Flooding

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I was also pleased to meet the hon. Lady at the Environment Agency’s offices in York. The Foss barrier was under review at the time the incident happened, and the Prime Minister has said that he will spend £10 million of Government money on upgrading that barrier to ensure that it has sufficient pumping capacity to deal with the additional volumes. In all rivers across Yorkshire and Lancashire we are facing higher river flows than we have ever seen before, and we must consider our defences in light of that. We have made an initial commitment to upgrade the pumps at the Foss barrier, and we will certainly look more widely to ensure that we are sufficiently resilient to deal with these new weather challenges.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. May I ask my right hon. Friend in the review that she is carrying out to ignore one piece of work and to read two other pieces? In the previous Parliament, the Public Accounts Committee published a report that more or less trashed the Pitt review, which is a really good piece of work. May I first suggest that she builds into her review, “Droughts and Floods: Towards a More Holistic Approach” by the UK Water Partnership? Secondly, Dieter Helm, whom she just referred to, has produced a paper that arrived in my inbox today called, “Flood defence: time for a radical rethink”. His words about natural capital and the need to consider whole catchments is fundamental to understanding the weather patterns that we now have to cope with.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work as floods Minister. He is right, and the same paper from Dieter Helm arrived in my inbox today—I have read it and I think it makes some excellent suggestions. We have appointed Dieter as chair of the Natural Capital Committee for another term so that he can look at catchment-specific solutions. That is a very important part of how we become more resilient as a country.