Flooding

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2014 Commons Chamber

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

May I add my congratulations to the Environment Agency and the emergency services, including the lifeboat crews and coastguards who rescued those who put themselves at risk? It is noteworthy that the flood defences held firm and protected the properties that the Secretary of State has highlighted. Will he commit to reviewing his Department’s maintenance budget to ensure that the flood defences that held will have proper maintenance? Will he allow drainage boards to use their own engineers to ensure that the main water courses are kept clear in the future, as the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has recommended? Will he give the House some examples of imaginative partnership approaches, such as the Pickering pilot project, which is building a reservoir, starting tomorrow, to keep Pickering safe from future floods?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee for her supportive comments. Emphatically yes, we want spending on maintenance to continue. That is why I added a further £5 million to that budget for 2015-16. For further information, although there was a 1% reduction in budgets across DEFRA, I have not passed that on to the flood budget. Again, that shows our absolute determination to protect flood schemes. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to praise partnership schemes. I have been around the country to look at tremendous projects, and only today I was on the Thames where there are prospects of extending the Jubilee river scheme that would require partnership spending by six local councils.