Barbara Young, Baroness Young of Old Scone

"I've been working 19-hour days ever since"

"I've been briefing Gordon Brown non-stop, he is very involved."

"We are looking at all the water treatment centres and electricity sub-stations. Then we have our waste folk - there will be a lot of gunge left"

"It dumped so much in such a short space of time - one town had six months' rain in six hours. That kind of thing is unpredictable up to the minute it happens."

"It might be better if we just built a bloody great flood defence for Upton but they don't want that because it would wreck the middle of a pretty village"

"They don't just lose their furniture, they lose their peace of mind. This has been like a mass burglary. The scale is huge and not having water is not good. We are going to start getting very smelly soon, this water is horrible."

"We have been pressing the idea of sustainable urban drainage for over 10 years. Because of the heavy, intense downpours and the fact there is more concrete, it overtops the systems very rapidly."

"When I was looking at what I was going to say during this debate, I was very worried because, when talking about climate and biodiversity decline, you can begin to sound like Private Frazer from “Dad’s Army”—“We’re doomed!”"

"We will have to change our current ways of doing things, of course, where too many developments threaten or destroy some of the most precious habitats for the storage of carbon and the support of biodiversity—vital carbon sinks such as, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said"