Flooding: Defences

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether flood defences are in place to protect vital infrastructure this winter.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)]

My Lords, we have been working with essential service industries and communities to ensure that energy, telecoms and water are better protected. Industry is making a large investment to secure that protection through a mix of temporary and permanent defences. More key investments have been made to protect transport and medical facilities. The Environment Agency has purchased a further 20 miles of temporary flood defences, in addition to more than 60 new high-volume pumps and other equipment.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that reply, but is it not the case that most of the additional money being provided is for temporary defences which will help only a small number of sites under threat; that the recent National Flood Resilience Review identified 530 key infrastructure sites across England which will still be vulnerable to flooding; that there is an urgent need to fund more geographically specific water-catchment initiatives, a model which we know works; and that according to the Commons EFRA Committee, the Government’s plans so far are “fragmented, inefficient and ineffective”? In the light of all of that, what reassurance can the Minister give that there will not be a repeat of the devastation and the heartbreak that affected so many communities last winter?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I would start where the noble Baroness finished—I thoroughly endorse what she said about the great sadnesses and difficulties of many communities after the floods last year. That is why we are investing £2.5 billion over six years in improving flood defences and spending more than £1 billion on maintaining defences over the course of this Parliament, much more than in the last Parliament. Of course, we all need to work on this. That is why I sent a letter to your Lordships about what is actually happening through the Environment Agency. So far as the EFRA report is concerned, we are in fact implementing many recommendations already, and managing watercourses on an entire-catchment-area basis.