Flooding Update

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating that Statement. We echo his condolences to the families and friends of those who have lost their lives and offer our solidarity and sympathy to all those whose homes have been flooded, particularly those for whom it has become an ongoing trauma. We also pay tribute to the emergency services and the staff of the Environment Agency, who have been battling the effects of these storms for several weeks without let-up. It is a shame that the Prime Minister could not find the time during his holiday to visit these shattered communities, to listen and learn from the voices on the ground as well as offer practical support.

The Minister rightly listed the scale of the challenge, with 632 flood warnings issued in one day and over 200 still in place. This is not a normal winter and these are not normal circumstances. There has never been a starker reminder that our weather is changing, with warmer and wetter winters an inevitable by-product of global warming. This is why, time and again, we have urged the Government to take more urgent and decisive action to address the climate emergency. Does the Minister now accept that the Government’s aim of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 is too little, too late? By then the tipping point will have been reached. Does he accept the evidence from the Committee on Climate Change, which has estimated that there are 1.8 million homes at significant risk of flooding in England? That number will rise unless we hit net zero in the next 10 years.

We agree that harnessing nature and delivering better land management are part of the solution, but we have known this for some time. Does the Minister accept that the promise of a long-term flooding policy later this year is simply layering delay on delay? When will the Government take decisive action to stop any more houses being built on flood plains, an issue we discussed in Oral Questions? It has been reported that there are more than 11,000 new homes planned in areas with high flood risk. This cannot be right. When will the Government put a complete stop to this reckless profiteering by housebuilders or make sure that they take full responsibility for the long-term clean-up costs if flooding later occurs?

Of course we welcome the new flood defences that are being erected, but many areas flooded in 2017 have still seen no sign of improvement. Local authorities continue to protest that the current emergency funding system is not working properly, particularly where the need for match funding is emphasised. Can the Minister explain the proposed annual allocation of the promised £4 billion in new flood defences, and does he accept that it should be front-loaded to deal with the immediate and ongoing threats we now face? Can he clarify how quickly individuals will be able to access the £5,000 flood resilience grant that has been reported? I am sure he recognises that the money needs to be available now, as the clean-up repairs are put in place, to have any real effect.

During the last Statement on flooding, on 10 February, I asked the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, about funding for the Environment Agency but did not get a reply. It has said that it needs at least £1 billion a year to provide an effective response to flood risk. Is that money now forthcoming? The Minister also referred to the review of the Flood Re insurance scheme. We accept that Flood Re has provided a solution to many households, but many others are still excluded from the scheme and remain in uninsurable properties. Does the Minister accept that the review is rather urgent? When does he anticipate its conclusions being published and acted on?

I doubt that the communities under threat of flooding will be very reassured by the Government’s Statement today. The truth is that they feel supported by the emergency services and local staff, who are working alongside them day and night to alleviate the threat, but they feel let down by a Government long on promises but short on action. None of the issues we are discussing today is new. The Government have had 10 years to come up with a credible flood defence plan and an action plan to mitigate the impact of climate change. I hope the Minister can reassure us that there will be a more immediate, urgent and responsive plan for the future than we have heard so far.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement and draw the attention of the House to my register of interests, which include being a councillor in Kirklees, which is in West Yorkshire, where there has been significant flooding.

On behalf of the Liberal Democrat Benches, I wish to record my admiration and gratitude for the amazing dedication and sheer hard work of the staff from local councils, the Environment Agency, the emergency services and, of course, the many volunteers.

When the flooding is no longer news and when the water has receded, local people will still be picking up the pieces of what is left of their lives. A resident in my town whose home was flooded is living in a local hotel, where she will be for months. A profitable manufacturing business in the next-door town is to close permanently, with inevitable job losses, because it can no longer afford recovery costs. It is simply not worth its while. My understanding is that due to escalating costs, businesses are not eligible for the Flood Re insurance scheme. Are the Government content to see businesses close by not extending this scheme? If not, will the Minister commit to providing the House with a definitive and—I trust—positive answer to this problem?

The flooding experience has been intensive and devastating. We have heard what steps the Government are planning, but anyone living in a flood-prone place will probably not feel reassured if other places are being protected while they are not. The Government must make flood-water retention a key element of their approach, which currently appears to be more about physical barriers. Does the Minister agree that it is simply not possible to build ourselves out of this regular flooding crisis?

There are alternative approaches which, to coin a phrase, go with the flow. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, who is not in her place, has recounted the success of the Slowing the Flow at Pickering scheme. The peat moors of the Pennine uplands will act like a massive sponge where landowners allow that to happen, and the University of Exeter has reported that beavers on the River Otter have successfully contributed to flood alleviation. Beavers everywhere: what fun that would be. What is so thoroughly disappointing is the Government’s commitment to building defences when natural approaches may well be more effective and enable natural improvements to our environment. Will the Government’s flood alleviation policies include many of these ideas?

I have referred previously to the issue of the number of organisations responsible for different parts of the drainage system. Every part is under considerable stress, which inevitably contributes to flooding. Local authorities are under extreme financial pressure. As part of the flood prevention approach, will the Minister consider government funding for flood-prone councils, so that highway drainage systems can be properly cleared and, if necessary, upgraded?

Finally, there is the thorny issue of development on land at risk of flooding, which the head of the Environment Agency has spoken about today. It is not as simple as that, of course. Local authorities avoid allocating land that is set aside for flood plains, but developers are not required to take responsibility for building on land that will cause flooding elsewhere, and are not required to construct homes that include flood prevention as an essential element. Will the Minister ask his colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to instruct all local authorities to review land allocation to ensure that no such land is in an area with a high risk of flooding? Further, will he request that the necessary regulation are introduced to include responsibility for buildings to be part of the Hackitt recommendations, which the Government have accepted in full? The Environment Bill provides the opportunity to set out a long-term approach. Meanwhile, thousands of people, communities and businesses need the assurance that the Government will provide a significantly more generous financial offer than currently exists, and that the Government have recognised the fact that, once the media headlines have long gone, their needs will not disappear with them.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

I thank the noble Baronesses for their questions and statements. I join them in acknowledging the heroic efforts of our emergency response teams and volunteers. That has been an extraordinary endeavour and, in many respects, a success story in terms of the sheer number of people who have stepped up. I of course agree that recent events are yet another wake-up call in relation to climate change. We are seeing records broken, not just in this country but around the world. I sometimes wonder how many wake-up calls we need before we globally agree and accept the responsibility that falls on this generation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, referred to the Government’s target to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. I would love us to achieve net zero sooner; I do not think anyone would disagree. But we must be realistic when we set policy and even the Committee on Climate Change has been clear that there is no path to net zero that does not involve a major commitment on tree planting. However, trees do not tend to be able to absorb significant amounts of carbon until they are about 15 years old. If nature-based solutions are to form part of our endeavour to meet net zero, there is no way we can meet that target by 2030. When we legislated, we were the only serious industrialised country to make such a commitment in law and I am proud of that. We are in many respects world leaders in tackling climate change at home and contributing against it abroad.

The question of building on flood plains has been raised numerous times in the debate and will no doubt continue to be raised. It is a legitimate point: we should not build in areas where homes are at risk of floods if there are alternatives. As was pointed out by my noble friend Lady Bloomfield in her answer to an earlier question, I am standing at a Dispatch Box on a flood plain right now—London is largely constructed on a flood plain. It is not possible or realistic simply to have a blanket ban. Equally, we should absolutely ensure that homes are not built in areas that put residents at risk and, where there are no alternatives, that such homes are built to be resilient—with raised floor levels and so on.

We have been asked about the review of the insurance scheme, Flood Re. It is correct that it does not currently extend to businesses. However, there is a review, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, knows, and part of that will look at what answers will need to be provided by government in relation to businesses. I should say that a number of specific mechanisms have been available to local authorities to help businesses following the 2015 floods, such as business rate relief and a broader package, none of which would leave a local authority out of pocket. It is not enough, and there is no taking away from the fact that the lives of people, as well as homes and businesses, affected by floods are turned upside down. There is nothing that any Government can do to make that not the case. However, the Government are reviewing the issue and Flood Re may well be extended beyond its current scope, depending on the evidence that is returned.

I hope that I have covered all the points raised but one final issue relates to working with nature as a means of trying to prevent an increase in this problem in the years to come. That is very much part of our strategy and there is no doubt that if we want to prevent the ever-increasing ferocity of floods, we will need somehow to increase the absorbability of land and slow the flow of water across its surface. We know that planting trees massively increases that absorbability and that, when we restore peat lands, the same effect is true. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned beavers. I am a huge fan of the beaver experiment that is unfolding across this country. There is no doubt that where beavers form colonies their activities, not least building dams, enable that particular catchment to hold much more water than it otherwise would. There is some quite strong evidence that where beavers form a colony it reduces the impact of flooding.

As a Government, we are doing a number of things that will ensure that we increasingly put the emphasis on nature-based solutions, not least the new land use subsidy system that we will introduce to replace the common agricultural policy. Instead of paying landowners more or less simply for owning farmable land, we will ensure that those payments are entirely conditional upon the provision of some kind of public good, whether that is flood prevention, biodiversity support or access for people in cities. Equally, we have committed to establish a nature for climate fund worth £640 million. Much of that will be spent to ensure that we deliver on our manifesto commitment to plant trees on 30,000 hectares per year, but it also includes money for restoring our valuable peat lands across the country, among other things.

There is an enormous amount of work to do but, from the commitments that this Government have already made, which I hope we will continue to build on over the coming months in this hugely important year—the super year for nature—it is clear that the Government have taken these issues extraordinarily seriously and are responding to the challenge as they should.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

Before this Minister sits down, I have asked this question several times, but so far I have not had a reply, so I will press him on it. It is about funding for the Environment Agency. It has said it needs at least £1 billion a year to provide an effective response to flood risk. I asked the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, about this and did not get a reply and the Minister has similarly not replied. I will be grateful for a response.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

I thank my noble friend for her question. I believe that when that question was put to my noble friend Lord Gardiner on the previous Statement he promised to write to noble Lords, and he did so today.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

It was not in the letter.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

I have not seen that letter so I cannot argue with the noble Baroness. It is not an answer that I am able to provide, so I will ensure that we follow this up and that the information she has requested is provided.