 The next item of business is an urgent question, and I call Michael Marra, please. To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to restore power to households experiencing power cuts following Storm Barra. The First Minister chaired a ministerial meeting of the Scottish Government's resilience room earlier today, which I and others attended to ensure appropriate power restoration measures are in place. There has been no positive activities by either the power companies or the Scottish Government between Storms Arwyn and Barra. The Scottish Government officials remain in constant contact with power companies and ministers are being briefed. Scottish Power Energy Networks announced this morning that all power outages in their area had been reconnected predominantly in the south of Scotland. It was confirmed that welfare support such as food vans had been deployed by the Scottish and Southern Energy Network and resilience partnerships continued to work on a range of welfare issues. The power companies have also restated and published a range of support measures and the compensation that is available to customers. Michael Marra. Thank you, Minister, for that answer. With reports that there are still 600 premises without power principally in my region of northeast Scotland and with further poor weather forecast, it is imperative that the situation is resolved as soon as possible. Storm Barra, of course, comes straight after Storm Arwyn, and many residents have just seen their power supply restored from the damage caused last week. Part of the widespread frustration and, in some places, anger that exists is around the lack of clear communication from the Government and from the energy suppliers. The minister will surely agree that nine days without power is completely unacceptable. When exactly customers expect power to be restored, what guarantee can be given that that will not be pushed back again and again? I acknowledge the inconvenience to members of the public and the hardship that comes. I acknowledge that when I came to make a statement about Storm Arwyn earlier on last week. The issues that we have faced in relation to Storm Barra have been of less gravity than Storm Arwyn. Before I go on to talk about Storm Barra, let me just say that in relation to Storm Arwyn, all Scottish power customers were reconnected to supply by Thursday of last week, and all but a handful of cases in the Scottish and Southern Energy Network were reconnected by Saturday. There were a few isolated properties that were unoccupied that were completed on Sunday morning. The total number of customers that I have been advised just at eight minutes past three that are of supply is 511. The expectation, most of those are in the north-east of Scotland, indeed the Scottish power network is back up and running entirely, subject to the fluctuations that take place in any normal day. The final restoration time of the last fault is expected at 7 pm tonight. Michael Marra, I thank the minister for that further information and the progress that has been made even in these recent hours. I understand and know that there will be an awful lot of hard work from the power companies on going on the ground to reconnect properties. Concerns for vulnerable residents do still remain and lessons must be learned as these weather events look set to continue. Can the cabinet secretary tell us the proportion of those deemed vulnerable who have been contacted and offered support? I believe that it was quite slow in places for that to happen last week. When can we expect to see results from the promised inquiry so that greater resilience can be built ahead of future storms? It is impossible for me to give a figure to Mr Marra about the number of cases that have been contacted because, obviously, people were offered different lengths of time and had varying levels of support provided to them. However, there is a substantial issue that I have been discussing with the power companies and local resilience partnerships, whereby the power companies have an assessment of vulnerable customers. Local resilience partnerships have an assessment. I am not confident that, in all circumstances, they are the same grouping of individuals. We have to make sure that we have a good understanding of the vulnerability of individuals and in what circumstances they are vulnerable. An individual who has access to electricity supply may be able to cope with their vulnerability, but the incident could be about another particular interruption to service. We will look closely at that question because it is important—it is vital—that we are able to deliver support to individuals when they are affected in this way. I have commenced the review already. I expect that the terms of reference will be finalised in the course of this week. I have discussed it already with the power companies. We will, of course, update Parliament as that review makes progress, recognising that we have an immediate necessity of ensuring that we strengthen arrangements, wherever we possibly can do, because of the fact that we may face further incidents of that type over the period of the winter. I have a number of supplementaries. I will be keen to take all of them, as brief as possible, with the questions and the responses, starting with Maurice Golden. Flooding has been a serious concern as those two storms have battered Scotland. Can the Deputy First Minister outline what assessment is being made of damage to flood defences and what extra measures are being put in place over this winter to deal with further storms? Obviously, there is a system of alerts that SIPA operates, which looks at all of the questions about flooding of different forms, whether it is about coastal flooding. That is the particular worry that was acute in relation to storm Barra, but as we found in the south of Scotland, in the Annan area that is river-based flooding in Mr Golden represents a region that has a number of different and challenging circumstances to bear here. The issue of flood defences will be reviewed by the relevant authorities. Obviously, the Government will engage in that exercise, and SIPA undertakes a lot of work in surveying the flood risk across the country. Ministers expect to be updated on any licence to be learnt from that. Emma Harper I have been contacted by constituents regarding the disruptive impact of storm Barra on parts of the south-west in the Renza Galloway, such as Ardill, Sandhead and Dremore. Can the cabinet secretary outline what engagement the Scottish Government has had with Dumfries and Galloway Council regarding the impact of storm Barra and what support the Government is able to offer to the local authority and to help those living in affected areas? The Government's regional resilience co-ordinators are in place, and they are supporting local responders across Scotland, including in the Dumfries and Galloway area. I recognise the challenges from coastal flooding that will have taken place in those communities. In relation to financial support, my colleague the public finance minister who sits alongside me on the front bench here has activated the bellwind scheme in relation to both storm Barra, so that opens up the opportunity for local authorities to put legitimate financial claims to the Government for consideration. Finlay Carson The Deputy First Minister is well aware that there has been severe damage right across the coast of Dumfries and Galloway. In particular, 40ft of Dremore harbour has been destroyed. It is a huge setback to the community group that recently took over ownership of the harbour with a view to providing more marine-based services to support the local fragile economy. Can the Government commit to engaging work with the community to address this devastating setback to its ambitions? I would be delighted to give that commitment. As Mr Carson will perhaps recall, I visited Annan a few weeks ago in the aftermath of a previous storm incident. One of the issues there was the loss of two very significant footpath river crossings. Footbridges is the word that I am looking for. I agreed to engage constructively with the local community once they had an opportunity to consider their next steps in the circumstances at Dremore. Obviously, the involvement of our community group is a really welcome endeavour and we will certainly happily engage with them to see what we can put in place to practically support their efforts. After storm Arwyn, it is estimated that in excess of 1 million cubic metres of timber has been blown down in Scotland. That is around about 20 per cent of the annual harvest. After visiting the devastation in Berwickshire yesterday, constituents are saying that felling legislation urgently needs revisited in light of the storm to help the industry with the clear-up and replanting. Can I ask the Deputy First Minister what additional resource is being provided to Scottish Forestry to fast-track those applications? We will obviously look at that issue. I acknowledge the reality of the point that Rachael Hamilton puts to me. Some of the aerial footage is terrifying about the loss of forestry stock that has happened. Obviously, there are very practical steps that have to be taken to try to resolve that. We have, of course, a great deal of expertise to bring to this discussion and I will make sure that the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs is able to engage appropriately with the industry and the Government will take whatever steps are necessary to assist in any way. Thank you very much. That concludes this item of business. It will be a brief pause before we move to the next item of business.