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George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con) [R]
I beg to move,
That this House has considered flooding and planning and developer responsibilities.
It is a great pleasure to be here under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this issue, and to discuss how we can help the Minister to tackle the tsunami of inland flooding that is sweeping so much of the country—not just my beautiful Mid Norfolk constituency, but many other areas. The presence of so many colleagues from different parties and counties speaks volumes about the scale of the problem.
I will start in December 2020, when I fully woke up to the scale of what was coming. It was a lovely Christmas in Mid Norfolk when the phone started ringing, as it did for many colleagues in our part of the world. Along with many people, I spent that Christmas week baling out constituents, clearing out sewage and getting Anglian Water to pump out houses. It happened in not just one village, but seven or eight across Mid Norfolk. At that point, I realised the scale of what was coming and why the issue had been becoming increasingly prevalent in the constituency letterbox. Following that, I set up the Mid Norfolk Flood Partnership with the 14 worst affected villages, as a result of which we set out 15 very practical things that we in Norfolk could do. We set up the Norfolk Strategic Flooding Alliance with the county council, and this year we held the first Norfolk flood summit.
I want to update colleagues on some of that work and flag some of the things we have identified. I commend the Minister for the grip she has exerted on the problem since arriving in office. She is on the cusp of having the chance to do something quite significant for generations to come. I want to highlight the things we are particularly suffering from in Mid Norfolk, explain what the problem is in our part of the world—it is different in different parts of the country—and set out some suggestions that I hope the Minister will take on board in the flood review that she is leading.
To that end, I have arranged an all-party flood summit on 2 June with the four all-party parliamentary groups. It says something that four APPGs have been set up—standing room only—in order to deal with flooding. Of the 400 or so new MPs who have arrived in Parliament, I think 100 have put flooding very high on their list, so this is a big issue; it is no longer marginal. I want to say something about the importance of gripping it at scale, so that future generations do not have to experience the horrors that our constituents have. In other words, I want to put wind in the Minister’s sails to do something that Whitehall often struggles with. As a veteran Minister myself, I know that the sticky-tape solution is often the tempting one to reach for, but this issue, as the Minister knows, requires a structural change in the way we think about water across our economy.
Mid Norfolk—the clue is in the name—is not a maritime constituency. I am talking today about inland flooding, although I appreciate that there is also a coastal flooding problem. One of the issues in Norfolk is that we have had so much coastal flooding that the focus has been on that, and not so much on inland flooding. My constituency is largely made up of Breckland, the glacial clays and sands—a clue: it should not be flooding. It is dry—very dry. Where there is water and sand, there is very productive agricultural land. Yes, we have some lower-lying, very beautiful areas—the chalk streams, the Wensum valley, the Yare and the Tud—where we should not be building, not least because they are sites of special scientific interest and hugely strong habitats, but they are also prone to flooding.
So why is Mid Norfolk flooding? That is the question I hear hon. Members asking, because it should not be flooding. Other areas should be, but not Mid Norfolk. There are several answers, but I will first explain the scale of what has happened in the last five years. There has been serious flooding in 22 of my villages, by which I mean sewage washing between houses, and more than five houses affected at one time. There are plenty of houses that are near a ditch or river and get some flooding; I am talking about at-scale, serious flooding, with chronic consequences for the people affected. I will give an example. At Mill Lane in Attleborough there is a culvert that was terribly designed in the 1970s. No one has taken responsibility for it, and the four houses at the entrance to the culvert have flooded every year for 10 years. Last autumn, 100 houses around Mill Lane flooded. That is when people really started to wake up and understand.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Highgate) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this important debate. As soon as I walked in, a colleague looked at me in astonishment and said, “Is there flooding in west Hampstead?”, and I said, “Actually, there is.” It takes only a heavy rainstorm to fill all the homes in my constituency with water and sewage.
I intervene at this point in the debate because we, too, have a Mill Lane—not the same one—in west Hampstead that has been flooded. The risk of surface water flooding has not been taken seriously, which is strange, because properties in danger from surface water flooding outnumber those in danger from rivers and seas by two to one. I am proud that our friends in City Hall are actually publishing their surface water strategy tomorrow, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that developers also have a role to play in managing surface water flooding? I am sure he will address that, but I want him to know that there are others in this room who agree with him about the role of developers.
George Freeman
The hon. Lady makes a brilliant point; at the risk of opening the floodgate of interventions too early, I will absolutely come on to her point at pace, so that Members from across the House can pile in.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. He is absolutely right. One of the problems—if I can put forward the reasoning behind what he is referring to—is the old system of building houses, not just in Norfolk, but right across this whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Having the storm drain and the sewage within the one system is the way they did it 40 or 50 years ago, in the houses we grew up in. That creates a problem for the houses built around that time. Every time there is heavy rain—rain no longer comes lightly, but comes in hurricane-like storms—it brings a deluge of water. The system is not able to cope with that, so does he have a solution for moving forward? This is about not just new developments, but the old developments and the old houses. What was okay years ago is not okay today.
George Freeman
The hon. Member—I am tempted to say my great and hon. Friend, since we have spoken in this Hall together so many times—is absolutely right. My constituency has 130 villages and three towns. At the last boundary review, I lost Wymondham because the rest of my patch has had 10,000 new houses built in the last 10 to 15 years. Very few constituencies, apart from possibly that of the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy), have had as many houses built as mine.
That is part of the issue, but another part of it is that developers are tending to build on the outskirts of villages and towns, because it is the easy place to dump commuter housing, but they are not upgrading the drains. Little villages that have happily existed and been able to drain themselves for years and cope with some growth, are now finding huge problems with the existing drainage infrastructure not being able to cope, which leads to the sewerage problem.
Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. On the point about new developments, does he agree with the Liberal Democrats that making the water companies statutory consultees in the planning process would mean that developers cannot build where the infrastructure cannot account for the new houses?
George Freeman
That is a very good point, and I do agree—in fact, I will go a lot further than that, if Members will allow me to get to the radical, central elements of my Bill. However, I do agree that that is absolutely something we need to do.
Across Mid Norfolk, the 23 villages—I will not list them all—go from Old Buckenham in the deep south east, through Wretham, Hockham, Rocklands, Thompson, Watton, Saham Toney, Cranworth, a cluster of co-adjacent villages, north Elmham, Billingford, Lyng, Elsing, Yaxham, Mattishall and right up to Weasenham in my north-west frontier, which should not be flooding. That tells us that this flooding is not just geomorphological. It is the result of housing and the lack of investment in the drainage infrastructure.
The truth is that the patient people in Mid Norfolk—they are pretty patient, given that they have had me as an MP for 14 years—are getting really impatient with this. There is a contract between the state and the citizen whereby if they pay their taxes and buy a house, while they do not expect that much these days, they do expect that their house will not flood because of systemic and structural failures of national infrastructure. When it does flood, and they call, hoping that someone will come and pump it out, they expect the water companies, to whom they are paying very high bills, to be there and to help. However, the service and the responsiveness has not been there—at least until they are able to sit on the answering machine and ring enough times that eventually a tanker arrives. People are fed up with that and with the fact that this has been coming for quite a long time, so they are very excited by the fact that the Minister is gripping this issue.
Let me spin through the problems, as I have experienced them in Norfolk. It is, of course, climate change; let us not undermine the importance of that. Last year we had the eight wettest months on record, one after another. That is not happening for any weird, strange, unexplained reason; it is happening because of climate change. The issue is also that in my part of the world we are building a lot of houses—but the country has to build them, so I do not think that not building houses is the answer. The devil is in the detail.
Another problem is that our agricultural practices have changed. In my part of the world, a proud farming county, we now have a lot of contract farming. The big landowners are often things like pension funds and are remote. The farming is not done by a local landowner, but by contract farmers on a very tight, low-margin contract, with huge bits of kit, roaring around trying to get the job done and scratch a living. In the old days, on the farm I grew up on, in a rainy month we would go and mend the fences and clear the ditches, but that work does not tend to be in the farming contracts. Our county councils have also seen their budgets hammered by the rising cost of social care and through some of austerity 1.0. There is a basic maintenance problem.
We also have a big planning problem. The point made by the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) was a good one, but the real problem in my patch has been that because of the five-year land supply, good planners have said, “Well, we don’t want to build here, and we shouldn’t build there,” as well as holding statutory consultations. Many of the big developers have then land banked—they have taken their permissions where they know they are going to get them and have not built them out—and then invoked the five-year land supply.
The five-year land supply was a sensible coalition policy designed to ensure that a 20-year plan could not be ignored, but it has been used to blow the whistle and say, “You are not building out at your five-year land supply, so we will now invoke the freedom to dump where we want.” It is a win-win. They then dump 100 houses outside Yaxham and 200 outside Mattishall—they want to go near Norwich, dump on the outskirts of a village near a road, move on and not invest. That is what has driven a lot of the problem.
Statutory consultation is fine, but this is also a planning issue. Part of what my Bill addresses is that we must somehow ensure that when developers are building like that, it should not just be that they are statutorily consulted and go through the tick boxes. The only way to make them take this seriously is to say, “Look, if you build, and within five or 10 years of your building there is significant flooding that never used to happen in that area, you’re going to be on the hook for upgrading the drains. You’re going to be on the hook for doing the repair work.” We have to create a fiduciary financial liability that makes the directors of those companies say, “I think we’d better upgrade; we’d better do the investment up front, rather than relying on consultations.”
In the end, somebody has to pay. To be fair, the water companies have got to pay more, but we are also asking them to pay billions to improve pipes, build reservoirs and stop leaks. Somewhere in the system we have to find a bit more money to do the upgrade of the traditional drains and improve the infrastructure. It behoves us all to give the Minister some solutions. Where will the money come from? Nobody in Mid Norfolk wants to pay more council tax; it is already very high and it is going on social care. One answer is from the developers.
There is another problem, however. When someone in Mid Norfolk picks up the phone and asks who is in charge, there are 36 organisations in Norfolk with responsibility for flooding prevention. In Whitehall that probably seems like a low number, but in Norfolk people only want one. We do have one: it is called the local flood authority. It is great, but it has no money and no power.
The good news is that in addition to the LFA we have the internal drainage boards, which have been looking after flooding since about 1550; they really know their ditches and dykes. Colleagues with agricultural constituencies—I can see them nodding—will know that these are the very local experts who know about hydrology and water and how it all works. The problem is that their budgets have either been cut or not maintained to keep pace with demand.
There are quite a small number of areas—I think15 to 20 districts—particularly in the east of England, such as the fens, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and other areas, that have a very high incidence of flooding. The other problem is that where they are being hit, the IDBs have to be propped up by the district councils, which means the residents in those areas are then penalised as funding is—quite properly—diverted into flooding. That is funding that they are not getting into their public services. There is a huge problem with the allocation of funding.
Terry Jermy (South West Norfolk) (Lab)
I am pleased that the hon. Member, my county colleague, mentioned internal drainage boards. For every pound that King’s Lynn and West Norfolk borough council in my constituency collects in council tax, 43p now goes to internal drainage board levies, which is completely unsustainable. Does his draft Bill address IDB levies and call for a permanent, full-time solution to the funding issue?
George Freeman
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is my constituency neighbour and good friend. Yes, my Bill absolutely does address that issue; I will take his steer and get to the guts of it. He is absolutely right; IDBs are crucial in our part of the world. When I first looked into this issue, I thought, “How come Norfolk is top of the league table for flooding?” I soon discovered—even more shockingly—that we are not; I think we are county No. 6 or 7 out of 10, which is why many hon. Members from other counties are here.
The problem is fourfold, and there are four provisions in my draft Bill—I am keen to use this debate as an opportunity to polish it. First, we need a much clearer and sharper set of responsibilities. At the top, the Environment Agency obviously has overall responsibility for flooding in the country, but this is a local problem, so we have to properly empower the strategic flood authorities locally and re-empower the IDBs. At the moment, many of them find that in dealing with flooding they come up against all sorts of environmental green tape produced by the very agencies that are there to stop flooding—as though the Environment Agency is more interested in filling our ditches and drains with mud and wild flowers than encouraging them to drain the water. People feel frustrated by well-intended green bureaucracy that is getting in the way of local solutions, so responsibilities should be put back locally.
Secondly, on funding, I strongly believe that we should be top-slicing and ringfencing some of the Environment Agency’s funding and giving it to IDBs and strategic flood authorities. It would be a rounding error for the Environment Agency—
Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)
Order. Could I encourage the hon. Gentleman to come to an end, because it is a very short debate and many Members want to come in?
George Freeman
I am sorry; I thought we had 90.
We have to put funding in the hands of people who have responsibility. Thirdly, I want to create planning liabilities for development companies so that they have a proper incentive—not just a vague instruction—to upgrade the drainage.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
Earlier today, I met Thames Water and Sutton and East Surrey Water representatives to discuss that very issue. They all agreed that, as professional consultees, their contributions are not given the same weight as those of statutory consultees. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) has already mentioned this, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that some thought should be given to making them statutory consultees, as a minimum for medium to large developments?
George Freeman
The hon. Lady makes an important point. That is all part of the planning mix and we have to get it right.
My last point is about data. When an area floods, we reach for data and ask, “How bad is it? How much worse is it than it used to be?” It is striking that there is not a properly collected dataset. I have a map with dots for all the flooding in my Norfolk patch, but it does not seem difficult to have a properly collected national flood heat map at the Cabinet Office to see where the flooding is coming. If it is coming much more quickly in Mid Norfolk and, I suspect, in many other areas, the Cabinet Office needs to be aware that that is a growing national critical infrastructure resilience issue.
Locally, we need flood maps to prepare for which places are likely to flood this winter. As the former Minister with responsibility for the Met Office, I know that it has amazing data and can now predict when, for certain areas, when it rains to such an extent over in the west, the surge will hit because of the geomorphology. We can now make predictions with AI and other tools, but they are not being done properly. There is a lot more we could do with data.
Forgive me, Mrs Hobhouse—I thought this was a 90-minute debate. I am conscious of time and how many hon. Members want to get in, so I will close. I look forward to hearing the comments from hon. Members from all parties.
Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)
I remind Members that they should be bob if they wish to be called in the debate. I wish to call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson at 5.8 pm, so I am imposing an immediate time limit of two and a half minutes.
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) on securing this important debate. I am very limited by time, but I want to raise the recent flooding at Meadow Mill in my constituency on new year’s day. I thank the firefighters, police officers and council staff for supporting residents. Thankfully, none of the flats in the mill was flooded, but the electricity and water supply were lost. One of the key points that I want to raise in the limited time that I have is that the Environment Agency needs more funding for flood defences in Stockport.
Several residents have contacted me or come to see me. One told me that the repair costs for her car due to the flooding were approximately £320. Another told me that they had to pay more than £1,000 in temporary accommodation costs, which really adds up. The Meadow Mill residents association has been doing a lot of work on those issues, and Martin Doherty MBE has been contacting utility companies to support residents over electricity charges that seem to be inconsistent. Stockport council is Liberal Democrat-run, but I have been working with it and it has been making representations to the Environment Agency and the Government that it needs more funding to support residents.
My final point is on insurance costs. Many residents, whether they are tenants or own their property, face significantly higher insurance costs because of flooding. I think that experience will be replicated across the constituencies of MPs in this Chamber, and something needs to be done about it. The flooding is not caused by the residents, but they are facing much higher costs for insurance and to protect themselves.
I met the Environment Agency recently, and I thank all its staff, but I do not think that it has a plan for increasing flood defences, particularly in Stockport. I urge the Minister, who I know is hard-working and diligent, to make representations on that point.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
I thank the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) for securing today’s wide-ranging debate. It is hard not to get stuck on flooding, developer responsibilities and planning, but I will try to focus on just two key points in the short time that I have. My criticisms of the planning system are well recorded in Hansard, as is my support for the Liberal Democrat amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to make water companies statutory consultees, which we need to see happen.
My constituents in Chichester know how fortunate we are to live in such a beautiful part of the UK, but we are seeing sites that have been identified as at risk of flooding still being approved for development if they are classified as strategic development sites in the local plans that were written based on an outdated flood risk methodology. That is deeply concerning for my communities, which are watching fields flood year on year and then seeing houses built on those very fields.
The situation has been worsened by historical planning failures. The previous administration at Chichester district council allowed the local plan to expire, which left developers to ride roughshod over areas such as the Manhood peninsula, a fragile, low-lying coastal region that is increasingly vulnerable to extreme flooding. Climate change is exacerbating the already serious flood and erosion risks on the English coast. In 2018, the Climate Change Committee said:
“the current approach to coastal management in England is unsustainable in the face of climate change.”
The flood risk modelling fails to reflect the lived experience of many of my constituents. The Manhood peninsula has already seen numerous floods since 2012, which have displaced families from their homes and caused widespread fear that does not go away once the water has receded.
I would like to talk briefly about coastal squeeze. Natural England estimates that 58% of the salt marsh habitat in Chichester harbour has been lost since 1946, and that we are losing around three football pitches-worth of salt marsh every year. To address those concerns, I tabled an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to make national landscapes, such as the one responsible for Chichester harbour, statutory consultees in the planning process. I hope that Bill Committee members on both sides of the House will support it, because places such as Chichester harbour are crying out for a seat at the table so that they can relay their concerns about the planning process for areas of significant scientific importance.
Julia Buckley (Shrewsbury) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) for securing this important debate. As the Member for Shrewsbury, flooding is always a priority for me, as it is for my residents, businesses and local services, because our historic town is encircled by the beautiful yet powerful River Severn. Some of my residents have been flooded over 20 times since 1998, and our active Shrewsbury Business Flood Action Group is providing valuable support for them. They often struggle to find affordable insurance to cope.
On funding, I thank the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for investing over £16 million this financial year in projects that protect communities such as mine all along the River Severn catchment. As the newly elected chair of the River Severn Partnership, I am delighted to see a suite of demonstrator projects that will develop nature-based solutions upstream for longer-term resilience. DEFRA is demonstrating its understanding and commitment to the scale of this issue and rising to the challenge.
In terms of datasets, which I know the hon. Gentleman is very concerned about, DEFRA already published new online data on the Government website in January that show the updated risk of flood from the combined sources of rivers, seas and surface water. For the first time, surface-water flooding is incorporated into that new national flood risk assessment, and that will help individual residents and businesses to know whether the risk is coming downstream or up through their drain gullies—or sometimes both.
In March, DEFRA then incorporated that dataset to update the flood zone planning maps that are often used by local authority planning officers and developers. We now have accurate risk assessments for all development sites, which I know environmental campaigners are really keen to hear. We finally have a Government who understand that we need to stop building on areas at risk of flooding, and we have delivered the data, the mapping and the intelligence to inform those local decisions and uphold that approach.
Finally, in terms of local agencies and their responsibilities, I am pleased to inform the hon. Gentleman that I have secured an inquiry through the Environmental Audit Committee to examine flood preparedness and response. It will look particularly at the fragmentation of responsibilities across many agencies, and its impact on budgets and on how we can best co-ordinate. I hope that we can provide some helpful recommendations to the Minister, and perhaps find some efficiencies and ways to work better together towards prevention rather than cure. As with the demonstrator projects along the River Severn, Shrewsbury is once again leading the way.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) on securing the debate. As in much of the country, we in North Norfolk have been told by the Government that we need to identify significantly more sites for housing. Let me be absolutely clear: we do need more homes, including homes that local people can actually afford, so that they are not stuck waiting endlessly on housing lists or left in temporary accommodation, but rushing to build homes without proper provision for flood alleviation or sustainable drainage would be a bad idea and incredibly costly. Let us imagine a young couple who, after years of saving and planning, finally moving into their first home, but it floods because corners were cut and developers were not held to account. That is not just a policy failure; it is a failure of basic fairness.
That failure does not just affect new homeowners. If we add more pressure to our creaking infrastructure without investment, we risk backed-up drains and flooding for the people who have lived in those communities for years. The previous Government promised to implement schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, which would require developers to include sustainable drainage systems, but they never delivered.
One place that would benefit hugely from such a system is Ludham where, following the Government’s new mandated targets, a development proposal for 12 houses has expanded to 60 houses. That has caused significant concern for locals due to the history of flooding in the area. If it were to go ahead, it could be feasible only with real action on the surface water and drainage issues that the area faces.
Although North Norfolk district council does an excellent job of pushing developers as hard as it can, it needs the Government to provide it with the legislative teeth to achieve more. I hope that the Minister is in conversation with her counterparts at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government about how we make sure that there is joined-up thinking about flooding in future planning legislation.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
Hawkhurst parish council and Southern Water recently came to see me to complain about a number of developers in my constituency who have mixed surface run-off with foul water, which is illegal. Does my hon. Friend agree that, although we of course need big housing developments, if developers are proven to have illegally mixed surface run-off and foul water when building them, they should have to make good what they did?
Steff Aquarone
Unquestionably, and a slightly more sympathetic approach should be taken to historical instances in which householders’ surface water drains have been connected to foul water systems, which they may not even realise. For developments that have been built since that law, it is absolutely unquestionable that developers should do that.
Finally, we must consider seriously the impact of man-made climate change on flooding. When we place responsibilities on developers, we must make sure that new developments do not deal just with the floods of the past or those of today, but with the worst floods that are yet to come. Henry Cator is chair of the Norfolk Strategic Flooding Alliance, which my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk, mentioned. His voice is given deserved reverence in Norfolk when speaking about these issues, and he has said that climate change will create a new level of extremes that we must be ready for. Simply planning for the current levels will be wasted in years to come.
I look forward to working with hon. Members on both sides of the House on this issue. It needs proper cross-functional work from the Government if we are to ensure that the much-needed homes of tomorrow are built sustainably and that the circumstances of the communities that those houses will serve and join are protected and improved.
Several hon. Members rose—
Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)
Order. I will have to reduce the speaking time to two minutes. I remind hon. Members that if they take interventions, it eats into the time of those who are on the call list.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) for his excellent work in securing this debate.
I want to speak about the experience of constituents in my Reading constituency and outline the nature of local flooding, as well as some possible solutions. I endorse the work that the hon. Gentleman is doing to bring local landowners and others together and support the work that the Minister is doing on the matter.
We have two issues, or possibly three, with flooding in our area. The two major rivers, the Thames and the Kennet, have smaller streams and brooks running into them. We also have a problem with surface water flooding; I have a great deal of sympathy with my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Tulip Siddiq), who mentioned that issue.
Residents face the most appalling disruption to their lives when their homes are wrecked and muddy water, often polluted by sewage, gets in. It can take months, or even more than a year, to dry out the home and clean it properly. It is the most awful situation for any family. I have heard stories of water coming in at odd times of day or night, of people being woken in the middle of the night by flood alarms, and of water coming up through the floorboards under Victorian houses, where there is a void. All of this is truly awful.
At a recent public meeting in Southcote, serious concerns were raised about the lack of joined-up communication between major landowners, particularly private landowners in the Kennet Meadows area and the neighbouring Southcote community in Reading. Some owners are not active in clearing ditches and other watercourses or in removing branches that have fallen into the Holy Brook, which is a channel that comes back into the Kennet. It needs much more attention, and I would like to see more joined-up working.
Finally, I thank neighbouring MPs, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West and Mid Berkshire (Olivia Bailey), for their work on the matter.
Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) for securing this important debate.
I wish to speak about the effect on the residents of South West Hertfordshire. In the five and half years I have been a Member of Parliament, I have been distressed by how many residents come to me about this issue. A problem that starts as a trickle very quickly has a massive impact on their life. Flooding now has real, lived effects; it is not just a remote risk. Residents face home damage, traffic disruption, economic loss and, increasingly, mental health impacts.
Rickmansworth lies at the confluence of three rivers: the Colne, the Chess and the Gade. It has a historic canal network, including the Grand Union and Batchworth canals, and surrounding waterways. In recent years, we have increasingly seen the overtopping of canals and a fast-rising water table during heavy rainfall. Problem hotspots include Church Street, the aquadrome and Ebury Road in Rickmansworth. Surface water flooding is worsened by urban development, inadequate historical infrastructure and bad planning. Unfortunately, we do not have an up-to-date local plan, so design guidance is not yet being adhered to by developers, because there is no requirement to do so.
Planning must begin with flood resilience. Bad planning does not just affect us; some of the structures we build today will last for decades, if not hundreds of years. If we get it wrong now, it is very difficult to retrofit and correct with a developer, who typically makes a profit and leaves.
Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)
In places such as Maulden in Mid Bedfordshire, we too often see inappropriate or poorly maintained sustainable drainage, which contributes to worsening flooding. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s plans for 1.5 million homes can be considered a success only if they can tackle such problems so that everyone can live in a dry home?
Mr Mohindra
I agree 100%.
I commend my parish councillors, the volunteer flood wardens and the residents of Croxley Green, Rickmansworth and Batchworth who step up during these difficult times. Flooding is now a structural challenge, not an anomaly. We must act now by embedding resilience in planning, forcing developer responsibilities and investing in essential infrastructure.
Terry Jermy (South West Norfolk) (Lab)
I have two quick points to make. When I was first elected to Norfolk county council in 2013, social care was about 40% of the total budget. When I left 12 years later, a few months ago, it was more like 60% and was rapidly increasing towards 70%. That means less money for maintenance. The highways maintenance backlog in Norfolk is about £70 million. That is drains, gullies, ditches and dykes. Frankly, far too many flooding incidents are preventable. I strongly urge the Minister, in the great work she is doing, to look for a cross-departmental solution. Local council funding is crucial.
I referred earlier to the operational aspects of internal drainage boards. We must not underestimate the role that IDBs play. They are very cost-efficient, they are incredibly experienced and they know their area. When I visit the IDBs in my patch, and there are dozens of them, I find that the staff have 10, 20 or 30 years’ experience. Their costs are increasing, mainly because of electricity; it is expensive to make the pumps run. More importantly, the pumps are old. Walking into some pumping stations is like walking into a museum: they are 50 years old.
There is a huge risk of failure, at the very time when we need pumps working because of the increase in rainfall and flooding incidents. I strongly urge the Minister to look at capital funding for IDB pumps. It may only be when IDBs are gone that we realise how crucial they are. They exist in a relatively small number of areas, but in those areas they are critical pieces of infrastructure.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. I commend the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) for his excellent speech. I have several points to make in the short time that I have, so here goes.
I agree with the hon. Member that when people are flooded either by surface or river water, the response is often chaotic. In Gobowen in my constituency, it is not clear who is responsible for closing the road. When vehicles drive through, there is a big bow wave, and the flooding in shops and homes becomes much worse. I fully endorse his point about better co-ordinating the response for people who have been flooded.
Insurance is hard to get. Homes built since 2009 are not covered by Flood Re’s remit. The remit ends in 2030, leaving people stuck in potentially unsaleable and unmortgageable homes. I know that the Minister is looking at Flood Re and its remit, so I would be grateful if she gave us a bit of an update. I should have declared at the start that I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on flooding and flooded communities, so I have an interest.
After people have been flooded, it is often hard to get help. The “frequently flooded” criteria do not catch all homes in rural communities, because the density is not there. I know that the Minister is looking at that; I would be grateful for an update.
Farms are hit very badly, and they are storing an enormous amount of water upstream. Will the Minister be working with her colleagues in the Department to consider how the sustainable farming incentive and similar plans might be used to help people to store water upstream and prevent flooding downstream?
Finally, in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, the Government are not taking the once-in-a-generation opportunity to deal with the increased likelihood of flooding. We have talked about having water companies as statutory consultees in planning; about implementing schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 so that SuDS have statutory guidance and are properly maintained; and about ensuring that houses are not being built in inappropriate places. The current guidelines do not achieve those objectives. I hope that the Minister will work with her colleagues to make those requirements statutory.
Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. In the village of Playhatch, my constituent Suzzanne wakes up most days to flooding on her doorstep. Afraid that her children will touch sewage, she carries them, wearing wellington boots, to the bus stop. The area should not flood, and she was reassured of that point by the previous occupiers of her property. In this case, the cause is not increased rainfall; it is development.
Development is not supposed to put additional burdens on the drainage system, yet all too often the lived experience of residents is different from what is in the plans. Local knowledge is insufficiently valued. When that happens, can we expect anything less from our residents than dogged resistance to new housing?
I welcome new clause 7, which my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) has tabled as an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. It would require the Secretary of State to bring into force the sustainable drainage provisions of the Flood and Water Management Act. It is an important step in requiring flood risk to be taken into account ex ante.
Ex post, my new clause 89 would require developers to assess the real-world impact of development five years after completion. Where a review recommends that action be taken to improve a development’s drainage performance, the developer must implement such recommendations. I urge all hon. Members to review my new clause and sponsor it. It would give residents security over the future of their homes when development is taking place.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
It is a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse, and follow all the wonderful speeches in this important debate. I say a massive thank you to the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) for securing the debate and for introducing it with great style and knowledge, as always.
I think that my constituency is the wettest represented in this Chamber, certainly in England, although there is possible competition from the hon. Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns).
Ms Minns
Carlisle floods, as the hon. Member knows all too well, but it is not beyond the wit of responsible developers to build in a way that reduces the trauma of flooding. There is an excellent example in Carlisle, where Story Homes built townhouses with garages underneath that are designed to flood, but in a way that protects the residents. Does the hon. Member agree that we need to do more to encourage developers to be responsible and innovative in their design?
Tim Farron
The hon. Member is 100% correct. It is interesting that some of the older properties in my constituency are the ones that are most resilient. In many cases, they were built hundreds of years ago to resist flooding, or for it not to be the end of the world when it does flood. The design of the new buildings in Carlisle absolutely measures up, and we should do more of that.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
I must contest my hon. Friend’s suggestion that he represents the wettest part of the country. Somerset is always at the forefront of flooding. Part of my constituency lies in the levels and moors site of special scientific interest. The area is increasingly threatened by inappropriate planning applications. Locally elected officials are crucial to good decision making for local communities. Does my hon. Friend agree that they play an important role in making sure that the right decisions are made for local communities and our environment?
Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)
Order. May I remind the hon. Gentleman that his time is limited?
Tim Farron
I shall take no more interventions. I appear to have opened a very soggy can of worms, but my hon. Friend the Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) is absolutely correct.
Looking at the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, and at the attitude of this Government and the previous Government towards planning, they seem to be seeking to centralise control of planning at a national level, yet to relax planning rules at a local level to give local planners, local councillors and national parks less power than they currently have. That is very dangerous. In the last Parliament, I served on the Bill Committee considering the very lengthy Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. Among the amendments proposed was one that we referred to as the infrastructure-first amendment. It would have given local authorities and national parks the power to say no to developments unless the infrastructure —including drainage, correct sewage provision and sufficient capacity—was there in advance. That power is so important, and it is missing today.
Many hon. Members, on both sides of the Chamber, have talked about the severe housing crisis. Some 7,000 people in my district are on the council house waiting list. We need to build, yet we know that there are a million properties in this country with planning permission, so it is not that the rules are too tough; it is that the developers are not building. We need to make sure that we point the finger of responsibility in the right direction.
New clause 7 of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos), would bring into force the sustainable drainage provisions of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. Shamefully, I must admit that I was the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for environment, food and rural affairs on the Bill that became that Act, 15 flippin’ years ago; I have been our EFRA spokesperson under every leader since Nick Clegg, including under myself, because there were only eight of us and someone had to do it. I remember the Bill very well. What a tragedy, and what an outrage, that schedule 3 to the Act has still not been brought into force, 15 years on. We aim to ensure that it is.
I am mindful of time, but this is a timely debate. Last week, I wrote to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about the deeply concerning issue of flood defence spending. At the Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that there would be a review after the 2025-26 financial year. We are into that financial year now, so we are getting close. It is deeply troubling. My communities in Cumbria were massively affected by Storm Desmond nearly 10 years ago. The cost of that flooding incident was £500 million.
I am watching the clock, so I will simply say this: cutting flood defence spending and taking shortcuts in development that allow flooding to happen are catastrophic false economies—
Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)
Thank you, Mrs Hobhouse.I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) on securing a really important debate. There is no better champion on this issue in Parliament. He is bringing together many all-party parliamentary groups to specifically tackle and bring to the Minister’s attention the important issue of flooding and is setting up his own flood caucus, not only among parliamentary colleagues, but prominently within the county of Norfolk—which is invaluable. My hon. Friend mentioned the 22 villages that have been flooded in his constituency, and all of us have referenced our own impacted communities, so I know just how important this issue is.
I want to address some of my remarks by echoing some of the concerns that have been raised in this debate, because flooding devastates communities, families and the health and wellbeing of individuals who experience the trauma of flooding. It devastates our farmers and our economy at all levels and it represents a threat to life. What is worse, for some it is not a one-off event but a frequent occurrence. Far too many people are impacted. I am proud to say that the previous Government took robust action on flooding. Since 2010, more than 600,000 properties and 900,000 acres of farmland have been better protected by Government-backed schemes. In 2020, the Government announced a doubling of the flood defences budget, including £100 million for the frequently flooded allowance.
While those statistics represent vital progress, we must recognise, as has been indicated, that there is always much more to do. I will just canter through some of the points that have been made, because it is quite right that when dealing with water and with flooding, a catchment approach is always the focus. That deals with not only our farmers, but with our housing developers and our infrastructure providers. It starts right at the top, upstream, dealing with our moorland restoration projects and ensuring that our farmers have the funding to deal with environmental mitigation. That is why it is deeply frustrating that the Government have stopped sustainable farming incentive applications. While there is an acknowledgment that they have opened it up to an additional 303,000 applications on the back of our calls, it is nevertheless worrying to many of our farming community. That is exacerbated by issues such as the family farm tax, which is creating uncertainty in our agricultural sector.
The role of developers has been mentioned by all in this room and I agree that water companies need to be statutory consultees as part of that process. I also agree that planning considerations such as SuDS ponds and the design of houses—as has been illustrated by the hon. Member for Carlisle (Julie Minns)—need to be taken into account when new developments are built. Financial contributions must be considered too, because far too often flood alleviation schemes are not established at speed to deal with the amount of development that is coming down the line. That impacts not only settlements further downstream, but agricultural businesses. Therefore, when looking at flood alleviation schemes, it is right that those schemes are attractive enough for a landowner to enter into such an arrangement, and therefore the remuneration that is associated with those flood alleviation schemes needs to be properly addressed.
The Environment Agency, internal drainage boards and land managers were also discussed. We very strongly advocate a loosening up of the relationship between the Environment Agency, our IDBs, who do a fantastic job recognised by many in this room, and the land managers—who sometimes just want to get on and clean the ditches, but are unfortunately penalised for doing so at the moment. I am sure the Minister will be aware that the advice from officials in the Environment Agency is “do not dredge” and “do not remove that vegetation from those EA-managed assets”. I would encourage the Minister to push back on that advice and say that dredging is an option further downstream and that removing vegetation from EA assets should be a consideration.
I also address the issue of insurance, because that is vitally important, as was mentioned by the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan). Flood Re is incredibly important if we are able to provide reassurance for those developments that have been built after the kick-in date. We would advocate the Government going stronger and faster with the recommendations that have been made in this debate.
Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)
Could I remind the Minister to leave a couple of minutes for the Member in charge of the debate to wind up?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Hardy)
Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much, Mrs Hobhouse. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.
I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to this debate and especially the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) for calling the debate and providing an opportunity for us to hear about and discuss how the planning system can best manage and mitigate flood risk. I am delighted to be here, obviously, as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Minister, but I recognise that some of the points made were about amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, so apologies if I cannot speak about amendments under a different brief. I will of course make sure that any points made are heard by the relevant Minister.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Tulip Siddiq) for raising the issue of surface water flooding. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy) talked about internal drainage boards, and I will address that. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) talked about flooding and insurance and made important points. My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) talked about flood action groups, and I want to take a moment to say thank you to all the flood action groups, wardens and volunteers in communities up and down our country for the work that they do. Helpfully, my hon. Friend addressed some of the concerns and questions around maps, so she saved a chunk of my speech, which is great, because I have not got much time to speak on that, although I will talk a little more about maps.
My hon. Friend the Member for Reading Central (Matt Rodda) said, when I arrived, “You will see the same faces as we do in all these debates.” But that is good, because it shows what a tireless champion he is, along with our hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns), in every flooding debate. It would not be the same without them—that is all I can say—so I thank them very much for coming here and, along with our hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, raising their concerns.
I met the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk back in April to discuss his proposals, and it was a really informative and helpful discussion. He raises important topics, which I have taken incredibly seriously and gone away and had a look at, because as he rightly said, climate change is bringing more extreme rainfall and rising sea levels, and it is a priority for this Government to protect communities from the increased risk of flooding.
I am not sure where the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), got the idea that we were cutting funding for flooding. That is not the case. We have invested a record £2.65 billion over two years—2024-25 and 2025-26—for the construction of new flood schemes and the repair and maintenance of existing ones.
Tim Farron
I am asking the question because the Government and Chancellor have said that there is no commitment beyond the end of this financial year. We do not know whether the Government are cutting or increasing spending, and we want to know. Many flood-hit communities are desperate to hear what the Chancellor’s plans are beyond this financial year.
Emma Hardy
Okay, I take the point. We have just invested a record amount over two years; it is the greatest amount that has ever been invested in flood defences. Of course, any future announcements are part of the spending review. The hon. Member has been in this place a very long time and understands that very well, but I hope that he can see that there are deeds, not words, in the fact that we have invested that record amount.
I pay tribute to the flood partnership of the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk. I think that is a great example of the vital role that partnerships have in bringing together all parties with an interest in flood resilience. I think it is a really good model for other people to take away.
The comments from Opposition Members about the personal experience of flooding, the impact on mental health and the impact on communities were very well made.
It was good again to hear about natural flood management and some of the work that we are doing to alleviate flooding. That is a positive way of doing it for nature as well as for flood alleviation.
I would like to talk a little bit about planning and flood risk, although I am of course mindful that I am speaking on a slightly different brief from my own. We are committed to building the homes that the country needs, while maintaining the highest levels of flood protection. The national planning policy framework is clear that inappropriate development in areas at risk of flooding should be avoided by directing development away from areas at highest risk. Where development is necessary and where no suitable sites are available in areas with a lower risk of flooding, local planning authorities and developers should ensure that development is appropriately flood resilient and resistant. Development must also be safe for its lifetime—a point made by hon. Members—should not increase flood risk overall and should provide wider sustainability benefits.
The Government, through the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, published the revised NPPF in December 2024. That clarified how the sequential test should be applied to development in areas of flood risk and encouraged the use of sustainable drainage systems in new developments. The Government are considering whether further changes are necessary to manage flood risk when we consult on planning reform, including national policy relating to decision making, later this year. I will ensure that all the contributions regarding amendments are heard by Ministers in the relevant Department.
We are strongly committed to requiring standardised SuDS in new developments. These should be designed to cope with changing climatic conditions, as well as delivering wider water infrastructure benefits, reducing run-off, and helping to improve water quality, amenity and biodiversity. It is important to ensure appropriate adoption and maintenance arrangements are in place—that was another point that was raised.
We believe that those outcomes can be achieved through either improving the current planning-led approach using powers now available or commencing schedule 3 to the Water and Flood Management Act 2010. A final decision on the way forward will be made in the coming months. As mentioned, there have been changes to the national planning policy framework to support increasing SuDS. The NPPF now requires all developments to use SuDS where they could have a drainage impact. These systems should be appropriate to the nature and scale of the proposed developments.
I will briefly mention the flood maps. The hon. Member for Mid Norfolk and I have discussed some of the mapping, which is called NaFRA2. Hon. Members can put in their postcode, and it will show their flood risk now and up to the mid-century for streets and areas. The information has been collected by the Environment Agency from around the country. It is really impressive. It is the first time that we can see surface water risk; before, flood maps showed only coastal water or river flooding. They are important maps. As my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury mentioned, they need to be used by developers and local authorities. They are free and available for anybody who wants to see where there is risk and where there are concerns.
Internal drainage board funding is an important issue that was mentioned by a few hon. Members. We recognise the essential work of the IDBs in supporting greater resilience for farmers and rural communities, so I was pleased to announce an additional £16 million boost to the IDB drainage fund in March this year, bringing the total funding that we have announced since being in government to £91 million from the previously allocated £75 million. That was only in March this year, so they have just had that extra £16 million.
That important investment will allow IDBs to modernise and upgrade assets and waterways to ensure they are fit for the future. When I was in opposition I went to see some of the pumping stations myself, so I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy) that some of them are in desperate need of upgrading. IDBs can apply for that £91 million to ensure they can get the needed upgrades.
We are working with MHCLG, the IDB sector and local authorities on a new research project. The project is looking to review IDB costs and funding, including, importantly, whether any changes are needed to the IDB funding model. I hear the point that some hon. Members made about how it feels unfair that some communities face increased council tax because of this issue. The review is expected to start this summer, and will last around a year. We will consider the findings carefully.
Through our plan for change, the Government will deliver a decade of national renewal and economic growth. We will maintain the highest levels of flood protection while taking decisive action to fix our broken planning system and deliver 1.5 million homes. I thank everyone for their contributions.
George Freeman
Thank you, Mrs Hobhouse, for guiding us this afternoon. I thank the Minister, the Opposition spokesman, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), and the—I think—16 colleagues from across the House who have spoken; the rule of 10 normally applies in this place, so there are many others who would have wanted to come. That shows the Minister how much interest there is in this issue.
This is a serious national problem that can only be solved locally, and the local solution is the key. It is getting worse fast. In Norfolk, 1,000 houses have been flooded and 200 have had internal floodwater in the past 18 months. That did not happen five or six years ago. It is getting bad, and it is costing the county and the country a fortune. This quarter—Q1—there was £200 million-worth of approved claims, which is up by £67 million on the previous quarter. This is getting a lot worse very fast.
On behalf of all those people who are very nervous and worried—one constituent was so worried about this that they took their own life—I urge the Minister to be bold and brave. I urge her to strike a blow for local communities and local experts, and give them the power and funding to do what they know how to do best.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered flooding and planning and developer responsibilities.