Storm Bert
Harriett Baldwin Excerpts(3 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Steve Reed
As I have indicated, the Minister for water, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy), has already chaired a roundtable with insurance providers, including Flood Re, to look at what more can be done to provide support. As things stand, 99% of the most high-risk households can get quotes from over 15 insurance providers, and four out of five homeowners with claims have seen a 50% reduction in their insurance premiums. We are looking at what more can be done for businesses through the British Insurance Brokers’ Association.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
I associate myself with the words of gratitude paid by the Secretary of State to all those who have helped over the weekend. The House will know that I have raised the situation of Tenbury Wells many times. It is devastating to hear that it was flooded again this weekend. I do not know whether the Secretary of State, in his meeting with Philip Duffy this morning, was told that there is a really well advanced design for flood defences for Tenbury Wells, which has been substantially funded thanks to previous funding allocations. I wonder if he could find it in his heart—and in his £2.4 billion over the next two years—to get that scheme over the line.
Steve Reed
I know the hon. Lady’s constituents will be very grateful for her championing of their cause, particularly given the flooding that we have seen over the weekend. The funding allocations will be made in the usual way by the Environment Agency, working through its regional flood and coastal committees and engaging with local stakeholders. I am sure that she will make sure her voice and that of her constituents are heard, as she makes a powerful case for funding those flood defences.
Oral Answers to Questions
Harriett Baldwin Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Emma Hardy
The right hon. Gentleman is right about the importance of ensuring adequate flood protection when we build new homes. Yesterday, we announced a review of the flood funding formula. We will be looking at nature-based solutions and sustainable urban drainage systems, so I hope that offers him some reassurance.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
I associate myself with the Minister’s remarks about the flood victims in Spain.
Flood victims in Tenbury Wells were concerned to see in the Budget Red Book that capital spending on flood defences is under review. Will the Minister tell the House whether the bid that she will be making to the spending review for flood defences will be higher or lower than it is currently?
Emma Hardy
The hon. Lady and I have met many times to discuss the issue of flooding. I can reassure her that we will be investing £2.4 billion over the next two years to improve flood resilience by maintaining, repairing and building flood defences.
Rural Affairs
Harriett Baldwin Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Victoria Atkins
My right hon. Friend makes an important point about our experience as Treasury Ministers. Labour Back Benchers are shouting “Give way!” because they do not like hearing the truth. They made this choice; we chose not to go down this route.
There are many ways in which we can support our family farmers, and I have had the pleasure of having a cup of tea with many of them around their kitchen table after they have shown me their farm. Labour Front Benchers lack such experience, because their constituencies are all situated in the city.
Victoria Atkins
I promise that I will give way in a moment.
As the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness and my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) have both said, the sense of betrayal is palpable. As a fifth-generation farmer put it to me this morning,
“Would you want to work somewhere that you knew over your lifetime was going to be taken away bit by bit?”
Another has urged us to
“fight this vindictive, illogical and ideologically driven tax”.
Just before I began my speech, in response to the Secretary of State’s speech, I received this message from another farmer:
“So long as mum dies before March 2026, we’re okay”.
Yet the farming Minister and the Secretary of State seem to think that these worries are exaggerated. Indeed, the farming Minister got a ripe old reaction when he said words to that effect at today’s poultry conference.
When we warned in June that a Labour Government would do this, the Secretary of State said that such warnings were “desperate nonsense” and accused us of lying. This followed the assurances he gave in December that Labour would not change this policy. So that is a broken promise. He is doing the exact opposite of what he said. How can rural communities trust him in the future?
The Secretary of State has given some helpful advice to farmers, however. He has told them that they will have to
“learn to do more with less”.
Labour has not said the same to train drivers, resident doctors or their other union friends. Indeed, pensioners and family businesses will be the ones paying for these public sector pay rises.
Oral Answers to Questions
Harriett Baldwin Excerpts(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Steve Reed
I am delighted to congratulate those farmers, producers and growers in Somerset. It is a fine county and they do an incredibly good job, of which the hon. Lady is rightly proud. I hope she will understand that I cannot make comments about the Budget in advance; I would be in deep trouble with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which is something I wish to avoid. At the appropriate time, we will make absolutely clear what we intend to do. My intention is to fight the corner of farmers through the spending review process so that we can make sure they receive the resources they deserve.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Hardy)
This Labour Government will introduce a new deal for farmers to boost rural economic growth and strengthen food security alongside nature recovery. We will make the supply chain work more fairly, better protect farmers from flooding and back British produce. We are continuing the roll-out of the sustainable farming initiative and will optimise schemes and grants to ensure that they work for farmers.
Dame Harriett Baldwin
It is the time of year when we thank farmers and nature for the harvest, and it has been a particularly difficult year. Farmers are planning ahead for next year, so will the Minister kindly give me a one-word answer to my question? I understand that she cannot announce what is in the spending review, but in the request that her Department has made to the Chancellor, is the amount she has asked for more or less than £2.4 billion?
Emma Hardy
I thank the hon. Lady—dare I say, my hon. Friend—for her question. Yes, it is good to remind ourselves that this is the time of harvest, when we should all be grateful and give thanks. In answer to her question, as a previous Chair of the Treasury Committee she knows that we cannot make comments on the Budget before it comes through. Like the Secretary of State, I do not wish to be in trouble with the Chancellor either.
Flood Defences: West Worcestershire
Harriett Baldwin Excerpts(4 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and what a pleasure you have had in listening to such an excellent array of maiden speeches this afternoon. I thank Mr Speaker for allocating me one of the first Adjournment debates in this new Parliament.
My speech will be more of a reiteration of certain points and less of a novelty, as I was lucky enough to get an Adjournment debate on the same flood defences at the beginning of the last Parliament. During that winter, we suffered not only from coronavirus but from Storms Ciara and Dennis.
I congratulate the floods Minister, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy), on her appointment. She and I were colleagues on the Treasury Committee, and I know how passionately and genuinely she cares about flooding issues, so I look forward to working with her.
My constituency is in a part of the world that floods frequently, and we realise that we will flood a lot in West Worcestershire. We have the River Severn running through the middle of the constituency, and the Rivers Avon and Teme flow into the Severn just south of Worcester, so we accept that flooding is a part of nature and part of what we have in West Worcestershire.
In the years that I have been fortunate enough to represent the area in Parliament, and before, I have tried to mitigate some of the problems that arise from being in a very flood-prone part of the world. Last winter, we again saw how difficult it can be when there is a very wet winter. Many local farmers, residents and businesses were very grateful for funding from the flood recovery fund after Storms Babet and Henk.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
Rural areas are often the worst impacted by flood damage, yet they are often deemed less of a priority for flood defences than urban areas. Does the hon. Lady agree that the flood defence grant in aid cost-benefit analysis must be reviewed to ensure it sufficiently values agricultural and rural communities?
Dame Harriett Baldwin
The hon. Lady highlights something that I have grappled with throughout my time as a Member of Parliament.
I will now move on to the situation in Tenbury Wells in my constituency. Seventeen years ago this month, in the middle of summer, we had the most severe flooding for many, many years. It caused massive damage and misery across West Worcestershire. In fact, it was the right hon. Member for Leeds South (Hilary Benn) who was the Environment Minister at the time. In 2007, he came to see the devastation in Tenbury Wells. It was at that time that I first started to look into these cost-benefit analyses and the formula that the hon. Lady raised. While accepting that, in West Worcestershire, we will flood regularly, I think that there are many things we can do to mitigate the misery of being flooded, and of being flooded regularly.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on being elevated to Deputy Speaker. She is well-respected and her appointment is well-deserved. Everyone in this House is very encouraged to see her in that position.
May I also congratulate the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) on securing this debate? Is she aware that inadequate flood defences mean an increase in homeowners’ insurance premiums? That increase has been noted in her constituency, as it has been in mine of Strangford. Does she agree that this House and Government must work on a UK-wide approach to ensure that insurance premiums are not hiked because defences are inadequate?
Dame Harriett Baldwin
The hon. Gentleman raises an important matter. Indeed, it was after the 2007 floods that the idea of a flood reinsurance scheme came about. It was something that was established when the last Government came into power in 2010. It has now become somewhat easier to get insurance, but it does continue to be a challenge, and I shall highlight examples of that in my speech. It will be interesting to hear if the Minister can confirm from the Dispatch Box whether Flood Re will continue to be a priority for the new Government.
I have campaigned successfully for many flood defence schemes in West Worcestershire over the years. We have made real progress. In particular, the two schemes that protect Upton upon Severn have been deployed year in, year out. In fact, they have successfully protected Upton upon Severn from flooding something like 40 times since they were opened in 2013. We have had a bund built along the Defford Road in Pershore; a flood defence gate installed in Kempsey; a gate barrier installed at Uckinghall; a bund built in Powick; and a community scheme is now in place in Callow End, so there has been real progress.
We have seen the cumulative impact of the many millions that have been spent on flood defences across West Worcestershire in the resilience that the communities showed last winter when it was so very wet. I would like to take this opportunity to put on record my thanks to previous flood Ministers, to the teams at the Environment Agency, to Worcestershire county council and to the regional flood defence committees, which have helped over time to get these flood defence scheme funded and built.
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. She describes the huge amount of investment that has been going into the River Severn. She has an awful lot of the River Severn in her constituency. She will be aware that, in Bewdley, about £11 million is being spent on flood defences. She may remember that Daniel Kawczynski, the former Member for Shrewsbury, set up an action group because he recognised that the whole of the River Severn is a cohesive watercourse, which requires a lot of effort and attention. That role in the action group is now vacant and I was wondering whether she would be enthusiastic to take it on. She would have a lot of support from all of those Members of Parliament representing constituents on what used to be the blue River Severn, which is now, I think, a bit red and orange in places.
Dame Harriett Baldwin
I thought my hon. Friend was making a good pitch to take on that role himself, and I would certainly support him in that. None the less, he is right: all of us who live along the Severn catchment and the rivers that flow into the Severn have a responsibility to work together to make sure that we make progress.
With the very wet weather that we had this winter, we discovered that some of the roads that we accept will close once or twice a year are now closing more frequently. I have asked for an analysis from both our county council and the Environment Agency to explore the projections of the frequency with which those closures might happen. I am looking to find a solution to the situation with the Hanley Road outside Upton upon Severn and also the historic Eckington bridge, where the floodplain is also flooding more frequently. We need to see whether we need solutions to these infrastructure challenges over the decades to come.
Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
On the impact on local people, I wonder whether the hon. Member is, like me, very concerned about the proposals of the Conservative-run Newcastle-under-Lyme borough council to build on Keele golf course? Many of my constituents are very concerned indeed about the potential impact of flooding that may come with such development. Does she agree that, when it comes to building, councils have to factor in the climate and our natural world?
Dame Harriett Baldwin
I think the hon. Member needs to have a word with his Deputy Prime Minister about that. He and I may share some concerns about the ability of Whitehall to determine where concrete is poured across our country.
Let me turn to two schemes that are still not built. They were the subject of my Adjournment debate back in 2020. I think that we can make progress in this Parliament on the Tenbury Wells and Severn Stoke flood defence schemes. I would like today’s Minister to be the Minister who sees those schemes completed. Tenbury Wells is the most beautiful town, but it was built on a floodplain centuries ago, so protecting it is a very complicated project that comprises flood gates, bunds and walls. After my Adjournment debate in 2020, to my delight a funded scheme was agreed, with £4.9 million allocated to move it forward. On top of that, last year I secured another £2.5 million from the frequently flooded communities fund, because inflation had taken its toll and construction costs had spiralled. We are now in a situation where some of those millions have been spent on consultants and advisers, but the flood defence scheme itself is still stuck on the drawing board and has not yet gone to planning. I ask the Minister for an update on that.
Severn Stoke—the clue is in the name—is another community that sits on a floodplain. The village, its popular pub, its church, and the busy A38 road are frequently flooded. In fact, the village hall had to be pulled down because the parish could no longer afford to insure the property. The church is now struggling with insurance. In the last Parliament, I was pleased to win funding for that scheme as well, including from the frequently flooded communities fund, and arranged the transport of local topsoil to the place free of charge, but I would now also describe that scheme as stalled. In fact, there is a forlorn pile of topsoil in Severn Stoke that sat there while the village flooded again last winter. Will the Minister tell me how we can get both schemes moving again and, importantly, how we can get them finished?
In April, I had a very helpful meeting with the Environment Agency chief executive Philip Duffy and the Environment Agency team. I had another one scheduled for June, but of course the general election intervened. I ask the Minister whether we can reschedule that meeting at the earliest moment, to identify how to unblock the two schemes. I know that the last Government were on track to spend over £5 billion on flood defences over the spending review period.
Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)
My hon. Friend is giving an excellent speech, and making a very strong case for why we need to invest in flood defence schemes. Under the last Conservative Administration, we increased the amount of investment in flood defence schemes from £2.6 billion to £5.2 billion over the next six-year period. Does she agree that the new Government should adhere to those funding increases so that we can ensure that schemes such as the ones for which she is advocating are dealt with and funded?
Dame Harriett Baldwin
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He points to a fact that I acknowledge: cumulatively, we have become more resilient to flooding in West Worcestershire over the last 14 years, but there are still these two schemes. That was going to be my next question to the Minister: will she confirm that the new Government will continue with the same level of spending that my hon. Friend mentioned? Is there anything that I could do, other than leading debates such as this and meeting with the chief executive of the Environment Agency, that would help locally to unblock any of the issues?
I know that these schemes, particularly the one in Tenbury Wells, are complicated. I just want the Environment Agency to be able to find its way through the obstacles. The local community knows that in order to make the omelette that is the flood defences of Tenbury Wells, a few eggs will need to be broken, with a few road closures at times and potentially some loss of road space down some side roads. I just want to say on behalf of the community that it is prepared to put up with that level of inconvenience and some traffic disruption for a while in order to protect its beautiful town. As can be seen from the other examples in West Worcestershire that I have mentioned, particularly Upton upon Severn, the long-term benefit of protecting the town is immeasurable.
Will the Minister join me in an effort of shared persistence and determination to protect these two communities by finally getting the two schemes built, preferably before the inevitable arrival of the next serious floods? Finally, will she confirm that she will press ahead with the expanded offer of the farming recovery fund? Farmers in my constituency and elsewhere think it is very important that the offer includes those who experienced damage due to extreme rainfall, and not just those who experienced flooded land.
Dame Harriett Baldwin
I have given way once already to the hon. Lady. I am going to allow the Minister to use the remaining time to respond.
