17/02/2014 Newsnight

Who knows best when trying to protect Britain from adverse

weather. The media, the people whose homes have been wrecked or the

Government. There is a substantial number of right-wing MPs who are

privately climate sceptical, and who are even more sceptical about the

spending of money to deal with the problem. Also tonight this:

With the social services I need to have food in, and I need a separate

bed for my child. What happens when benefit claimants break the rules

and the Government stops their money?

David Bailey will be taking me around his exhibition of the

National Portrait Gallery, a few of his many millions of snaps he's

putting on display for the first time. Snaps? Snaps, is can he do

that again! ? Good evening. I will make sure we learn all the lessons,

it is what a politician usually says when he or she has made mistakes.

David Cameron promised that today while visiting another flood-hit

areas, while announcing a fund for businesses who have had a

significant loss of trade from all the bad weather. Politicians from

every party have been rushing to show their best plans so it doesn't

happen again. We track the course of the River Thames in search of the

lessons the politicians should be learning. What's normally a trickle

is now a river. What's normally a river resembling a lake. Stubborn

water with nowhere to go, and everywhere it is not wanted.

But if the country's journey through weeks of flooding will change

anything, this is where it begins. You can even see bubbles coming up

to the surface as the water comes above ground for the first time. And

it might not look like much, but this stone marks the start of the

River Thames. This isn't just another flooded field, but the

beginning of a river that has caused such chaos for thousands of families

and businesses. An awful lot of political trouble for those 180

miles further along. Nearby the PM is still cramming in

visits after his colleagues spent the start of the crisis pointing

fingers rather than pointing out what might help. Desperate to --

show he knows which ways the wellingtons are pointing. The army

are on the streets and the call has gone out for favourite political

past time, are you ready... There was always time to ask what could be

done, what schemes should be looked at and I will make sure we learn all

the lessons. But if we have had the heaviest rainfall in more than two

centuries is it reasonable, even if feasible, to expect the Government

to defend all our homes using our money? Much, much more than the ?10

million promised for affected firms today. One former minister at the

stable when some spending was cut believes it is. The decision in 2010

to cut flood defences in, in retrospect, clearly a mistake. I

think the Government has to face up to a key role, which is to protect

this as best they can from the natural disasters. The Prime

Minister has gone right to the other extreme by saying money is now no

object. Well it is a shame that there wasn't a bit more money back

in 2010. Spending is now being dragged up, and some of the

environment agencies' efforts have made a difference, they have kept

water from the door but far from making the problem disappear. This

is a part of Gloucester David Cameron didn't visit today. Sandbags

are piled as high as the hip outside every front door. Locals have been

fighting off the water for days. But for many people we have spoken to

the risk isn't just from the rain, it is also from years of bad

political decisions. Flood defence walls were built in people's back

gardens here after 2007. I'm Laura from Newsnight, this must be a

lovely garden without the River Severn. What has happened? It came

to the top of the wall but not over. Richard said the agency and army's

help has been better, it took three days for pumps to arrive. While he's

protecting his 19th century home, he's furious new houses are being

built nearby. Stew pit, this was build in 1851, they didn't know

about things then, we have advanced since then, therefore people know it

floods on the floodthings then, we have advanced since then, therefore

people know it floods on the flood pla they know it and shouldn't be

building. Two thirds of this flood plain is gone, covered in houses

since 1947. Round the corner another local sketched out why he believes

more roads and more houses don't leave enough room for more water. A

lot of it is down to historical Government incompetence. They

allowed the landfill site to the south of us, in excess of 300 acres,

blocking out the whole of the exit of where all the float warders of

1947 went. The problem is that -- flood waters of 1947 went. The

problem is the Government is allowing building on flood plains.

Even though a person who thought the Government have been excellent

thought there was enough. Rivers need to be dredged again, which they

are going to be, very positive, very, very positive. Dredging won't

be reintroduced everywhere, it is expensive and can hurt as well as

help. And senior politicians are now vying to be seen to accept climate

change is part of the problem. The coalition's actual commitment to

following policies that might make a difference have ebbed and flowed at

best. But some senior sceptics have been rather less vocal. So with some

of the wealthiest parts of the south-east under water, a powerful

constituency, is this the moment where Cameron will cleave again to

his original promise, vote blue-go green. I'm surprised that anybody

can really dispute with 98% of climate scientist who is say that

climate change is a reality. Actually even the climate change

sceptics are only sceptical about whether it is man made or not. All

of us need to unite behind the very, very clear plan of mitigation and

adaptation. Insurance firms are perhaps inevitably being called to

Number Ten tomorrow. Emergency payouts have started. But what will

matter is not just how this Government deals with this crisis,

lapping at the banks of Westminster. What will matter is what happens

when these waters finally recede and what will really be different the

next time. One of the few areas of consensus among the politicians on

the floods is the role of climate change, a Tory cabinet minister said

it was clearly a factor, while Labour leader, bland, said floods

meant -- Ed Miliband said that floods was a priority. What should

our response be? Let's discuss with Kevin Anderson, Professor of Climate

Change, and Andrew Montford, author of Hockey Stick Illusion which

critques the science of climate change. What we know from the

climate modelling we have and science and physics and observations

is as we warm up the atmosphere we can hold more moisture in the

atmosphere and get more intense rainfall. We can see and the records

show this over the last 50 years the intensity of the rainfall in the UK

has increased. What we are seeing now by this sequence of unusual

events, this is consistent with the fixes, the modelling and with the

observations. But we will never be able to say that any single event is

a climate change event. Some politicians have pretty much said

that, are they exaggerating? If they say that they are misusing the

science, that is the case. It is fair to say this is consistent to

what we think about climate change. It is fair to say that the scale of

the challenge and the impacts will have been exacerbated by climate

change. We know the sea level rise has gone on because of the

atmosphere and the oceans have warmed. We know therefore that some

of the impact in Sandy in New York and the impacts we are seeing now

are partly due to the increased sea level rise. It makes the situation

worse, even if the overall event is not a climate change event. When

Philip Hammond says climate change is a factor and Ed Miliband saying

if you keep throwing sixes and they roll the dices are loaded. You say

that is exaggeration, but it might be useful for somebody like you. You

want to mobilise people to do something don't you? We want to

inform people to decide if they want to make the changes necessary. When

it was said it was factor, I want to point out from the sea level rise it

is a factor, it is not the cause but it is a factor. Andrew Montford, you

are not a scientist, you have been writing secretarically about this

for -- secretary -- sceptically for a while now, what do you think?

Everybody seems to agree, at least scientifically they seem to agree

that you can't link these floods to climate change. When he says that

sea level rise has been a factor, yes, I suppose it probably has been

a factor in terms of the sea level has gone up by, you know, a few tens

of centimeters over the last century. You have to remember that

sea level rise was occurring before man made carbon emissions were big

enough to effect climate change any way. We have seen perhaps a tiny

amount of acceleration, but sea level rises have been going on any

way, so it is something we have had to adapt to in the past and probably

we will just go on adapting to it in the future. My concern is actually

all we have seen so far in terms of global warming is about 0. 88 can he

greet of -- 0. 8 degree of a rise. If we radically don't reduce our

emissions it will he issed up to four, five, six degrees. We have a

taster of where we are heading, we have a choice between now and 2025

we have a choice about radically reducing emissions ordeal with the

impacts of climate change. If we look at people's homes who are

wrecked, pools of sewage across the ground floor, trying to persuade

them to spend millions on emissions and decarbonisation now? They won't

buy that? We have spent ?350 billion on bailing out the banks, we could

have greened all our infrastructure, and made all the houses in the UK

low carbon and resilient to climate change for less than we put into the

banks. It would have employed more people and better for the

engineering base, it would have helped with fuel poverty, everything

was a tick on that, we gave that much to the banks. We are not short

of money, wealth or capital to overcome climate change. What do you

think of that? There is certainly things we can do to spend money

better than we have been. I must say I'm not entirely convinced that

spending it on decarbonisation is the best way of doing it. We have

seen that the concern that people in the south west have about dredging,

and I think usefully money could be spend on dredging rivers. I know

there is a factor in the Thames floods as well. This is something we

can do for very small amounts of money. Let alone the amounts that

Kevin's talking about spending. We could do a lot to mitigate against

the risk of future flooding. Because flooding has always been a risk. We

talk about these, the rainfall in recent weeks having been completely

unprecedented. In fact it isn't completely unprecedent. You may find

odd places where it is unprecedented, over the south of

England it isn't, more infall in the 1920s for example. We have dealt

with these things in the past, we could deal with them in the future,

spending really quite small sums of money. Let's not talk about spending

billions, let's deal with the millions first. You think global

temperatures will rise by three, four, five degrees by the end of the

century? If we don't reduce our emissions. What will Britain look

like then? We are talking about a metre of sea level rise towards the

end of the century, if you put on top of that increased severity of

storms and possibly increased frequency of storms. What would

Britain be like? It would be a different shape. It doesn't matter

how much dredging do you in the Somerset levels they simply wouldn't

exist. Neither would large parts around the Thames as well. The shame

of the UK map a lot of East Anglia would go, and many islands in the

north of Scotland. Humberside as well. Many parts of the UK would

suffer and we would see, you know, major problems in terms of rehousing

people. Same this is a global problem, we would be having problems

with imports of food from anywhere else in the world. Our energy system

is not able to cope with this, we have a system that is really

Victorian. The future of welfare will be a fee -- key battleground in

the next election. Getting people off benefits is a key

part of the Government's plans. What impact are the changes having. They

Maundy Relief drop in centre they provide support and food to some of

the poorest residents in the town. We spent a week there finding out

about their experiences of benefit sanctions. Maundy Relief, can I

help? Hiya Keith. I have still got six days left on my sanction, I

wanted to know if I can get help with a food parcel and can you sort

a microwave for me. I'm not sure if we have a microwave I can do a slip

for you. Ever since we opened in 1998 we have always given out food

parcels. Now we are giving out twice, possibly three-times as many,

of those probably 70% are going to people whose benefits have been

sanctioned, that means they are left without any means of support. I have

got six days left. And then everything back to normal. Are you

run out of everything? I have got nothing. Could we have dinner here?

Dinner is at 1.00, can you stay for dinner. We are almost like a

mini-welfare state here. But we're being asked to do more and more. It

is forcing people into destitution, that's the word for it. You know we

can do what we can here, family and friends, but family and friends are

often in a similar position themselves. You can have people

sitting in the dock in -- in the dark with no food because there has

been a minor infringement of benefit rules, or in my opinion no

infringement at all. John was sanctioned last October, he says he

was told he hadn't been applying for enough jobs. This is the living room

and that is the kitchen there. This is where it is supposed to be doing

this up, but I have been living in this for a long time. The sanctions

are about basically saying you are not making enough of an effort to

look for work. So is that not fair? I turned around to them and said I'm

61 now, there is no jobs for somebody at my age, there is young

people, how can you sit there a young person, 25 years old and tell

me about work. You haven't had the experience I have had. So I said

don't make me laugh. This was a bigger bedroom, as you can see it is

really damp, I was living in this, you can imagine breathing that in. I

started getting really ill, ended up in hospital with it, with pneumonia.

This was the smaller bedroom I found were warmer, easier to keep, to get

warm in. You can see it is not right good. Sometimes when, if I'm really

desperate I will go and do a bit of shoplifting, which sometimes it can

be too busy and you are not able to do it. It is one of them things. You

take that risk, you might get caught. But you don't think that

when you are doing it. You just thinking of something to eat,

mainly. Look after yourself and ring the numbers if need be, all right

then, OK Jim see you Monday goodbye. Another one in crisis. We see people

here with extremely complex needs who suffer from mental health

problems who have been brought up in very, very bad circumstances, who

have been in care, who have not had the support at the beginning of

their lives that some of us would have expected. Many of those people

can move through that and have fulfilled lives, and some can't. And

they are too damaged, but they are not an attractive group of people to

many people. They might be people that you wouldn't want to sit in the

same room as. But they are vulnerable. I have been job

searching, but I even said to them I said that I had obviously would

bring it in to show them that I have been looking for the work and that.

But well they still sanctioned me and I were meant to be paid today.

You have not been? No. Zach's just been sanctioned. He's 25 and hasn't

worked since he was 16. Come in here, no. Shut that door. Bella,

chill out. There are jobs out there, why aren't you applying, or why

aren't you getting those jobs, what is going wrong? Well, I don't know,

some jobs they are only taking on certain qualified people, things

like that, I don't have no qualifications. I left school before

all my GCSEs and all that. But, most jobs are for qualified people and

like yeah, I do apply for it, even things that you need qualifications

for. But it is just, I don't know, obviously there must be better

people like qualified people for it. Because I just don't seem to be

getting anywhere at all. I have got a son to pay for, basically. And I

might not even be able to have a place. Breakfast, eat it up. With

the social services like obviously I need to have food in, I need to have

the gas and electric and things like that, and that's basically who has

told me I need a separate bed for my child. But obviously without being

paid I can't do that. Eat it up? We know people are trying, really

trying hard to get work and are unsuccessful. There is maybe quite a

low-skilled labour pool here. The sort of jobs that people

traditionally did aren't available any more. They don't have the means

to travel to another part of the country because they don't have the

money to