Flood-hit residents in Laxey can’t even get car insurance, it was claimed in Tynwald.

The Arup report into the devastating October 2019 floods was the focus of a series of questions in parliament.

Chief Minister Howard Quayle pledged that all 10 recommendations of the report will be implemented in full.

These include a call for Treasury to investigate the continuing access to and affordability of flood insurance.

Some villagers in Laxey are still not back in their homes and have been unable to get flood insurance.

Garff MHK Martyn Perkins asked Treasury Minister Alfred Cannan whether government could underwrite access to flood insurance for a short period.

Mr Perkins said: ’We have constituents who can’t even get car insurance never mind house insurance or flood insurance because their postcode is situated on Glen Road.’

Mr Cannan replied that taking measures like that would cause government to incur ’significant precedent’ across the island and could potentially expose the taxpayer to substantial risk.

He said the option of the island joining the UK’s Flood Re scheme was under active review by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

This would be the simplest and most effective way for households to get insurance, he said. But with legislative change both in the UK and the island likely to be needed for this, it was ’not necessarily going to lead to a speedy resolution’, Mr Cannan admitted.

Householders in Laxey were forced out of their homes after the devastating floods of October 1, when the Laxey River burst through a wall in Glen Road, following torrential rain.

The Arup report highlights a lack of funding for general river maintenance and reveals Manx Utilities was warned that trees damming a river could cause a flood in Laxey a year before it happened.

Mr Quayle said he could not yet give an exact timeframe for the implementation of the report recommendations but insisted it would be a priority.