Flooding

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I thank the hon. Lady for echoing my tributes to the Environment Agency, councils and all those who have worked so extraordinarily hard in recent days. I thank her also for expressing her sympathies to those who have lost relations and friends.

The hon. Lady asked detailed questions about the picture on schools, roads and crops. It is too early to tell, because the current weather is carrying on, and I think we had better review those questions when it settles down.

The hon. Lady mentioned local councils. We are co-ordinating the matter carefully and meeting DCLG on a regular basis, including on the subject of fire services. She mentioned the Bellwin scheme, which we have continued in exactly the same vein as the previous Government. There is a 0.2% threshold, and we have said that we will pay up to 85% of costs. We will keep that under review and keep assessing the situation as it develops.

The hon. Lady mentioned flood insurance. Today’s story is complete nonsense. The first meeting I had on taking office was with the ABI. We have had constructive and detailed discussions with it since, and there was a senior level meeting as recently as the end of last week. I am looking forward to receiving the ABI’s latest suggestions. We are determined to arrive at a replacement for the statement of principles that provides universality, is affordable and does not put a major burden on the taxpayer. I would like to remind the hon. Lady that the statement of principles covers 2003 to 2013, and we inherited absolutely nothing from the previous Government on this issue.

The hon. Lady mentioned spending on flood defences, and there is a complete canard about this reduction; our reduction is 6% over the whole spending round compared with what Labour spent over its spending round. I would have thought that she would have been pleased that our partnership scheme is really working, and a range of schemes that were just on the threshold and did not make the cut will now go ahead. In the last major incident, in 2007, 55,000 homes were flooded but this time the figure is 5,000 to 6,000. That is still traumatic for those households, and I repeat that my real sympathies are with those affected. I stress that we are continuing with a major programme of flood defence schemes to reduce the number further.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Today’s tragedy is truly of national proportions, but the response has been so much more effective after the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 came into effect. Will the Secretary of State revisit the damage done in September to the roads and bridges in north Yorkshire, which has now been made 10 times worse today? Will he also examine the impact on the community of operating theatres potentially closing at the Friarage hospital in Northallerton, as well as of school and road closures? There is something the Government could do to ease the impact of surface water flooding: introduce the regulations on sustainable urban drainage long before the deadline of 2014, which marks a huge delay from what was originally proposed.

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend mentioned various local issues relating to schools and roads, and I can tell her that we are meeting colleagues in other Departments on a regular basis. As the local MP, it is appropriate that she should raise those issues with those Departments, but I am happy to discuss them with her separately. On the issue of sustainable drainage systems, we intend to have an implementation date of April 2014, but this has turned out to be extremely complicated and we will have to work this out in detail to make sure we get it right.