, and are held to account if they do not do so?

I have seen those reports and think that that action was unacceptable. Workers and others were put in jeopardy, and overturned heavy goods vehicles prevented energy companies from getting to the very people whom we heard about in the previous question.

On the issue of workers being expected to travel in such conditions, some essential workers will, unfortunately, be required to support the emergency response. Paul Sweeney will know that the issue is part of employment legislation. I know that his party does not want this Parliament to have responsibility for employment legislation, but his request could be usefully pursued with the UK Government.

That concludes portfolio questions. There will be a brief pause to allow those on the front benches to change places, before we move to the next item of business.