Shoreline Management Plans

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

I shall begin by congratulating, as other hon. Members have done, my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) on obtaining the debate. I also congratulate my many other hon. Friends who participated. I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal for my presence and for the absence of the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon). I particularly apologise if she had not been forewarned that he could not be here. He is in Brussels at a Council of Fisheries Ministers meeting. That of course also affects her constituency, so I hope that she will forgive me and understand the change. I hope that she will also accept that my background was very significantly in her constituency at one time, when I was chairman of the local authority. Without getting into the “Whose is best?” debate, I can say that I am very familiar with the parts of the beautiful area to which she referred.

Almost all the hon. Members who spoke were, of course, from the eastern side of England, where the tilt is taking place and where coastal erosion is at its worst. However, I will pick up some of the specific points that were made. Shoreline management plans raise difficult issues and cause anxiety for people who are affected, especially if those plans point to the fact that, as the hon. Member for Leicester South (Sir Peter Soulsby) said, there is some inevitability about change. Sometimes we have to accept that it is not possible to maintain the status quo. That controversy in relation to the plans is also in some ways their strength. Arguably, if we did not have shoreline management plans, we would have to invent them. They were invented by the last Conservative Government in 1994; they predate the “Making Space for Water” project.

The plans provide an opportunity for local authorities at the coast, the Environment Agency and the various other bodies mentioned to explore options for the future with local communities and to clarify what they might expect from Government and what they can do for themselves. We owe it to people to be honest and open about what we can afford. I am concerned that a number of hon. Members have referred to the consultation process and pointed out inadequacies to do with second home owners, or others who may feel that they are affected but were not consulted. The consultation ought to be pretty substantial. It should run for three months, and the local authorities are required to run a range of processes to try to reach everyone, including employing coastal community engagement officers to support them. Clearly, if that is not happening, we need to pursue that, but it should be the case. I entirely agree with my hon. Friends that no one should feel excluded from the consultation.

When we are examining what we can afford, we must bear in mind the impact that a choice in one place may have on another. That might relate to the community or to the environment. There could even be an impact on coastal erosion, because sometimes if the sea is stopped in one place, it will vent itself in another. There is no doubt—this picks up the point made by the hon. Member for Leicester South—that the Government have fully recognised that flood and coastal defence is a priority. That is why spending on that defence has been largely protected in the spending review. We will be able to invest £2.1 billion over the next four years. We will protect the front-line services, such as forecasting and warning services and incident response, and prioritise the maintenance of existing defences.

It is worth referring to the fact that the threat is changing slightly. Coastal erosion has not changed, but there is now, probably as a result of climate change, an increasing incidence of flash flooding inland. We must also take that into account as part of our overall flood defence programmes. We expect to be able better to protect 145,000 households by March 2015. However, there is no getting away from the fact that times are tough, and it will be difficult to kick off new defence projects over the next couple of years.

I assure hon. Members that the Government are determined to proceed with those projects that are already well advanced. Schemes that are under way will continue and we shall protect the front-line services to which I have referred. However, it will not be affordable or sustainable to maintain the status quo everywhere on the coast, and I do not think that anyone expects otherwise. I entirely appreciate the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal that erosion is permanent. It is a pertinent point for us all to remember, but we must be honest with communities about what can and cannot be done, and provide them with sufficient information to make decisions for themselves. A generation or more of politicians in different Governments have probably given assurances about coastal defences that we have not been able to live up to, and perhaps we need to be more honest. The idea that we could always hold the line on the whole of our coastline in perpetuity was probably wrong from the outset.

I fully take the point about the need to inform homeowners about what might happen to their properties, and also the point that several hon. Members have made about the impact on agricultural land. I shall return to that in a moment. However, it does not make sense do things to manage erosion or flooding in one place without regard, as I said earlier, to the impact elsewhere. Nor is it right to give people the impression that the Government—and only Government—will pay for defences, or that they will pay for those defences if there are no realistic prospects for them.

That does not mean that people cannot take measures to protect themselves with the support of the relevant authorities. My hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal referred to the visit of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, and to work in her constituency at Bawdsey, Thorpeness and elsewhere, where a local initiative has created the means of self-help in erosion prevention. The coast has always been changing; my hon. Friend referred to a map suggesting that Cambridge could become a coastal town, and I can tell her that it once was. Much of my constituency, which is to the east of Cambridge, would not be there had it not been for flood defences. It probably would not be there if we had had to get planning permission for them, either, but never mind. There are villages in my constituency called Waterbeach, Landbeach and Reach—all names that show they were once on the coast. Some things come around again; though I hope they will not do so in my lifetime.

I want to respond to points made by hon. Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) referred to issues affecting her patch, including the integrity of the sea wall and the railway line to Dawlish—which I, too, would like protected; it is a wonderful rail trip, and I am glad that that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), is supportive. My hon. Friend discussed Dawlish Warren and the fact that there is a hold-the-line defence until 2025, when the policy will be mixed. That gives me the opportunity to make the point that shoreline management plans are not cast in stone for ever and a day. There is an opportunity to review them every five to 10 years, so changes can be made, to reflect new local priorities or countless other occurrences. I understand my hon. Friend’s comment about the question of who is paying, with respect to the Exe estuary, and will draw it to the attention of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary.

My hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) represents another area where I spent much of my earlier life—though reaching the heights of chairmanship of the county NFU is something that eluded me.

[Mr Whittingdale]

I was at a meeting and saw my hon. Friend’s name in impressive gold letters on a board a few weeks ago, so he is clearly held in high regard.

[Mr Paice]

I am very grateful for that. I think that my hon. Friend will find that I was chairman of Essex Young Farmers, rather than the National Farmers Union. In those days, believe it or not, I was young. My hon. Friend also referred to the 1953 floods and the memories of them. I am probably one of the few people in the House who remembers them—just. I was a very small child at the time, living just outside Felixstowe. The flood came close to where I was living and it was horrendous. That sort of memory lives on. People will always be frightened if they have been through that awful experience.

My hon. Friend referred to the importance of agricultural land. As a Minister with responsibility for agriculture, and coming from such a background, too, I am very concerned about it. However, I accept that against someone’s home, it comes second; we must all realise that. I hope that the point I will come to in a minute about other Government proposals will reassure colleagues that it is something that we are trying to address, albeit in a different way. I take his point about the involvement of local landowners in shoreline management plans and I am very much aware of the work of Andrew St Joseph in trying to drive that forward and in generating dialogue.

My hon. Friend and one or two other hon. Members referred to the role of Natural England. Although it has a vital role to play, it is important that it adopts a more enabling and supportive role and that it recognises that other issues are involved. We are making some substantial changes to the way in which Natural England is organised and run, which I hope will make it more responsive to local needs and understanding, and I am happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance.

My hon. Friend the Member for Maldon also referred to the difficulty of landowners in doing maintenance work. I am not sure whether that happens just in his constituency, but an Essex farmer, who had better remain nameless, told me that he was given permission by the Environment Agency to do some maintenance work on the sea wall, which involved several hundred tonnes of stone. Natural England then came along and told him that the stone had to go in by helicopter, which stopped the process in its tracks.

Mobile homes, to which a number of hon. Friends referred, are included in the cost benefit analysis, although at a lower rate than a fixed building because they can be moved. My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) referred to the issue of consultation and to the apparent priority of the habitats directive, which allows projects to go ahead, even where damage to protected sites is foreseen as a consequence. Projects that damage European protected sites can still go ahead if there are imperative reasons for overriding that public interest or if there are no alternative solutions and if necessary compensatory measures are in place.

The issue of how cost benefits are calculated, to which my hon. Friend also referred, are addressed on the DEFRA website. I will write to him with more detail, because I fully appreciate that people have a right to know. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) referred to the solidarity fund promoted by the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb). I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury, is, in principle, supportive of that, but it is a matter for local people to take forward. Although the comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) cover a devolved issue, I appreciate his point about the liability aspect.

As the hon. Member for Leicester South said, no two places on the coast are the same, which is one reason why greater local involvement is necessary if we are to get this job right. The powers of consent for work rest with the local authority, except where there are certain European obligations to achieve, and then the powers rest with the Secretary of State. The House is aware that the coalition Government are determined to be the greenest Government ever, and that includes protecting and enhancing the natural environment. None the less, we need to be more creative in the way in which we serve those interests as well as meeting our international obligations and protecting agricultural land wherever possible.

Greater local involvement is at the heart of the Government’s proposed “payment for outcomes” funding approach, which we launched for public consultation last Wednesday, alongside the joint consultation with the Environment Agency of the national flood and coastal erosion risk management strategy. The consultation suggests changes to the way in which Government funding is allocated to flood and coastal defence projects. That follows recommendations by Sir Michael Pitt in his review of the 2007 flooding. The reforms aim to provide improved transparency and greater certainty over potential funding levels from the general taxpayer for every flood and coastal defence project. They will also allow local areas to have a bigger say in what is done to protect them. Over time, local ambitions on protection no longer need be constrained by what national budgets can afford, and the reforms will encourage innovative, cost-effective solutions in which civil society can play a greater role. This is about saying what the Government think the cost-benefit analysis is and, therefore, what funding might be available from Government. If that is not enough to do the work, the local community has the option to find funding to enable it to happen.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

One of the criticisms that sometimes comes out is about over-engineering and, therefore, the high costs of work. That is a constant refrain from landowners who believe that they could do a lot of the work at a much lower cost.

[Mr Paice]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend; she makes a point that has been made many times. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury is conscious of that issue and is working with the Environment Agency to see how we can alter the situation, which I do not think necessarily means reducing the specification of what is done. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the matter.

The proposals to which I have just referred are subject to consultation and final decisions will be made in the spring after the consultation closes on 16 February 2011. I hope that this will mark a significant step forward in how we go about things. I think I have referred to most of the issues that hon. Members raised; if I have not or if I have answered their concerns inadequately, perhaps Members could let me know.

[Sir Peter Soulsby]

I referred, at the conclusion of my remarks, to the loss of staff and expertise from Natural England, the Environment Agency and local government. The Minister referred to the role of Natural England as enabling and supporting Government. Will he provide reassurance that the Department is aware if that role is to be played, Natural England needs experts to offer the support that is fundamental to making a success of the plans?

[Mr Paice]

I cannot give the hon. Gentleman assurances about individuals for obvious reasons. Although, as he says, we are making significant savings across all the arms-length bodies, and within DEFRA, there is no reason why they should not retain the element of expertise to which he refers. We are trying to ensure that those arms-length bodies retain the ability do what they have to do and what Government need them to do, which includes giving scientific advice. Natural England is, after all, the statutory adviser to the Government on such issues, and it will retain that role. Where there are functions that the private or third sector can perform, we should try to make that happen. I know that the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting otherwise, but those bodies have taken their fair share of the reduction in funding that we have had to make as part of dealing with the overall public deficit. I hope that I have addressed most of the issues raised by hon. Members, but if not, I am happy to write to anyone who wishes to raise an issue with me.