Prime Minister Boris Johnson calls emergency flooding meeting after Jeremy Corbyn criticism

Boris Johnson helps with the clean up at an opticians in Matlock, Derbyshire, on November 8 after it was affected by flooding (Photo: Danny Lawson).

The Prime Minister last night agreed to chair an emergency meeting over flooding in the North of England in the wake of criticism by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

The Labour leader told Boris Johnson that if it had happened in the South, the response would have been faster.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, Mr Corbyn urged the PM to “take personal charge of the Government’s response to the devastating flooding we have seen over the past few days”.

He said: “We need full assurance from the Government that every resource is being utilised to aid those that need it and protect against future potential floods.”

In response, a Government spokesperson said: “The Prime Minister will chair an emergency COBRA meeting tomorrow to discuss the response to recent flooding.”

It comes after the Prime Minister’s visit to Matlock in Derbyshire on Friday, in which he said flooding “is not looking like something we need to escalate to the level of a national emergency”.

But Mr Corbyn said he disagreed with Mr Johnson’s assessment that this is not a ‘national emergency’. “If this had happened in Surrey, not Yorkshire or the East Midlands, it seems far more likely that a national emergency would have been declared.”