Flood Risk: London

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Jo Churchill

Wednesday 20th April 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jo Churchill]

As pointed out, these so-called never events appear to be happening more frequently. Given the combination of climate change with other things, we need to look fundamentally at how the system is joined up. I think the hon. Member for Hammersmith articulated that this does not need a “bit” approach but an overall approach. Hopefully, hon. Members will see where the thinking is going.

That overwhelming meant that we got complex localised surface water flooding. Water does not stop. It knows no bounds. It does not stop at a constituency edge or a road end. Indeed, many of our towns and villages have lanes called Water Lane, for example, because we know that is the natural course of water. It happens quickly; it is difficult to predict; it can be exacerbated by the impenetrable surfaces that my hon. Friend spoke about, and it can overwhelm the drainage networks. Everyone—all those agencies, individuals, local authorities, Ofwat, the Environment Agency—has their part to play in understanding the flood risk and the mitigating actions they should take, as do the householders, to ensure they can best protect themselves and their property.

The statutory responsibility to manage flood risk falls to the risk management authorities such as the Environment Agency and the lead local flood authorities and water companies. As my hon. Friend well knows, the Environment Agency has the strategic overview role, and while it does not lead on surface water flooding, it provides support and advice and facilitates partnerships. I know that she has met with all the agencies and with Sarah Bentley at Thames Water to champion her constituents’ challenges, but I would like to reassure her that that cross-partnership work is going on.

Lead local flood authorities have the operational lead in managing local flood risk, including surface water risk. They are best placed to understand, mitigate and respond to these risks. Working with local communities and with the invaluable information that Members and other bodies bring forward, as part of the local flood risk management strategy, they are driving down and making sure that we get the right mitigations in the right places to protect people.

The Government fully support and encourage greater collaboration and partnership working. Following the flooding, many organisations stepped forward this time to work together to make sure we got the right result. As everybody has said, this is not a situation where responsibility can be passed on. There is a task and finish group going on. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), covers this part of the portfolio and will be meeting with the deputy Mayor shortly to hear more about this work. She will challenge them to ensure that the right work is going on in the right places to drive the right results and make sure there is ambition.

What I have heard from everybody is that they want there to be the ambition to protect constituents. The task and finish group has been working on a range of issues, including better communication. As was alluded to, we know that many residents do not have English as a first language. We know that there were challenges because of transient populations, and a sub-group on communications has been set up. I have been assured that the failures seen last summer are noted and being addressed and rectified. I believe the call centre went down, and there were various other challenges.

[Andy Slaughter]

It would be useful if we could have the details of the task and finish group and have communications with it. Yes, work is going on, as the hon. Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) indicated, but there is a real lack of trust, because we have been through all this before. We have had sewer and surface flooding, and the solutions are only partial flap valves that really deal only with sewer flooding. We cannot allow this to happen again. We need a comprehensive solution. It may cost a lot of money, but we have to protect the thousands of people who are vulnerable. To echo the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) made about Flood Re, will that cover our constituencies as it covers rural constituencies?

[Jo Churchill]

Flood Re is a scheme jointly administrated by Her Majesty’s Treasury and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and it has covered some 335,000 properties. I am not entirely sure of the scope of things, but I will make sure that Members are written to, because it is a valid point. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington said, the challenge—one that I have had in my own constituency—is that when the work is done, the reinsuring becomes either prohibitively expensive or in some cases virtually impossible. I will make sure that I write to Members on that matter.

Thames Water commissioned an independent review of the performance of its network, including the Maida Vale flood defence scheme and the cancelled Counters Creek scheme. As my hon. Friend said, it also committed £10 million in property flood resilience measures, including those non-return valves. Counters Creek is arguably not a single solution to this. It was designed for specific storm events, not the rain bomb or the intensity of the events of last summer, and it has been argued that it would not have prevented the flooding.

I would like to reassure my hon. Friend that that has been looked into. Further investigations were done by Thames Water, and it implemented the flooding local improvement project to reduce the risk posed by the non-return valves. The challenge with rainwater is that it is almost like watching popcorn. We cannot be sure where the flood is going to occur, because of the different meteorological effects and all the rest of it.

Local Contact Tracing

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Jo Churchill

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jo Churchill)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “when” to end and insert

“working in conjunction with NHS Test and Trace; welcomes the huge expansion of testing to a capacity of over 340,000 tests a day; applauds the efforts of all involved in testing and contact tracing both at a national and local level; recognises that 650,000 people have now been asked to isolate thanks to the work of NHS Test and Trace, and supports the Government’s efforts to expand testing and tracing yet further.”.

I agree with the final sentence of the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) that this is about protecting people. The entire focus of the Government from day one has been on driving a system that can protect people. It is not a zero-sum game, and it is not an either/or.

This pandemic is the most unprecedented public health emergency we have faced in a generation. We knew that our response would require a phenomenal national effort and that we would need to work closely with others. Local authorities and directors of public health have played an enormous part thus far, including in the delivery of test and trace. They have worked exceptionally hard to prepare and support their communities throughout the coronavirus outbreak, protecting the most vulnerable and saving lives.

I take this opportunity to say thank you to all the public health teams and local authority staff for their hard work thus far, and I know I speak for everyone in this place, irrespective of where we sit, and beyond when I say how grateful we are that they have been there.

Local partnerships have been at the heart of both covid and of the NHS Test and Trace response. As this House knows, Test and Trace was stood up at incredible speed and has developed at scale and pace. As would be expected, the Government responded at pace.

The hon. Lady mentioned Serco on more than one occasion but, as she well knows, having reacted to the changing situation at pace, Serco and Sitel went through a full tendering process to became one of the suppliers to the Government, and they can be drawn down at short notice. They gained their place through fair and open competition via an OJEU procurement process. Value for money and capability are part of those assessment criteria.

On 8 May, the Prime Minister announced that we were bringing Test and Trace into a single service, listening to those people who were asking us to respond, and it was formally launched on 28 May. We have brought together a huge range of people and organisations into the system, from the Department of Health and Social Care, the NHS, Public Health England, local authorities, academia, epidemiologists, the private and even the not-for-profit sector. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) will be speaking. Milton Keynes is just the most glowing example of using people’s skills.

[Andy Slaughter]

The Minister mentioned the private sector. Three weeks ago in named day questions, I asked her Department for details of the private consultants working at the Joint Biosecurity Centre, but she still has not answered, even though some of the information has been published in the press since. What have they got to hide about the employment of consultants and their cost? Will she now answer those questions and publish that information?

[Jo Churchill]

As the hon. Gentleman can imagine, in the current circumstances the Department has a vast amount of correspondence. I will chase his inquiry personally when I return.

As I said at the start, it is not a case of either/or, as the Opposition motion makes out. The pandemic requires us all to work towards that common goal of beating the virus. Contact tracing is an excellent example of partnership in action. We have Public Health England’s epidemiology expertise to ensure that the operationalisation of the tracing model is built on a strong scientific base. Through NHS Test and Trace and its partner organisations, we can do it at scale. The national framework enables us to reach tens of thousands of people a day. It would not have been possible to do that on the existing infrastructure without placing an unbearable burden and strain on the system. To support this, we have local health teams who know their local areas and can provide expert management locally. Probably one of the finest examples of that was the response in Leicester, where local teams responded phenomenally to the challenge presented to them earlier in the summer, with the national oversight identifying that there was a problem and then the local response. We know we need people on the ground locally who can reach the most vulnerable and those who are disengaged from local services.

The local health protection teams form the first tier of the NHS Test and Trace contact tracing service, consisting of public health specialists. NHS Test and Trace and Public Health England work with local government colleagues, including the Association of Directors of Public Health, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers, the Local Government Association and UK chief environmental health officers, on part of this programme. It is, therefore, simply untrue that contact tracing does not include those experts front and centre, helping us deliver.