27/02/2017 House of Commons

have been problems with that contract in its early days. We

believe this situation is improving but there still to be made. Order.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. A plethora of points of order. Last

Friday after debates on Private Members' Bills, the honourable

member for Redcar left the chamber and briefed to the media at large

that my speech on the Istanbul convention had stopped her bill from

being debated and had in effect blocked it, despite me saying I

supported her bill. This has led to my office receiving some widespread

and unjustified abuse that they should not be subjected to. The

honourable lady for Redcar's bill was the eighth to be considered on

Friday. You have a better memory for parliamentary proceedings the mates

but perhaps you could tell me the last time the eight Bill was

received for debate. I have asked the library to tell me, so far they

have gone back 12 years and have not found one example of when the eighth

bill for debate was reached. If I had not spoken, we would still not

have reached that Bill but by this logic, the honourable lady for Banff

and Buchan should be blamed for blocking it by refusing to have her

report stayed. The animal cruelty Bill... The honourable gentleman

must come to a point of order for me, but he equally must be heard. It

could still have been nobbled at the end of the day but must have been

blocked by sombre day, I was not in the chamber at the time, so could

you confirm that no analysis of the procedure is good believe my speech

on the first bill could have prevented the eighth bill from

taking place, and I could not have blocked the bill as I was not in the

chamber when it was objected to by somebody else? Could to confirm I am

straightforward, if I say I support a bill then I support it, and could

you finally make it clear that it is irresponsible for members to give

the public a false picture of proceedings and dangerous because it

encourages some violent abuse on our stuff which can have some dangerous

consequences? I am grateful to him for his point of order and advance

notice of it. First, nothing disorderly occurred on Friday.

Secondly, although I understand the disappointment of the honourable

member for Redcar at the failure to progress of her bill, it would be

extremely unusual for the eighth bill to make progress. Thirdly, the

record shows that when mood, the bill was objected to at the point at

which business was interrupted, namely to 30 PM. I have been

informed by the honourable gentleman and I do not disputed that he was

not present and could not have objected to wood. Let me conclude by

saying this in response to the honourable gentleman. He has on a

number of occasions explicitly block bills, possibly by shouting objects

and certainly I developing his arguments at a leisurely pace on

bills which she thinks require his forensic scrutiny, in other words he

has by one means or another blocked many bills. He did not block this

bill, and as a point of fact, because I believe in the

intelligibility of our proceedings and people not running away with the

wrong idea, he did not block the honourable member's Bill, and the

last point I would make, to the honourable gentleman and to other

members, I think it would help if members in all parts of the House

would treat each other with courtesy. I don't want to have to

arbitrate in matters like this but where I have been asked fact you

will questions I have given fact answers. Having heard the point of

order and responded, I think it only fair to hear the honourable member

for Redcar. I would like to thank the honourable member for advanced

foresight of his comments. There is never any excuse to abuse MPs and

his staff should not have had to wade through these messages.

Feelings around animal cruelty run high but I would like to clarify

that in what I've put out to the media I was clear it was the Tory

whips to block the bill, and I would like to say to the honourable

gentleman, being my first Private Members' Bill and having had

positive comments from colleagues on the other side of the House

discussing whether it would go through, I still believe there is a

matter of record that the honourable gentleman spoke for over 90 minutes

on the first bill and everyone in the House should be aware of the

consequences of their actions on bills further down the order vapour.

I don't think I should adjudicate on that because the honourable

gentleman was in order speaking as he did, but he has made his point

and she has made hers and some will agree with her. With reference to

what she said about the grips of Jacqueline, I was not here but I was

here to see the success of the Istanbul convention bill, then I had

to go to make own constituency. Whips do tend to object, it is quite

commonplace, they think it is one of their functions from time to time,

amongst other miscellaneous functions, sometimes subterranean

functions but we should not well on that. I should not make such a

disobliging opinion on grips. It always based on trust and

understanding, I didn't trust them and they didn't understand me. In a

written statement last Thursday, ministers announced restrictions on

eligibility payment and then at the weekend a minister made, which it

isn't the needs of people mental health problems. Have you had any

notice of a request from the minister to explain those changes to

entitlement to PIP? If there hasn't been such a request, can you advise

how we ensure ministers answer questions on what they are doing and

why, given the importance of the matter which I know you understand

as well as any member. I am grateful to him for putting me in the

picture. I understand there was a written statement last Thursday,

maybe that doesn't satisfy the palate of the right honourable

gentleman or of other members, that is where matters stand at present. I

mustn't leave the witness, he is an assiduous member of this House, if

he is dissatisfied and wishes to use a parliamentary vehicle to shine

further a light on this matter, he must deploy his wits and sagacity to

ensure he has that opportunity. I get the impression he feels there

has been insufficient attention to the matter. I am not aware of

insulting remarks being made and I am sorry if that is the case, I

cannot adjudicate on the matter because I am not familiar with them

but I hope he will pursue the matter if he wishes to do so through the

use of the table office and such mechanisms are as are provided.

Further point of order. Would it not be normal convention given that my

honourable friend for Mid Norfolk is not present to elucidate his views

and they have been impugned by inadvertently, by the right

honourable gentleman for his time, would it not be normal that he would

have given advance notice given he has mentioned my honourable friend

before he must quote seven? As I have been advised and would have

been inclined to say, no one in this case, because there has been no

imputation of dishonour against an individual. The requirement to

notify applies where a particular personal attack is intended to be

directed. Where there is a MoD generalised complaint, no prior

notification is required. Through a speedy swivelling around by the

clerk of the House to advise me, I am fortified by my conviction based

on his 30 years experience, but I thank the member for raising his

concern. My constituency is due to be expelled from the UK tomorrow,

deported to Sri Lanka from her she and her family fled. In three

months' time she could complete her degree in engineering at Bangor

University and with the expected to get a first. Her head of School

describes her as exceptionally diligent and there is a worldwide

shortage of graduates in her subject. She followed regulations

meticulously but when she was called to Caernarvon police station last

week she was arrested and then transferred to your own sweat. I

contacted the Immigration Minister to ask him to exercise discretion in

her case, which are support in the public with 30,000 people signing a

petition, and support from this House. So far the minister has not

replied. She is due to leave tomorrow. What advice can you give

me so I as a backbencher can hold the Government to account on the

scandalous case? For notice of this point of order, he has spoken with

his customary eloquence in support of his skin to joint. This is not a

point of order for the chair but his remarks on this serious and pressing

matter will have been heard on the Treasury bench and I hope they will

have been noted. If the honourable gentleman seeks my advice, it would

be that he should seek to contact the Immigration Minister, from

memory of the honourable member for Scarborough and Whitby, personally

today. If the raw no further points of order, we can now to the motion

on the supplementary estimate for the Department for environment, Food

and Rural Affairs. To move the motion formally... I beg to move.

The question is as on the order paper. To initiate the debate I

called the chair of the environment, Food and Rural Affairs select

committee to the House. It's a pleasure to open this debate on the

estimate stay on the future of flood prevention. Flooding is an issue you

rarely consider until it happens. When it's dry in the we talk about

direct and when it starts to rain we have to deal with flood. In the

round we have to deal with both. It can be tempting to disregard flood

defences and resilience measures when the weather is dry but I

believe and the select committee believes that this would be a grave

error. Defences are a vital part of this

countries infrastructure. With our experience of more severe storms as

climate change continues, flooding is only likely to get worse. We have

seen recently in the high tides back came down the eastern side of the

country, fortunately they did not cause massive flooding but can in

future. I was flooded back in the 1980s and we lost a lot of sheep

with huge tidal floods on the west of the country and when these

barriers are overcome, you need the right infrastructure. The committee

report in November 2016 published its future floods prevention report.

The report found flood prevention in the UK is fragmented. It can be

inefficient and sometimes ineffective and has let people down.

The winter of 2015 and 2016 broke rainfall records and storms Desmond,

Eva and Frank disrupted communities in the north, Cumbria and York in

particular. Storm Desmond cost of the UK more than ?5 billion and the

impact is not just economic. It is also about the individual businesses

and residents and all of those who are affected by flooding and

sometimes the amount of time it can be to get people back in their homes

or businesses up and running again. Many communities live in fear a

disaster is just one downpour away. There is no doubt we seem to be

getting now huge periods where we have a long period of dry weather

and then a huge amount of rain, two or 300 millimetres in 20 or 30 hours

and this is... I do not blame the minister or the government for this

amount of rainfall coming so quickly! But what we do need to be

aware of and ready to try and mitigate some of the worse of the

disasters that happen when we have these high levels of rainfall over a

quick time. I personally do understand the concerns of many

parts of the country when they are underwater for many months and you

can only see what happens in the past and I am sure my honourable

friend from Taunton will talk about it later, what happened in Somerset

where you saw a huge amount of water for three months and more that was

devastating for property and the land because it not only stayed

there for a long time but created a huge amount of debris, vegetation

was lost, the wildlife was lost and so it was a disaster for residents

and farmers but also from a conservation point of view. While

front line flooding and rescue service work tirelessly to help

those affected, our system for managing flood risk can and does

fail on occasions. I want to talk about the importance of the

recommendations we make in the future flood prevention report. I

then want to touch briefly on what the government's response has been

and what action Defra has so far taken. I will then conclude by

outlining what the committee believes the government must do to

prove the situation further. -- improve the situation. Our

recommendations, what were they? The Defra committee report made

recommendations reducing the risk to 5 million people of flooding, we

also looked into the one in 100 years flood and the way we deal with

risk because one of the problems is that if you have been flooded now,

and you are in a one in 100 years risk of people think another 99

years and there will be safe from floods but that is not the case. It

is a case if you are in a high flood risk area, you remain in that area

until better defences are created or there is resilience measures put in

place but you will always remain in a pretty high risk area. I give way.

I thank him and he brings back many memories of these terrible floods

but would he agree communication is important in the flooding case, one

thing that came from the Select Committee report was we should not

use this terminology any more calling things a 100 year flooding

incident, we should have a different way of warning people about how

serious floods are without these years attached to them because it is

misleading. I thank her very much for the intervention and she is

right and what the evidence we took and saw from individuals that talk

to us was where the communities get together and where they warn each

other what is happening, it really does help because the environment

agency and others can give the warnings and there are the fire

brigade and the environment agency and local authority staff help but

in the end it is the communities themselves where they have been

flooded, they have built up a resilience and that does help in

warning for the future. I give way. Would you join with me in the paid

tribute to flood wardens who in many towns like my constituency is

waiting for three schemes this year. All the work of volunteers do is so

important to the response when floodwaters rise. I thank him very

much for his intervention because he is right. Yes, the local authorities

and the environment agency, the drainage board but it is the local

people when they come together, they know exactly what is happening on

the ground, they know they can react quickly and if you have flood

wardens then you can deal with it quickly. In Axminster I had an

incident where a shopping trolley went into a culvert, the whole place

flooded, bungalows and flooded and if we had someone there that could

serve taken out the shopping trolley locally, that flood would have been

stopped. This is what we are learning all the time. It makes sure

the resources go further as well. One of the most important

recommendations we must take more of our holistic approach, it sounds

obvious but we need to work with nature rather than against it. If we

slow the flow of the water by using natural remedies like planting trees

we will see more and better flood prevention. We must allow water to

naturally flood fields on a natural flood plain instead of urban areas,

this would be a much cheaper and more cost-effective way of

preventing floods. I will give way. I thank him for giving way. Does he

agree that as we look towards how we spend farming subsidies in the wake

of Brexit that we ought to look at them to address the issues he

mentioned perhaps allowing farmers to allow the fields to flood

sometimes as a form of natural flood defence. I think she must have X-ray

site because my next paragraph of my notes here very much talks about how

we deal with farming and farmers and she is right and we have an

opportunity now when we do not have to follow the common agricultural

policy to have something that is cost-effective to allow farmers to

store water when they are able to store it and it has to be one of

these systems where if farmers have to do is store water for a short

period and it is on grassland, it will have little effect on their

crop and profitability but if they store it on arable land and for a

long period, they need greater compensation so in some respects we

need to look in detail at how we do this and we will have that

opportunity. I give way. I'm grateful. Is he familiar with the

practice by some local authorities diverted water from roads onto

farmers fields without permission that's washing away topsoil of the

sortie is about to touch on in his and introducing into sensitive

sites? He makes an important point because if you are going to allow

water to go out on land to save a town or village from flooding, then

the farmer needs the land owner needs doubt about it, needs to

manage it properly, and it does have to be done in agreement so some

times these things are done naturally in exceptional

circumstances but once done, there needs to be a plan if they need to

be done again in future. He raises a good point. In the end, agricultural

land can be useful for storing water but you must remember it is also

used the growing crops and keeping stock and therefore you have to be

sure the farmer can farm that land as well as manage it for water and

that's why we need to deal with this by agreement. We had bad severe

flooding in the Ribble Valley and drank and share in 2015, he mentions

agricultural land on Friday with Woodland Trust and revocable trust I

planted trees on the river bank, does he agree with me that we need

to look again at the amount of trees being planted and the usefulness of

planting trees in stopping soil erosion and indeed holding a lot of

the water that otherwise goes to ground? He makes a very good point

because it is not just about planting trees, it is where we plant

the trees. Every plant them along the field or banks and rivers we can

hold back the water and hold back the soil because often it is the

soil and debris washed from the field which contributes to the

flood. It is not just the number of trees, it is making sure we are

smart in where we plant them and the way we plant them because when we

visited the North of England, when the Forestry Commission were

planting trees, they turned soil up and put it into a furrow and planted

a tree on the top of the furrow, the trouble is you then have two gullies

either side which allows the water to run down quickly if the trees are

planted on a slope so over the years there are many things we can do but

he makes a good point, planting trees, holding the soil back and

holding the water back for long enough for the major flood to go

through, that is what much of the work was done. I thank him for

giving way. I cannot let the moment pass not to intervene, soil is such

an important part of the ecosystem and would he agree we lose it in

flood water at our peril because that is the lifeblood we use to grow

the crops. Also she will be aware many fields only have so much

topsoil on them and it is the topsoil that is fertile and that you

grow your crop in the so if you lose the topsoil into the streams and

rivers, you have lost a lot of your fertile soil on your field so I

think most farmers when presented with a plan to save their soil and

the way they manage their fields can see a big advantage but we need to

work together with the farming community rather than sometimes

imposing our will upon them. If we can persuade them there are good

reasons for managing soil in a different way then perhaps we can

get further with it and use carrots and not sticks! I am sure the

minister has many carrots to offer today and it will be interesting to

see when she sums up. However, we need to take a closer look at

developments in built-up areas affected by flood risk. I have said

this before, it is not only... Naturally we have laws we hope will

restrict most building in flood plains and sometimes it is breached

but on the whole it is not. But there is a need in my view, most

areas that are flooded very little of that water actually that floods

those areas lands on that area that is flooding. It usually comes from

above and therefore if you are building in the future, we need to

actually look at not stopping the building but is looking if you are

building a housing development, several hundred houses or a

thousand, then you can look to capture the run-off of water and

everything that comes from that estate including the roads and

capture that in ponds and underneath reservoirs and tanks underneath the

homes and you can build properly Brazilian measures to make sure the

situation... -- resilience measures. And make the situation better rather

than worse. We can develop but we do not always given of consideration

further downstream as what is to happen when we can build.

There is a lot of house building going on where part of the condition

was to tank to go in prior to the building of the houses that they

seem to have started building and occupying the houses before they

have that tanks. Does he agree that as part of planning conditions

developers need to abide by rules set out local authorities because of

the imagery this can cause? He makes a good point again because sometimes

with planning conditions, they flout them or they are not enforced

properly and then they will say due to the economic situation we cannot

put in these measures. We want to make sure these are in place and

houses should not be built unless they are in place and that is key. I

know the Defra Minister will pass that on because this is a planning

matter but if we're going to plan for future development, we need to

plan it properly because I don't think any of us are against

development but we need the right development, and if we can make a

feature of this, we could have leisure facilities as well as the

building, so there is a planning game. The recommendation in our

report includes a need for a new governor 's model to deal with

flooding. As part of our inquiry the committee visited the Netherlands to

see how they had managed flooding. 25% of land is below sea level, half

of the population live in flood prone areas so they know a lot about

flooding. The threat of flooding and to water management being

administered hand in hand as early as the 13th century. As the threat

in the UK grows, we need to borrow ideas from the Dutch and mirror

their local focus on how they deal locally and nationally with floods.

We need only look at the fence of this country that were drained by

Dutch engineers and the part of Somerset where I still have my farm

was also drained by Dutch engineers, so they do know exactly how to deal

with water because if they don't, they don't have a contrary. I

certainly will. Does he share my disappointment that many of the

things talked about in this report were being discussed in this House a

dozen years ago and have still not been implemented, for example of the

building back better recommendation of paragraphs 60? I disgusted with

the Association of British insurers in 2006. During that time the Labour

and coalition government cut spending on flood defences. The

honourable gentleman makes a good point because one of the points we

tried to make is not necessarily a party political one. If you look at

the last Labour government, the spending on flooding went down into

right times and up in wet times and the same happened with the coalition

and we can argue today about the figures but they very much follow

the same pattern and I think that is what we are trying to do with this

report is put in the proper resilience measures and learn from

what's happening, so I'd take his point. We therefore talk about the

Dutch system, the ADF would be to set up a regional flood and coastal

waters that then moves down to local authorities, to local drainage

boards where the exist and landowners and businesses to have a

broad catchment races. Government should undertake to overhaul flood

risk management, including a new English rivers and coastal

authorities accountable for delivering flood protection, because

again in the Netherlands they have a flood commissioner who goes to the

Dutch parliament, is answerable to Parliament and also at a local

level, and it gives a real focus. We may not have to go through to the

full management of the system of the Dutch but we could learn many things

from it, even if we did that through the Environment Agency and others

altering how that runs and how it is more answerable to Parliament and to

the local authorities and drainage boards and landowners because I am

convinced until we get a system that works from the top and then from the

bottom up as well, we won't make the best use of our resources because

resources will always be pressed. The Commissioner could also hold

those carrying out flood prevention works to recount because you have to

get the best value for money. I will give way. He will be aware because

his report clearly says that firefighters provide the first line

service and a vital service to flooded areas. Does she agree with

me and could he give a report on how further the Government is going to

getting this to be a statutory duty of the Fire Service, something that

has been asked for it through the last 12 years, why can we not do

this? Scotland and Northern Ireland have done it and Wales are about to

do it. The honourable lady from Vauxhall makes a good point and the

gentleman behind her from popular will be making some good points as

far as the Fire Service is concerned. We took evidence from the

Fire Service and it is not always recognised the work and the amount

of time the Fire Service contribute to floods and I think the

Environment Agency have large pumps that can move huge volumes of water

short distances at the fire brigade have all those puns and can pump out

properties and deal with it on the ground, and it is not recognised

enough within the system and there is work to be done there and it will

be interesting to see the point made and the reply from the minister.

Final point on management is that by overhauling the way we manage the

whole system we can go a long way to minimise them devastating toll and

affect on local areas and local people. I now move on to the

Government's response to our report. Unfortunately the response which was

published last month was, in my view, a little disappointing. We

found the response to be not of two standard as it addressed our key

recommendations in only a cursory way. We then asked for more

information from ministers in time for this debate and in fairness the

minister today wrote to that committee on February 16. We welcome

her commitment to record and report from 2018 to 2019 onwards on how

many schemes will be included in the natural flood management and that

will be very important because I believe we need to make sure that

more natural flood management is carried out. The minister, we

welcome this step and your commitment to refresh the National

Flood and coastal erosion management strategy for England and we hope it

will reflect many of the findings of our inquiry. The actions we would

like to see in our report, to be fair to the Government Defra has

made progress on some of the issues raised including catchment scale and

approaches, flood management being embedded more firmly in plans, local

partnerships have also made progress in coordinating action in river

basins and I think the Government also believes this, we need to make

sure that not all flood areas fit neatly into local authority

boundaries, you need a whole catchment area that you bring in to

hold the water. Some areas you will need to speed up the water to get it

out to sea, other areas you will have to slow it down and we will

need to put in leaking dams and to hold that water in some areas, some

areas will need to be dredged or silted, whatever the language you

want to use in order to get the water flowing more quickly. He is

making an impassioned speech. Which he recognised the work of the

Environment Agency along the Medway River and the work they have done in

bringing stakeholders together so we have a continuous theme of progress

rather than areas were one area is fixed only to flood an area

downstream? I welcome the work of the Environment Agency in Medway,

where Walker can move quite quickly so if you're not careful it will

move too quickly and flood further downstream, and that will be

essential as we do our work and I think the one thing we sort through

the whole report is that one size does not fit all because some areas

need the water slowed down, other areas need it speeded up and we have

to deal with it catchment area by catchment area, and what will be

fascinating now is that we are moving into more of a drought

situation before too long and will be looking about how we use our

rivers to move the water around, because for the first two years I

was in this House, the select committee talked about nothing but

drought and only when it started raining in 2012 and didn't stop did

we think much about flood. Funding for flood risk management,

government has committed to a six-year programme with a capital

probe -- budget of 2.5 billion. While we welcome this, it is

unlikely to deliver sufficient protection in future decades. By the

end of this year the Government must publish its 25 year ambition for

flood risk reduction and the costs of securing this against climate

change scenarios. The Government rejected this recommendation. The

public needs to know how communities will be affected and plans need to

be put in place to do with flood risk, not just from fresh water that

falls in the wake of rain will also coastal flooding. We initially

recommended that catchment scale measures be adopted on a wider

scale, Defra is doing more to promote these approaches, trying

natural flood measurement measures like the restoring of leaky dams and

tree planting. We welcome this and the additional funding of 15 million

in the Autumn Statement, but we need more detail on how much of the 2.5

billion capital programme for flood management will use natural flood

management. Ministers' commitment to include this in their report is

therefore welcome but we would welcome more information on how you

plan to make sure every catchment area uses natural flood management

to maximise the extent appropriate to that river basin because there is

no doubt, going back to the Netherlands, we saw very much that

they meandered some rivers, they are restoring more water in the rivers

as well as farmland, and I therefore look forward to the debate and

members' contributions and to the minister summing up at the end.

Before I call Mary Cray to respond to the motion, there are a lot of

people in the next debate, twice the number as this debate, so I suggest

an informal speaking limit of six minutes. We will see how we get on

that otherwise there are twice the number of speakers in the next

debate, so they get even more squeezed.

I rise to introduce the environment committee who have done a report in

flooding and we found a lack of long-term strategic planning for

flood risk, we found the government had not been doing enough to ensure

the resilience of nationally significant infrastructure and

crucially a stop, start approach to flood defence funding and a lack of

support for local councils. We called on government to take a

proactive approach to funding, to make companies operating keep

digital energy and transport infrastructure report on their

preparedness levels for flooding and the resilience targets and we call

for more support for councils to prepare plans to deal with flooding

and to publish a 25 year plan for flooding alongside the long-awaited

and much delayed 25 year plan for the environment. We are still

waiting. Before I move on, I want to say a few words about climate

change. Flooding is the greatest risk our country faces from climate

change and the risks are all that is significant as honourable members

have said and will increase as a result of climate change. If global

temperatures are kept below 2 degrees, the UK faces a rising

threat from surface water in those intense rainfall patterns, and

coastal erosion and tidal surges and an alluvial flooding and cities like

Harle, it is important to stress face a threat from all three

sources, there are some aerials that are more vulnerable than others. The

forecasts for sea level rises very between 50 and 100 centimetres by

the end of the century making tidal surges bigger, and we saw how

exposed the North Sea coast is and East of England coast, in January

the coastal town of Jay Wick in Essex which suffered so previously

in the 1950s was evacuated by the army it is good to see there is a

faster response time from government in these very fast moving

life-and-death situations but we need to be able to scale back up in

the event that the North Sea surge happens simultaneously along the

whole of the eastern coast. Various predictions say rainfall could be 20

to 30% higher over the next ten years, according to the forecasts

and the government flood resilience review. So planning for our

children, we need to think about the next ten years. There are risks to

all nations and all sectors of the economy and in the latest risk

assessment, the committee said current levels of adaptation are

projected to be insignificant to avoid, insufficient, sorry, to avoid

coastal erosion risks so we are not yet doing what we need to do to

match the scale of the risk. I will give way. I hope she shares my

disappointment at the slow rate of progress, the adaptation measures in

the climate change act are a direct result of a private members bill I

introduced about ten years ago on this issue and we have made almost

no progress. There has been some progress but we need to move much

further and faster as the scale and nature of the risk becomes more

apparent and as the science develops in this area and my concern is that

government policy is not changing fast enough to meet the change in

the scientific forecasts. Does she share my concern that when the

floods hit Cumbria and other areas in Christmas 2015, the government

was using out of date modelling to predict, they were not using the

most up-to-date modelling and that is the most important thing so we

can try to predict what will come next? She is absolutely right. Her

expertise on the committee has been invaluable. What the committee is

saying is increased flood risk will affect property values, business

revenues and threatens the viability is of some communities. If we look

at a worse scenario, from the risk assessment, if global temperatures

rise by 4 degrees, the number of UK households at significant risk of

flooding will double from 860,000 to 1.9 million in 2050. These are stark

and concerning figures. I know from my constituency the misery flooding

can bring, the 2007 floods, we had a thousand homes were flooded in

Wakefield and after that, my friend the Northampton, Wolverhampton, said

successive governments cut funding and that was a year when funding was

cut and labour cut it but they cut the flood defence programme and I

lobbied hard to get the money put back in, we got ?15 million for

cities, the defences were completed in 2012 and thanks to those

differences grow Wakefield escaped the worst of the 2015 storms which

is important. But nationally we have had a roller-coaster approach to

funding, in the last Parliament flood funding was initially cut by

27% and then it was put back after the 2013 floods and we know from the

review flood defences which was eventually published by my committee

that these government cuts resulted in a decline in the condition of

critical flood defences so that review showed the proportion of key

flood defence assets that met the required condition fell from 99

cents in 2011 and 12 to 94% in 2013 so in those three years, you had a

pretty large decline in mission critical flood defence assets that

were all ready built -- 99%. We believe it is an unacceptable risk

for communities that think they have defences can sleep easy in their

beds when it is raining so the more flood defences the government causes

to be built, the more maintenance budget needs to increase in line

with that, you cannot keep spending more on capital and cutting the

revenue budgets. So, the failure of the barrier in York shows what

happens when critical flood assets fail, it was built on the cheap in

the 1980s, not build the correct height with only two mechanisms so

when one mechanism, the electrics were overtopped and water got in,

they were left, the local flood engineers were left with no choice

but to raise the barrier with little notice and to flood hundreds of

homes in the city and my honourable friend for York will have a great

deal to say on that afterwards. The government is talking about spending

more on flood defences and one mechanism they are using is the

partnership funding but my committee looked into the sources of the

partnership funding and said actually 85% is coming from public

sector bodies so we are robbing Peter, government cuts centrally and

then we go to hard-pressed council budgets who have seen their budgets

for and say do you fancy stumping up for some flood defence assets for

your town or city and leaving them with no choice but to say yes. 15%

is coming from the private sector and it is not an equal playing field

because any private sector company that gives government money get tax

relief on that so-called donation. The government announces at the

Spending Review the amount they will spend and we had that in 2015, the

government said two point, 2.5 million and then we have the floods,

storm Desmond and Frank and the government says it isn't adequate,

we will give you an extra 700 million. Stop, start. Cut when it is

dry, spend when it rains. And then the member for Penrith and Defra

minister said the extra 700 million would be spent according to a

political calculation. I will give way. We have increased spending, we

have not cut anything. The coalition budget in 2010, she was a new member

of Parliament then, cut the flood defence budget by 27%. And of course

the way she is raising the money, the extra ?700 million announced in

the budget in March 2016 came from a staff tax so the money comes from an

increase in insurance premium tax and that raises ?200 million a year

on every insurance policy in the country, car drivers pay for flood

defences, people who own pets pay for flood defences and we can argue

whether that is the most transparent way of raising money for flood

infrastructure. I want to talk about the committees report and the

criticisms on infrastructure resilience, we saw before Christmas

Storm Angus causing landslips and ballast water ways and on railway

lines in Devon and Scotland. As storms always do, bringing travel

disruption and last winters floods in Leeds showed key energy, digital

and transport infrastructure and the bridge being washed away in

Tadcaster only just reopened over a year after the floods. It is not

well protected and roads and railways going down has a huge

impact on the economics of the area. The governments own national flood

resilience review found 500 sites with nationally significant

infrastructure vulnerable to flooding. And in Yorkshire in the

winter floods of 2015 nine electricity substations and 110

water pumping stations were affected by flooding and keeping the water

supply going and sewage under control is absolutely vital bust up

my committee recommended that the government mandate energy companies

and water companies to meet a one in 200 year flood resilience target for

brisk and I'm afraid the government response was disappointing saying we

do not think that is the best way of doing it but it does not say what is

the best way. I'm interested to hear, we cannot have tumbleweed as a

strategy listing to the wind and hoping it is not coming our way. We

think the minimum standards for energy company transport

infrastructure companies and digital telecommunications companies is

vital, let's not forget in Leeds the railway lines were flooded out of

Leeds, the police radios went down so West Yorkshire Police were unable

to work out where to send their emergency response vehicles in the

middle of a civil emergency and this is simply not good enough and if

that happens on Boxing Day, on a normal working day we would have had

tens of thousands of people stranded in the city centre of Leeds with

nowhere to spend the night and a bigger civil emergency response. We

had the long-awaited national flood resilience review published in

September, it was good to hear some of the things happening, the mobile

flood defences but we think flood defences is a sticking plaster

solution, but they fail in one third of the time they use so they will

only work two times out of three and they did not say anything about the

risk from heavy rainfall overwhelming sewers. No one likes to

talk about sewage though some people might think there is a lot of it

goes on in his place! But not in this current debate. We need this

comprehensive long-term strategy to properly deal with the really

granular issues around flood risk. None more important than the way

local authorities have to deal with flood planning and prevention. 30%

of local authorities in September 2016 simply did not have the

completed plan flood risk and a quarter of lead authorities did not

have a strategy. How are we as the public and members of this placement

to scrutinise whether the plans are adequate and the response is

adequate if they simply do not exist? We also know the environment

agency provides advice to local councils about where new housing

developments should be built to minimise flood risk and we heard

usually the advice is followed but in 2013 almost 10,000 homes were

built in high flood risk areas and the extent to which the environment

agency's advice on where or whether to build is systematically

monitored, reported followed up to the system is simply not known and

there was nothing wrong with building new homes, Southwark and

this place is at risk of blood but people are still building new homes

in London because there is the Thames Barrier. There was nothing

wrong with building in flood risk areas if they are protected. This is

not systematically monitored. We want more help going from Defra and

DCLG to help councils adopt those local flood plans and then follow

the map. In the wake of the winter storms in 2015, the then Prime

minister appointed flood envoys to coordinate a response, the member

for Penrith and The Border in Cumbria and the Mentha Scarborough

and Whitby Yorkshire. There was some question raised about

whether these posts transferred with the new government and the new Prime

Minister. I wrote to the Secretary of State for Defra injure light, she

responded in September at saying she was thinking about it and in January

we got a reply saying they were still in post. It should not take

six months to reply to a committee chair to let us know whether in the

event of a flood these two ministers are still coordinating the response.

What would have happened there flooding had taken place? This is

not acceptable. On insurance, last winced's devastating cost across the

whole economy, Mike committee visited Leeds we had particular

access around access to insurance. We had people coming from Calderdale

were up to 80% of businesses were affected by the flooding, Osman

annual basis by a fluvial flooding and surface flooding. The floods

cost SMEs over ?40 million. The floods in Leeds were the worst since

1866 and Leeds University told Mike committee that 60% of local

businesses had been unable to obtain a quotation for insurance since last

winced's floods. We heard one business whose access had risen from

?1000 to 20 by -- 250,000 after the floods. Another business's premium

had risen, the excess increased 40% to ?10,000 but they would only get

that insurance if they stumped up ?400,000 to build new flood

defences. When the committee on climate change says the economic

viability of some areas is being threatened, the way incher runs

companies are failing to rise to this risk and stamped with

communities is putting hold parts of our country at risk of becoming

economically unviable, so I will give way. Thank you, and I wonder if

she has looked at the other report we are discussing and the assertion

with another that there is not market failure when it comes to

providing affordable insurance flood risk businesses. If these excesses

are not flood -- market failure, I wonder what is. She is right, there

is market failure, businesses are advised to shop around, there are

community schemes which tried to use market power to purchase schemes

effectively, and one of those is running in Calder Valley, but it

shouldn't have to come to this. We want to see insurance company

standing alongside this. They lobbied long and hard to mitigate

their risk from climate change and the Government set up a scheme,

another insurance tax on contents premiums and buildings premiums, so

every homeowner in the country is stumping up for that so insurers

don't have to pay bed and transferred that risk to the

Government. I think they need to cut businesses some slack and rise to

these challenges. I have had a few businesses head, one in particular

which is relatively small yet because it has been hectic couple of

times by flooding the insurance premium is now way into the

thousands, it makes it more complicated because they live on the

same premise as where the business is. Surely where the flood really

kicks in to protect businesses, it should protect premises and if it is

suitable to pool risks for houses, it should be the same for

businesses. It is important we don't end up with every taxpayer

subsidising the private sector but I think they government needs to look

at innovative mechanisms which do not place another burden on the

already hard-pressed householder or a car driver who have seen their

insurance premiums go up as a result of mitigating this risk, so to

conclude, failing to adequately fund flood defences is playing Russian

roulette with people's homes and businesses. I talked about my

committee's concerns, the roller coasters funding instead of

steady-state funding, vague targets, vulnerable transport and energy

infrastructure where the Government lacks the will to work with these

companies to get them to have flood resilient assets and local councils

who are left to get on with it by themselves. The storms may have

receded for now at the clean-up in some areas across the country is

still going on, and the lessons we draw from these two committees'

reports will shape our winters and our summers for decades to come. The

financing of flood defences is paramount importance to my

constituency as my borough has been hit on a number of occasions, most

devastating in 1953, which caused a loss of life with 58 residents and

the evacuation of the population. The island is now protected by a

concrete wall which runs 28 kilometres to protect the current

population. It is still just good for a one in every thousand years

event. I noticed the residents were not encouraged to evacuate in the

event of a tidal surge. It is judged to be sound until the end of this

century provided there is regular monitoring and maintenance, which is

where the concern always from residents is to make sure the money

is there to make sure we are upgrading maintenance.

Notwithstanding how good the sea was art, other parts of my borough

remain subject to a risk of surface water flooding, as occurred in 2013

and 2014 when homes across the borough were flooded, including 1000

homes on the island alone, so it is a serious problem for an island that

remains one metre below sea level at high tide and is entirely flat. It

prevents a problem for affective surface water drainage, said there

was an outcry that the second significant flooding event in less

than 11 months could not be dismissed as an act of God and

whether serious failures were at fault and what could be done to

reassure residents, so a grateful to Cabinet Office ministers and the

Secretary for Defra who agreed to an investigation by the Government's

chief scientist to make recommendations locally. His report

found that extreme rainfall, problems with drainage, a power cut

and pumps tripping and cutting out were foreseeable, many of which

could be avoided, and he made a number of recommendations. An

extraordinary amount of work has taken place, none has been spent on

improvements and mitigation measures, the Environment Agency has

invested in sluices and pumping stations, over ?500,000 for Harriers

which are key to protecting South Bentley. Webcams have been installed

to monitor comes and ditches, floodgates are expected to be

completed by the end of the year. Blockages are being removed and

faults identified. Anglian Water has invested millions and have been

proactive in a public awareness campaigns to raise the importance

locally of free-flowing water courses. They have undertaken a huge

programme with grants up to ?50,000 for homes affect did previously. The

partnership has become exemplary and resulted in a national reward, while

the investigation is focused on the island, multi agency corporations

had improvements for the entire borough. The partnership concluded a

study to look at problems underground and model what they

could be in future, whether they could see what they need going

forward to make sure this does not happen again, whether stored ditches

on roadsides, increased pipe sizes or whatever it may be, and they will

shortly come forward with bids for South Essex local enterprise

partnerships and local governments. Defra ministers have offered support

to was in bits and I hope the woman will continue to support us in

recognising the economic importance and stressing to mine and other

local enterprise partnerships of deviations games in making sure

communities remain economically viable. It is key to the

regeneration of my borough that it is protected from nontidal and tidal

flood water, especially given likely events in the future. I would also

like to say how grateful my borough of our for the scheme making sure

residents are not priced out but I note it is not available for

businesses and I hope we can do some work there, nor does it apply for

new builds and I urge the Government to do more to press planning

departments to incorporate more surface water protection, perhaps

even reversing the current rate of connection to the Seward system as

it doesn't incentivise developers to consider sustainable drainage

systems. I would in which the minister to visit Castle Point to

see the work that has been done and also to meet local agencies to

discuss what more is needed and how we can help the borough going

forward. I want to start by referring to my own interest in

flooding, which began in 2007 when South Yorkshire was partly flooded,

and those events led to the Pitt review which recommended better,

more corded and planning, improved resilience and a more strategic set

of planning decisions as far as water is concerned, and I'm talking

there are about local authority planning, but the challenges

relating to flooding remained. Pete River flows could be more than twice

current levels in some English regions died 2017 -- 2070 and many

people in England are at risk of flooding. It is plausible that

rainfall between 20 and 30% higher than normal could be experienced

over the next ten years. It was always likely that the select

committee of which I am a member would return to this important topic

and I think that decision was accelerated by the 2015 floods which

impacted on computer, Yorkshire and Somerset. We need to look at this

again, the need became imperative in the context of the Government's

phone flood resilience review. I want to focus my remarks on one

aspect of the recommendations, the strategic approach to the management

which we need to take with a special focus on the need for catchment

scale planning. The visit to Holland, of which I was a member of

the delegation, was critical in terms of framing the

recommendations. We focused in our report on that fact-finding visit

and every member was impressed by the rigorous manner with which the

Dutch organise this its risk management approaches. The Dutch

system is clear, accountable locally, regionally and nationally,

and I am disappointed that the Government has dismissed so quickly

recommendations, especially given the evidence we received to the

effect that too much of what we do in England is still badly

disjointed. What is particularly impressive with the Dutch model is

its placement of water at the heart of the approach, not just water

supply but spatial and economic planning, in other words hot water,

its management and use as a major environmental resource is seen as a

number one priority and so it should be in the UK. They start with the

aim or catchment scale approach to planning for flood risk management

which would involve an integration of the widest possible range of hard

and soft engineering measures, including natural flood management.

Support given to the committee underlines this point. The agency

did not bring that into consideration as a means of

preventing floodwaters building up at source. Natural England also told

the committee that prevention and serious measures must be accompanied

by action. All the emphasis that the government is not taking enough

seriously the need for investment. The flood review programme looked at

its pilot, which refer principally, and I quote, flood resilience in

urban area will bring redevelopment and regeneration for the area. No

mention of the need for a catchment scale response. The development of

this alternative scheme, for one in some respects, does not meet the

recommendations. No evidence that people get the cooperation required.

Mentions of tree-planting and water catchment source where negligible.

This is not a catchment scale scheme. If we do not stop prevent

the flow in Barnsley, what is the point of placing this in Sheffield?

All you will do is push the water for the loan scheme to Doncaster. --

further demonstrates stream. I do not blame Sheffield. It has been

encouraged to do so. They are more interested in leveraging private

finance than delivering traditional approaches to flood risk management.

It seems more interested and evading up pots of money than looking at the

increasing evidence, which we saw at the committee, to support the

recommendations and the needs for a large catchment scale scheme which

would go with all the emerging aspects of evidence. I would like to

go into the other aspects of the Defra report, with regard to

resilience. Time will prevent me. I look forward to the minister's

response and I hope she will address the need for them a proper catchment

scale response to this issue, to have a more integrated approach to

flood management in this country. I was on the Defra enquiry and was

part of the flooding committee report. I am pleased that we are

addressing this. I must start that they have committed an incredible

?2.5 billion to flood prevention. Some excellent schemes are in place.

It does represent a real terms in increasing capital from 1.7 billion

pounds in the last Parliament. But they do want to raise some of the

issues which have been addressed in these enquiries we are discussing. I

will start with Somerset. In the Somerset levels, we are used to

winter flooding. Not to the degree which was witnessed in the severe

weather conditions in 2012, 2015 in 2014. We saw the whole area tongued

effectively into an inland sea. I witnessed this at first hand some

incredible 11,500 hectares of land under millions of cubic water. But

the drainage tunnels had not been dealt with effectively since the

1960s when they were installed. The knock-on effect was significant. The

economic impact cost the local economy ?147 million. 50% of

businesses were affected. I welcome the fact the government did react

and we are optimistically looking ahead to never such serious

consequences of being suffered again in Somerset. He has been ?20 million

project by the government to improve flood defences. Every ?1 spent on

flood defences is of benefit of between ?4- ?9. It is money well

spent. The Somerset rivers authority is working with many organisations.

It is going forward to run and manage the easier. It is finding a

precept on council tax bills and I welcome the government continuing to

work with them on its long-term funding arrangements and I do urge

that the claim is know to get it onto a statutory basis. I believe it

is a model which could also be copied elsewhere. It is not just

dredging. It is so much other important work. It involves a range

of organisations who I must praise. The lakes of farmers, who are

encouraged to do so much forward planning. It is essential we allow

it to continue to operate. Some areas that have been mentioned with

regard to the club catchment areas. We were fairly dilated to have a

good friend from Tiverton to speak to this gathering at the environment

Forum. We discussed this new frock approach to flooding. There is an

awful lot of positive seedy about how we could engage this approach on

a much wider basis, using it tree-planting and soil management.

There are a whole raft of traditional and modern techniques,

working with science, in order to slow down the flow of water. It will

not work everywhere, but it is an approach which could be part and

parcel of everything else. With Brexit heading our way, we have a

marked opportunity to have a whole new way of thinking about line

management. I was heartened to read the response of the Defra board on

flood prevention that the government is very much thinking of a catchment

approach for the environment plan. I think it is very good at something

we should work with. How much positive good is done from flood

prevention. I would urge the Minister to do some early work to

calculate how we can surely value this approach. If farmers know if

the store water on the learned short-term or long-term, what would

it cost, to achieve and what they should be paid. Farmers, and I will

list the clearly a slight interest, I come from a farming background,

they are cautious people. They do not want to use land unless there is

a very good reason for it. I would urge the Minister to look at

bringing in a large steel catchment project. This came up as a

recommendation from Defra, so we can gather evidence as to what could

happen on the weight scale with catchment alias. There are many

small-scale projects working. We have heard many examples of today.

But we do not have a large-scale operation. I would urge the Minister

to see if she can have a look at running one of those projects. I

would throw when that would it be possible to engage water companies

more in this approach to how we handle flooding? After all, the

dealing with water the NGO. -- the end, the boat.

He did recommend a large catchment approach. It is definitely an idea

which is coming into the public domain. I just want to touch on

hosting. We need a huge increase in house-building, but let's make sure

these are not exacerbating the flooding problem. Sustainable

drainage can make such a contribution to both the environment

and to put preventing flooding. I would urge that other departments

work that into the plans, as well. It has no boundaries and we need to

look at all aspects of it. Finally, I may be biased towards Somerset,

but there is a lot of knowledge galloped with regard to flooding and

a lot of data is being improved every day with regard to river

possibly expanding this up across possibly expanding this up across

the country. Brexit gives us this opportunity to look at how we run

our land and we could have a whole new effective approach to flooding

which would benefit us all. The cadence is six minutes, not name

minutes. -- name. It is a pleasure to follow the member from Somerset.

The flooding from 2015 is still being felt in Rochdale and

surrounding areas. For many in my constituency, the recovery is still

ongoing. Many businesses at the operation severely disrupted. Many

farmers lost stock. The cost of insurance will force some of these

businesses to close or relocate. I am grateful for the assistance given

so far, in particular the flood resilience community Pathfinder

which has helped in distressful claims. I hope the involvement with

the community will continue. I commend efforts by Rochdale Council

to address the problem caused by heavy rainfall last November.

Fortunately, fewer people were affected than in previous years, but

nevertheless, Rochdale Council were quick to provide emergency funding

to residents under the programme. By late welcome efforts to alleviate

the suffering of those affected and efforts to quickly restore

emergencies, it is seen real flood prevention must be delivered. In

Rochdale, we all know this remain fit is the river and its

tributaries. They are committed to reducing flood risk. We want to see

a successful flood alleviation programme implemented as soon as

possible. We are working with the Environment Agency to put that in

place. They have also committed ?7 million and that will protect at

least 800 homes and 400 businesses. In addition, the council have

completed the flood storage the scheme. They need more support from

central government. Funding from central government would allow more

storage sites, which we badly need. I appreciate the governments drive

to invest in flood defences across the country and I am grateful for

the projects launched so far in Rochdale.

An eye on this are grateful for her response. However I am dismayed that

we need to find further funding. Rochdale have been working

extensively with the Environment Agency to maximise funding and I'm

sure such efforts will continue. However, I believe such an urgent

scheme as we have there should be eligible for more central Government

funding. We also need momentum. An early decision on committing funding

for this scheme is essential. Such programmes are complicated and have

a long lead in time. For it to progress further we need a decision

from the Government on future investment. Finally, I hope that

Defra and Treasury will bear this in mind and ensure that Rochdale is

given the priority it deserves. Last year during the Chancellor's Autumn

Statement, many in Rochdale had anticipated extra funding to tackle

flooding in the town but were left disappointed. I hope the Minister

will act now to ensure the fears of residents and local businesses are

no longer prolonged. Thank you. Thank you. May I start by thanking

the Government for listing this debate so conveniently, because it

follows on from the monumental event of my second Flood Forum on Friday

evening. I hope it will help the rest of the house with the

conclusions with drawn from that event. The reason I hold forums in

my constituency is it provides a chance to bring experts together

with local residents so they can raise issues with those experts and

together we can find solutions. We know that flooding is a real risk in

my constituency, both on the magnificent Lincolnshire coast line

and also further inland in the beautiful Walt 's. Sadly that threat

was demonstrated all too keenly on Friday the 13th of January this

year, when a state of civil emergency was declared on the

Lincolnshire coast line because weather forecasts suggested that a

tidal surge could overtop the already pretty substantial sea

defences putting many tens of thousands of people's lives at risk.

As soon as that state of emergency was declared, more than 30

organisations, locally and nationally, pulled together to try

to ensure that residents were kept as safe as possible. I'm extremely

grateful to the minister who sits on the front bench today and to the

Minister for the Armed Forces, who put together a plan to bring more

than 200 soldiers from Catterick to land from the surrounding area, so

they could not an more than 1000 doors during a 72 hour period to

ensure the most vulnerable people were offered the option of

evacuation if they wanted to do that. I had better mention the Burma

and Qu bec 2nd Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment. The fire

officers, police officers, and Linz teams, as well as volunteers all

played a vital role. The emergency rescue centres that were set up in a

matter of hours I had the pleasure of visiting the rescue centre at the

Meridian Centre in Louth and sort the comfort that vulnerable

residents west receiving. Finally, at the Gold command centre in

Lincoln, led very capably by the Chief Superintendent. I had the

privilege of visiting it on Friday night to see all the teams working

together as they reached the decision, locally and nationally,

that happily the weather had turned and the risk had been averted. I

would like to place on record my thanks to everyone involved in that

huge effort. And to say I am rather proud of the fact that Lincolnshire

showed the rest of the country how we can respond calmly and

professionally to those threats when they arise. And it is as I said,

better to be safe than sorry in those circumstances. But of course

today we are talking about future flood prevention, and I am grateful

to the Government that in the last five years, to 2015, more than ?50

million has been provided in grants and aid to protect more than 23,000

households from flooding along the coast. I am delighted that this

scheme is continuing under the current front Government with a ?39

million programme of Grant and eight capital to extend protection to a

further fall team and a half thousand households. The future is

an interesting one when it comes to flood prevention on the coast. We

discussed in the Flood Forum on Friday night the possibility of

building groins into the coastline which in turn can provide marinas

and interesting environments for tourists to enjoy even more the

wonders of the Lincolnshire coast line. The role of smaller investment

schemes and the full product protection scheme are important, ?1

million is being spent on replacing the pumping station and 300 --. All

these measures play these roles in making sure my constituency remains

resilient. Inland flooding, not many people know that Lincolnshire has

hills! Indeed, Lincolnshire has some beautiful hills. With that beauty,

sadly, comes some rainfall and the market towns and villages in the

waltz have to deal with flooding from time to time. That is why a new

flood alleviation schemes are welcome overwhelmingly wife by local

communities. It is particularly important as developers seek to

build yet more houses between there and the coast, something I know my

honourable friend for Taunton Deane is concentrating on, may I therefore

joined the voices of colleagues who have urged the Minister to encourage

insurance businesses to look not just as households when

protecting... In terms of insurance policy protections, but also to

extend the protection to businesses? It is critical to small businesses

in my constituency, including pubs and restaurants, that rely on the

beautiful architecture of the market towns, we need the insurance to

protect businesses as much is homes. And I'm extremely grateful for

having had the opportunity as I say to share the delights of my

constituency and the thoughts of constituents from the second Flood

Forum, and I look forward to holding many more. I will hold a rolling

programme of them over the years so that constituents can come to me

with problems and Afrikaans sort them out then I will write to the

Minister hoping she can do so. I end by wishing all my constituency and

everyone living in flood risk areas, wishing we also they safe and dry

for the rest of the year. I'm grateful the opportunity to

contribute to this debate. I am pleased to follow the honourable

lady. I will focus on recommendation 15, a statutory duty for the Fire

and Rescue Service that the select committee have proposed. This

recommendation is consistent with our other recommendations 16 to 21

which will raise concern about governments can demanding control

structures and relationships. The committee heard, evidence leading us

to the recommendation. Sadly the Government disagrees. Recommendation

15, says we recommend the Government places a statutory duty on the Fire

Service and garden whirls to provide emergency response and commits the

additional funding and resources to support the delivery of this

responsibility. Come back to that. The Government's response says Fire

And Rescue Services in England have already discretionary powers they

need and goes on to say a statutory duty would potentially reduce

flexibility with a one size fits all approach and Iraqi advantages to a

permissive regime. That is doublespeak and euphemism if I have

ever heard it! I am grateful to Pat Strickland and the library from

their beef ring. Should the Fire Services have a statutory duty to

deal with flooding, it outlines the Pitt review in 2008 into the 2007

floods said there should be fully funded national capability for flood

rescue underpinned as necessary by a statutory duty. In 2017, the

policing and Fire Minister said the good response of the Fire Services

to flooding in that year suggested there was no need for redo. And the

Government arrived at the same decision. But we have seen more and

more serious flood events since then so the situation is changing. The

briefing paper details the law as it stands. It says the axe does not

place a statutory duty to respond to floods although there is a power

that the act sets out for statutory core functions of the Fire and

rescue authorities to provide fire safety, fire fighting, the rescuing

of protecting people from harm and road traffic incidents. The law in

Scotland is different. There has been a statutory duty since 2013.

The Pitt review took a similar view to that that now exist in Scotland.

It says the review believes that clarifying communicating the role of

each would improve in response to flooding. The concerns that the

system structures and protocols developed to support national of

multi-flood rescue assets remains ad hoc. We believe the Fire and Rescue

Service should take on a leading role in this area, based on a fully

funded capability. This would be the most effective as supported by a

statutory duty. That is the core recommendations. Nothing much has

changed. The library briefing goes on to examine the history of the

proposal and the debates of the house. I would like to focus on the

history of the Fire and Rescue Service statutory duties. I suspect

colleagues might suspect that the Fire Service has always had a duty

to attend fires. It was part of the fire that destroyed most of the

powers of Westminster that led to the creation of the London Fire

Brigade. Most colleagues would also probably expect the Fire and Rescue

Service has a duty to prevent fires. I suspect most would consider the

role of the Fire Service in dealing with road traffic collisions would

be a statutory duty. That is not the case. On fire, the statutory duty

was only created in 1938. The Fire safety it was 1947 full stop and for

road crashes, it was 2004. So, when the Government says the Fire and

Rescue Service will deal with floods because it has and it does and it

will. That was also the case for fires, fire prevention and road

traffic collisions until the prevailing wisdom decided that an

expectation was not enough and the Government had to do more than just

expect. They not only has to be a legal requirement to a duty, it has

to be Resorts and paid for, the Government needs to legislate for

that outcome. The report makes a case for changes in structures. Part

of the recommendation is for better preparedness, better governments and

stronger resilience, to confer a duty on the Fire Service to boost

always elements. The Government clear leaders not wish to proceed in

this direction at present. Does my Oracle friends share my suspicion

that the Government's refusal to create a statutory duty in this

regard is driven by the Dutchman's not to commit resources to this area

of endeavour? He perfectly anticipates the next point I am

going to make. The statistic I wanted to quote is that

demonstrating the Government does not want proceed in this direction,

is because Fire And Rescue Services staff reductions since 2010 are

significant. Nearly 7000 jobs up and lost which is about 20% of the Fire

Service, has disappeared since 2010 and those numbers are worrying. The

transfer of responsibilities of the Fire And Rescue Services to more and

police and combine commissioners means for many of us there is a real

fear that more reductions can be expected. The Fire And Rescue

Services to be able to maintain the staff and equipment to be able to

continue to play the prominent role in not only dealing with floods but

helping prepare for them and mitigate against them. To do that

they need recognition in law, the singlets committee believes it needs

to be done, it is an issue that will not go away, I suspect that some

point, maybe not now, but at some point the Government will get the

message. From the floods of storm either, we know that 453 residential

properties and many commercial operatives were flooded in York but

with extreme flooding we know it could rise to as how as 7200

properties. Therefore the city is saying what is happening next? We

have just had our own flood enquiry report. Just last month with around

90 recommendations. No framework yet with how it will Government process.

But we have to look back on what has happened after every flood, it seems

the resources dry up and then we don't seem to move further forward.

And as we have heard from my honourable friend, the services

which should be in there between the flooding, not just addressing the

issues flooding itself but also dealing with the issues of flood

literacy, prevention and lit resilience, which the Fire authority

would be well placed to address, those issues seem not to be

addressed. That has been my real disappointment in the Government's

responds to the excellent reports by both the effort select

One of the things which has come to light is that we need to look at

resilience. The team looks at a emergency response but does not look

at resilience measures in dry seasons. We need to look at how this

could be used more proactively to make sure resilience measures are

incentivised to make sure they are built into properties when the sun

is shining, rather than waiting for the next flight to occur. I would

like to ask the Minister when she plans to review the flood prevention

scheme? Many people do not have access to insurance since the floods

in 2009. We also continue to see there is still such the need for a

scheme for businesses. We think there could be a matrix model in

scheme in place for businesses. What progress has the Minister made in

examining opportunities for this? Businesses still have not heard of

it. What is she doing to promote the scheme in the interim of putting a

proper scheme in place? In your work, emergency measures have been

put in place with regard to the flood barrier. ?17 million of

investment. This should have taken place over the past 30 years. We

were able to shift 50 tonnes of whatever sick and should the belly

of the need to put into operation. But we are seeing more needs to be

done. I am not talking about building defences. I am talking

about flood protection and management. What the Environment

Agency has said is that we are waiting till 2021 until the next

spending review. The Minister boasts about ?15 million being spent. That

is a drop in the ocean when it comes to building resilience measures. We

need proper investment no instant stead of mapping out the catchment

areas and working out what needs to be done in the future. We have seen

the lack of ambition from the government with regard to the tree

planting programme. We need to look at how forestry can play a major

part in flood management. Europe is looking at our catchment and the

work being done by the University of York. I have urged the Minister to

commit today to fully fund the seven phases of this research. This better

land management will take water and have it moving

upstream rather than downstream. Does the Minister went to address

the fact that it will appear in need 25 year environment plan. It is

already late. Or will it take 25 years to be written? We are waiting

to see what it has got to say. There is a real need in the budget next

week to make sure proper investment is made no, not waiting until 2021

for proper catchment management. The other issue I want to touch on is

the issue of governments. In your work, we were left without a plan

for managing the floods. Your work was badly let down by the lack of

action the City Council was able to make. There is also poor governments

with regard to the Environment Agency mismanaging the process. What

governance structures as the Minister putting in place to make

sure local authority plans have professional oversight and risk

assessed to make sure the fit for purpose? Cannot expect local

authorities to sit over this when the waves could be at risk.

Resilience planning is so important to do that in the dry season and not

to it when it rains and it floods. I want the Minister to see what

further steps she would take note to make sure we have a resilient nation

when it comes to flooding? This debate follows major enquiries of

the social, environmental and economic impact of flooding. It was

made with the help of two separate committees. I sat in one of them. I

took a close interest in developing the committee 's conclusions in

preparation for the final report. The committee report called for the

government to strengthen policies to protect communities in England from

increasing flood risk. Last November, when the environment

committee published its report, we criticise the government 's lack of

approach to flood management. This was the product of a great deal of

work spent visiting areas of England badly affected by flooding. We also

reported from the Netherlands, where we observed a number of government

organisations getting involved in flood prevention in order to

understand how flood prevention was managed in that country. That

evidence collected was in stark contrast to that collected in

England. Many places in England were badly affected by three successive

storms. We had risk management systems which could only be tingly

regarded as reactive. There was nothing I observed in England and

was left with the impression that Community Shield that this

appointment and the level of concern. The overall view is that

flooding is received with an inadequate emergency response. In

the Netherlands, the situation could not be more different. The idea with

much quicker. The expats highlighted many innovative methods with regard

to management control to the flood and flow of water to the prevention

of flooding. The people of the Netherlands regard flooding as I

feel we are of these agencies. The Netherlands use flood prevention is

a social issue. The cake a strategic approach to guarantee correct water

management and the protection of life and property. We consider

flooding and unpredictable and inevitable coincidence of changing

weather conditions. The Defra select committee looked not at bowing more

pompous, but a bigger model of recognising flooding as a social

problem. They want more coordinated action and a better approach to

flood prevention. We think the government has two point floods

Minister to be responsible for longer term flood protection

schemes. The video of others through regional and coastal boards and an

integrated national plan, in partnership with the government.

They would take on lead local authority rules and would assume the

current Environment Agency role to delivery efficient and natural flood

prevention plan. This business model would streamline responsibilities,

coordinate resources and pool expertise, to allow each body to go

with funding from Lee linked to outcomes, including the financial

ones. This was intended to deliver an auction of catchment areas on a

much wider scale, including the installation of drainage systems,

flood risk communication and to organisational and regional boards,

covering insurance, prevention and emergency response. This was

directed at flood management, rather than an individual approach. The

committee 's recommendations were to make use of natural resources and

recognise the negative impact of flooding on funding. The UK

Government pattern of spending is as unpredictable as the flooding

itself. The fluctuation in spending -- spending has seen some budgets

topped up beyond expected levels. The environmental audit committee

say that the death committee initial report was a very disappointing

response from the United Kingdom government. It was summed up in one

sentence. I quote, we do not believe there is a need for substantial

change to local government provisions for flood risk

management. When challenged on that inadequacy, the said later from

undersecretary from the Ministry which noted that although we do not

agree there is a need for substantial structural change, we

are always looking for a wheeze to improve to meet current and future

demand. The United, government wants improvement, but just not the

improvement recommended by two select committees. By ignoring the

detailed reports from these two committees, the government is

missing an opportunity to bring in wide-ranging changes which would

help the government to meet current and future demands. The failure to

do that is not only a waste of money, the other losing households,

communities and businesses across the country facing possible

disaster. The measures fall far short of what is required. This

debate takes place as part of the supply process. This is a way in

which the government may take authority for government spending

plans. In practice, the debates are CDs of general debate whether one

thing is not discussed is the original estimates. There is

generally also not any vote. This house has abandoned all

opportunities to take control of public expenditure by means of

debate presented to the house. This is particularly important to

Scottish members of Parliament. The estimates process meant that the

English votes for English laws excluded them from. It feels to

factor in an effective mission method of scrutinising the

government. That is to the detriment of everyone. 241 from the workshop

by honourable colleague, I have not seen this produced, but this is the

estimates Bill. The estimates for Defra that we are meant to be

debating today are included with them. I rather confused by the

proceedings today. I have not heard any discussion surrounding the

figures. I have heard no critical analysis of the departmental

spending. It was made very clear this is a stage we're Scottish MPs

are supposed to analyse this to deal with the consequences of policy on

UK legislation. There appears to be little or no discussion. I want to

discuss a few points from the estimates. I am afraid, it is not in

order. If you could discuss the topic on the order vapour which was

chosen by the liaison committee. We had this issue last time. If the

honourable gentleman could move on to what is on the order paper. I was

not hear the last time these estimates were discussed. I am not

allowed to do that? What we are discussing is flood prevention

specifically. That was chosen by the liaison committee. We did have this

subject last year. I am sure we can find other avenues to discuss than

later. But no, it is simply flood prevention.

Is it the ruling of the chair that in fact the contents of HC 946 as

real rating to Defra are not for debate in this debate? If the

honourable gentleman has a read of the order paper, if he looks at the

notes, it says this estimate is to be considered insofar as it relates

to flood prevention, resolution of 21st of February. The question is

necessary to dispose of proceedings will be deferred until 7pm. That is

what the critical element you. Thank you. I'm from a constituency like

many members that his susceptible to flooding and has flooded quite

dramatically over the last few years. I have been interested many

of the points made by the members. It has been a very informed debate

and there have been many excellent points made. The chair of the audit

committee who is no longer in her place, talked about a stop start

nature of the process to flood management cross the rest of the UK.

And a lack of strategic planning which has been at apparent in this

debate. She talked about businesses being affected by flooding and I

have some specific issues which I know I have questioned the Minister

on before and she has given me helpful answers which I will touch

on later. The honourable member from Castle Point, I was pleased to hear

that she joined my cause and expressed some concern about the

availability of affordable insurance to small businesses, something I

will mention later. Share the honourable member from Taunton

Deane, talked what about land management and contribution that

land management techniques can make to reduce the risk of flooding, and

I think is worth pointing out at this juncture was major debates in

my constituency has been surrounding the extent to which these land

management techniques can actually mitigate the risk of flooding. When

towns in my constituency have flooded with find it difficult to

find an expert that can say that felling trees or tidying the river

banks or dredging a particular river would have made a significant

difference. It appears the one thing that contributes most to the risk of

flooding, that is not really in a public's mind, is the huge amount of

rainfall. There is some way to go in terms of the debate in public

consciousness about the things that contribute to the risk of flooding

and the things that can mitigate the risk. I was interested to hear the

comments from my honourable friend, talking about bringing people

together, and I think she is right, and I think all MPs in such

constituencies will be impressed by how members of the public come

together. She brought the record for plugging her constituency and plug

congratulating the front bench. There was an excellent summary of

the committee report and focusing on the commit experiences learned in

Holland, where the principle is proactivity and strategic

management, whereas the strategy in the UK seems to be very

unpredictable and seems to be about managing consequences of emergency

situation, I think that tax needs to change. Within the relevant

documents listed on the order paper to which this debate is restricted

today, there is a section at page 23 on business insurance. The situation

in many other towns in my constituency is that there are 30 to

40 small businesses on either side of the high street and the high

street has flooded. These businesses have tried to get affordable

insurance, they can get a policy with manageable premiums but the

access is completely unmanageable, from ?15,000 upwards. If the main

street was to flood again none of those businesses could deal with

that access. I'm concerned to see the assessment at page 23 to 24

which says in the opinion of Defra they do not consider there has been

a market failure in respect of business insurance for those in

flood risk areas. It talks only about cost of policies and

availability of policies, not excesses. I wonder if the Minister

could inform the house as to whether manageable accesses is one of the

criteria the department considered when it made the judgment that there

had not been a market failure. I was surprised of course read the figures

from the Federation of small business and other organisations

that they thought there was a small percentage of businesses that have

these problems. That does not meet with my understanding of what has

happened in my constituency. This is a very difficult issue and one that

has the potential to put swathes of our high street out of business. I

accept the arguments that perhaps the participants in the scheme

should not be made to paper businesses. But there is clear

market failure of it is to be dealt with. In conclusion, the approach in

Scotland is not perfect but it seems to be more advanced than in the rest

of the UK. We have a statutory basis for a flood management plan. We

passed the act in 2009 which compelled all 32 was 40s across

Scotland to come up with plans. They have done so. 80% of the money has

been committed by the Scottish Government. I am looking forward to

the conclusion of that process in 2022 when all of these flood

defences shall be built and we look at the next round of strategic

planning in Scotland. Thank you. It has been a really interesting

debate. Admirably opened by the chair of the Defra select committee,

who opened with some interesting information from the report. It was

followed by the chair of the environmental audit committee who

talked about the huge impact that that climate change is having on our

communities. The member for Penistone and Stockbridge spoke

knowledgeably about the importance of catchment planning of the Dutch

model, and the honourable member used his knowledge of working with

the Fire And Rescue Services to show why statutory duty is needed. The

member for York Central shared her considerable experience on this