B

Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 29 October 2025

Debate

Jamaica: Hurricane Melissa

Contribution

I compliment the work of CDEMA because it is crucial when these things happen to have a locally co-ordinated response. CDEMA understands the routes between islands, it understands the community, it has very strong connections and it knows how to get things done far more quickly than any multilateral international agency just showing up would, so I echo what the noble Lord says about that. We will continue to work with our partners internationally as this unfolds and we are able to assess exactly what is needed, but it is vital that the Government of Jamaica are in charge of this: they know what is needed and are able to hold the ring on this. They are more than capable of doing that, and we will work closely with them. On the issue the noble Lord raised about the Caribbean fund, I am looking closely at the moment at our allocations for the next few years, very conscious of the impact that that resilience funding, as I think of it, has been able to achieve so far. That is one of the reasons why hopefully the infrastructure in the region will be able to withstand these events far better—maybe not completely, but better than it has been able to in the past. I will keep that in mind.

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