21:43 Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)

What can we do? First, we must encourage people to grit their streets by clearly stating that they will not be liable should someone fall. Secondly, we must provide grit bins and, thirdly—I said that it was common sense—we need to fill them with grit. But this is just part of the solution. I believe that local authorities need to be better prepared for severe weather conditions. If we accept the arguments about climate change, we should expect very cold spells to be more frequent. Each time the weather is really bad, all we hear is that this is the worst winter on record. The underlying problem is that local authorities do not have effective plans in place to deal with the conditions, save the hope that the snow and ice will melt within a day or so.

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22:00 Chris Mole

Climate change is an important challenge for everyone, as my hon. Friend suggested. Warmer, wetter winters are predicted, and this, combined with the UK’s record of experiencing relatively mild winters over the past decade, might have lulled highway authorities into a false sense of security. A series of consecutive mild winters meant that authorities might have been tempted to save money by holding lower salt stocks. When a colder winter arrived, the suppliers became inundated with last-minute requests for deliveries of salt.

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