Water Bill

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Parminter]

154A: Clause 51, page 107, line 7, leave out “and”

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, in the face of the desperate flooding challenges that many in our country are now facing and look set to face in the future, I strongly welcome the proposals for Flood Re, which we are now coming on to debate and which will provide affordable flood cover for all households. My Amendments 154A, 154B, 156A and 156B give Flood Re, which will be a private company in receipt of public money, a duty to act in the public interest and extend its remit to help deliver a more resilient future in the face of flooding, working with other bodies to achieve that where appropriate.

The Flood Re scheme will benefit householders at risk of flooding. However, if flood risk management is not significantly improved over the lifetime of the scheme, we will be in no better a place after 25 years than we are now. The adaptation sub-committee of the Committee on Climate Change—and I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, in his place today—in its policy note to the Government last month makes it clear that significant increased investment in flood-risk management is required, as well as in flood defences, if the levels of risk are to be maintained, let alone reduced.

Flood Re could raise awareness of flood risk, direct policy holders to advice and support and, crucially, if sufficient reserves are generated, it could support measures that individuals or groups can take to reduce flood risk. Surplus funds could, for example, pay for property-level measures, such as flood gates and air brick covers, which typically cost £5,000 per property. Government grants of between £2,000 and £4,500 are available, so Flood Re could, for example, meet the difference. It would be a sound investment, given that every £1 invested in property-level protection typically achieves a benefit of £5 or more; or it could contribute towards the cost of Environment Agency schemes that do not justify full government grants under the partnership funding approach. Funding from Flood Re could make the difference between a flood defence scheme going ahead or not, which would be worthwhile if it were to protect some of Flood Re’s highest-risk customers.

To determine what Flood Re could do, it is critical to know how any surplus funds will be defined and what will happen to them. The evidence of a Defra stakeholder presentation on Flood Re, in a slide entitled “Flood Re’s exposure to claims”, gives a median-loss scenario of £65 million in claims per year. That means that it could have at least £100 million in reserves at the end of the first year. Defra’s final impact assessment for Flood Re, in table 5 on page 20, states that, over the life of the scheme, it should on average make an annual surplus of £27 million. This calculation is based on Flood Re’s expected loss scenario which takes account of the low-probability/high-cost flooding that could take place during the 25 years for which the scheme is operational.

Either way, Flood Re is likely to hold significant sums of public money that could be used to help manage down flood risk. This would help save everyone money: high-risk households, other policyholders and Flood Re itself. This could be achieved without the main £180 million levy needing to be increased because it could just be pursued if Flood Re were in surplus. Over the 25-year lifetime, this would make a material difference to the number of homes at significant risk while helping those households secure affordable flood insurance on an ongoing basis once Flood Re is withdrawn. It is therefore important to know how the Government expect any surplus to be defined, in order that it might support such an approach. I look forward to hearing more from the Minister on that in his response.

We need legislation that expresses how Flood Re can help to deliver social objectives without claiming that Flood Re can or should solve all flood risk management issues. I hope that I have made clear what I am seeking for Flood Re to achieve, and the wording of these amendments is an attempt to do just that. I beg to move.

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[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Parminter for her amendments regarding flood resilience and Flood Re’s role in that matter, and to all noble Lords who have spoken. Regarding Amendments 154A and 154B, I agree with my noble friend Lord Shipley that we need to tackle the root cause of the difficulties with the availability and affordability of flood insurance—the flood risk that households face. The coverage of the tragic events of the past couple of months, which my noble friend Lady Parminter mentioned, have brought the full impact of this home to us all. I thought that the letter read out by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, set out the problem very well.

Households benefiting from Flood Re need to understand both their flood risk and the likely impact of the withdrawal, over time, of the subsidy on their future premiums. I hope that noble Lords will be reassured to hear that we have agreed with the Association of British Insurers the principle that insurers will be required to provide such information to customers when a property is ceded to Flood Re and at the point of a claim. I hope that the statutory requirement for the Flood Re scheme to manage, over the period of the operation of the scheme, the transition to risk-reflective pricing of flood insurance for household premises also offers some reassurance.

The ABI has now come forward with draft proposals for ensuring that the correct incentives are in place to drive uptake of resilient repairs after a flood, particularly for those properties subject to repeat flooding. We are still agreeing the detail of this approach and I hope to have more to say on Report. Encouraging households to become more resilient over the period of the scheme will help to reduce the impacts of subsequent flooding.

Turning to Amendment 156A, the subsection that my noble friends seek to amend has been drafted in such a way to provide firm pointers as to what the Flood Re scheme administrator would need to have regard but is also intended to allow for a degree of flexibility that may be needed as the scheme is finalised. I assure noble Lords, in the strongest terms, that the Government are absolutely committed to taking forward Flood Re, together with the insurance industry, and that both parties are working very hard to achieve this.

We expect the administrator to act responsibly in its management of the scheme throughout its life and we have every intention of ensuring that it discharges its functions in a proper manner, supported by the duties we will place in secondary legislation. The regulations made under Clause 54 will be subject to public consultation and we are currently considering carefully the Delegated Powers Committee’s recommendation that regulations made under this clause should be subject to the affirmative procedure. I trust that this assurance puts on the record our intentions in this regard.

As regards Amendment 156B, my noble friends are right that co-operation between Flood Re and flood risk management authorities will be important, in particular should Flood Re wish in the future to commit any of its resources to supporting flood risk mitigation measures. Clause 54 provides for Flood Re to share information held by it with the Environment Agency, its equivalents in devolved Administrations and any other bodies specified in regulations. It also provides for Flood Re to have a duty to act in the public interest, so where it is in the public interest for Flood Re to co-operate with other risk management authorities, it would be expected to do so.

Under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, flood risk management authorities have a duty to co-operate with each other in the exercise of their flood and coastal erosion risk management functions. This is because the causes of flooding can cross organisational boundaries and responsibilities. For example, flood risk management schemes to protect one area may make the problem worse elsewhere if there is not a partnership approach to developing solutions. Flood Re will not have an operational role in designing or implementing flood risk management schemes. As I think the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, suggested, that would be beyond the scope of Flood Re and would require different skill sets. Flood Re will therefore not have the same degree of interaction with the risk management authorities that they will have with each other. I am not convinced that there is a need to extend the requirements based upon the Flood Re body.

Perhaps I may say to my noble friend Lord Cathcart that while directly managing flood risk is not the purpose of Flood Re, it is nevertheless vital that Flood Re does not just deliver affordable flood insurance. It should also contain the right incentives for householders and insurers to put in place the necessary measures to become more resilient, since otherwise the effective price limits in Flood Re may remove some of the financial incentive to take such action. He has suggested—the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, also asked about this—that Flood Re will need to build up its reserves, which is of course right, but it will have access to the proceeds of the levy and be able itself to take out reinsurance. Can I offer to meet noble Lords before Report, on which occasion I shall of course be happy to provide an update? Perhaps I could also address the point made by my noble friend Lord Crickhowell at this stage. I shall come back on Report to noble Lords with more details of how those who flood repeatedly might be treated. For the reasons I have outlined, I hope that I can persuade my noble friend to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Parminter]

I thank the Minister for that helpful response and I thank Members around the Committee who have contributed to this debate. It has helped to spell out in more detail what we are all hoping to achieve for Flood Re. We do not expect it to be able to answer all the social objectives in terms of flood risk management, but we should accept that it is not just a flood insurance vehicle, important and critical though that is. It will also need to provide the necessary incentives to transition to a stronger place in the future. The wording of the amendment may not be ideal, but at least it has facilitated this debate. I hope that noble Lords are not disappointed in my having brought it forward in that light.

I thank the Minister for agreeing to meet noble Lords between now and Report. That will be helpful because there are still questions about the surplus and how it will be defined. The comments made by my noble friend Lord Cathcart and others remind me that we are not guaranteed surpluses with Flood Re; this is only what we are saying if those surpluses are achieved. I am happy to learn that the Minister intends to say more on this issue at the next stage. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 154A withdrawn.

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The Government need to be on the front foot on this—as, indeed, there is every reason to be—in order to make sure that damage, in terms of the perception of what is being done and how all this is being contained and managed, is brought back into a sensible format.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I put my name to my noble friend Lord Moynihan’s amendment and I shall speak briefly in support of it.

The Government’s impact assessment on managing the future financial risk of flooding states that there is insufficient evidence of a problem for businesses to get insurance and that there are other market mechanisms for them to get cover. However, the impact assessment focuses on the national impact, whereas flooding affects localities, so it is perhaps no surprise that it did not find that much evidence.

Further, the Government’s position is driven by their recent consultation on the issue, which asked for evidence of a need for a mechanism for small businesses and received a few responses from small businesses, which may well have had other priorities. The ABI has given the Government assurances that the broker community is doing,

“a good job working directly with business customers in getting a good deal for them”.

I contend that it is the Government’s job to insist that there be firm evidence of that, which is what the amendment is intended to deliver.

There are few studies of the impact of flooding incidents in general on business, apart from some by AXA, and they focus on the impact on individual businesses rather than the broader economic resilience of communities in the face of flooding. I could not find any research which looks at the significant impact of flooding on small businesses, which often make up the backbone of the rural economy. It is here that flooding has a huge impact not just on individual families and their businesses but on the complex web of supply and demand chains in the local economy. Ensuring adequate flood cover for small businesses, including farm businesses, is as important as supporting households if we are to protect the overall community resilience of rural areas.

As my noble friend Lord Moynihan said, small businesses were covered by the statement of principles and they were able to get flood risk insurance in the same way as households. Given that Flood Re does not guarantee them that insurance, we certainly need reassurance from the Government that they are mindful of the need for cover for businesses, particularly small businesses, and of their important role in rural communities.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, I should declare an interest that I declared on Second Reading, which is that, until June, I was the chief executive of two insurance companies, and I still labour under some residual contract limitations.

There is an overriding need to put in place a workable solution that will, first, solve the most pressing need, which is to address the availability and cost of flood insurance and, secondly, do so in a way that is timely, affordable to the insurance industry, secured in co-operation with it and that does not allow government subsidy to create a huge deficit in the scheme over time.

Addressing the issue of small businesses raised by the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, we ought to remind ourselves that the statement of principles only covers the availability, not the affordability, of insurance for those small businesses. It covers only renewal policies, so the policyholder at risk of flooding cannot change insurer, and it does not cover the cost of the policy.

There is also the question of practicality. The introduction of businesses into Flood Re would dramatically complicate the pricing of the scheme, the availability of Flood Re as crucial reinsurance—on which the scheme depends—and, by no means least, the complexity of the internal model, which will have to be approved by the PRA. All the different coverage afforded by business policies, such as business interruption, contingent business interruption and loss of profits, will make the internal model much more complicated compared to what are fairly homogenous homeowners’ policies.

To address the most pressing need as soon as possible in a way that is acceptable to as many people as possible, we should concentrate on the most important issues and leave the Flood Re design as it is.

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[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords, briefly, I support my noble friend Lord Shipley on this important amendment. We are rightly spending the majority of our time today discussing a financial vehicle to deliver affordable flood insurance, but the planning system has a vital role in making our country more resilient for the future. On the potential effects of cuts in local authority budgets on their ability to undertake their important planning functions, which my noble friend mentioned, I add that a review in 24 months’ time is sensible, given that in the intervening 24 months there will be further significant cuts to the Environment Agency’s budget, with an expected cut of more than 550 staff.

Given the scenes we have seen in recent days, it would be only too easy for people, rightly, to make the case that we must protect front-line staff in the Environment Agency. However, it is equally important to look appropriately at people in the back room who are working hard on the consultations on significant planning applications for developments of more than 10 houses or one hectare. Equally, it is important that the national flood management strategy, which the EA devised in 2011, is carried forward.

I add my support. The timeline that my noble friend Lord Shipley has suggested of 24 months is apposite given the need to review some of the resource constraints that both local authorities and the Environment Agency will face in the forthcoming months.

[Lord Krebs]

My Lords, I too support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. I have already declared an interest as the chairman of the adaptation sub-committee of the Committee on Climate Change. The sub-committee has a useful data set that could be brought to bear were this review to happen. It has developed a set of indicators, which are published, for the resilience of planning decisions in relation to present and future risks from flooding, particularly from future impacts of climate change. For example, it has looked at the implementation of SUDS, at the implementation of household measures that could provide protection at the individual property level and at planning decisions to develop in the flood plain. As has already been said by the noble Lord, development in the flood plain has been going ahead faster than development elsewhere, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. If the properties are appropriately protected, either by community-level measures or by individual household measures, the risks can be managed. The sub-committee has a data set and a set of indicators that could be useful were the Government minded to accept the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley.

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The amendment would cement into the heart of Flood Re the important principle of appropriate risk-sharing. The exact proportion of each claim borne by the insurer could be subject to further debate and set in regulations, but at least the amendment would ensure that the debate was had when the time came. I beg to move.

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 156D of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and my related probing Amendment 156E has been grouped with it.

At present, the Bill states that the Secretary of State has the option to bring in a review process for Flood Re, but provides no detail. The first amendment, as the noble Lord pointed out, requires the scheme administrator to publish a plan to achieve a transition to risk-reflective pricing.

My second amendment would require Flood Re to publish the intended framework for reviews, outlining the decisions that needed to be made at each review point. Why is that important? The Government’s consultation document on Flood Re specified that reviews will be held in order that there should be a gradual transition to risk-reflective pricing. Discussions have centred on reviews every five years and the impact assessment for flood risk is based on that hypothesis, but there is nothing in the legislation to confirm that this will be so.

Getting a commitment to a five-yearly review is critical. Flood Re is designed by the Government to expire in 20 to 25 years’ time, with review points where decisions can be taken to reduce the benefit of the pool to claimants and the levy to all policyholders. If a linear approach is taken, this might result in a 20% drop in the levy, and the benefits, every five years. The potential problems are that the reviews could be more frequent, or never. The Treasury could require the transition period to be shortened, thus not allowing the necessary flood risk management investment to take place, or it could set the percentage drop in the levy to be higher in the earlier period. The reason why it might do so would be that under OECD rules the levy is considered to be a tax. Removing it early would reduce the percentage tax burden on the state.

The issue, though, is not just when the reviews take place but what information they provide so that the Government and parliamentarians have the necessary information to make informed decisions. As such, it would seem important to define the critical parameters in the review in some detail at the outset, understanding exactly what areas beyond affordability and accessibility will be judged to see whether or not the scheme is effective. I hope therefore that the Minister will put on record the Government’s intentions in this regard so that we can have reassurances that the scheme will achieve the outcomes that we all want.

[The Earl of Lytton]

My Lords, I particularly welcome Amendment 156C, moved so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, as it enables me to raise a series of allied issues. The first is that, Flood Re or no Flood Re, we are all on notice that the cross-subsidy of flood risk needs to be replaced by individual risk assessments. The reason for that is our better geographical knowledge and the unsustainability of the continued mutualisation of risk in those circumstances. I have absolutely no argument with that.

One issue of concern is the data produced by the Environment Agency. Obviously, those data are very important for the industry and for consultants, but they are equally important for individuals because, if we are moving to individual assessment, we must have some means of identifying the individual impact on a per property basis. I referred earlier today to my discussions with Philip Wilbourn, a very eminent environmental surveyor and valuer from the north of England. He allowed me to circulate an e-mail to a number of noble Lords setting out his views, which I have done, but there is a particular bit that I would like to repeat. He refers to,

“the data published by the various agencies, including the Environment Agency”.

Bear in mind that this is someone who carries out evaluations and does assessments on individual properties or groups of properties for a variety of different purposes.

In his e-mail, Philip Wilbourn says that he cannot use the data for commercial purposes because he is prohibited from doing so. Then he says that there is no online ordering service to acquire data for reporting purposes, and he is forced to acquire it from GroundSure or Landmark, two of the authorised resellers, at what he describes as high cost. He says:

“The data reported by commercial companies often varies depending upon the royalty return”,

which seems to be quite the wrong trigger for objective data. He tells me that the costs cannot be absorbed by residential valuers and that the banks, for which these valuations are produced, will not allow such data as a disbursement for the reports that are sent to them. His e-mail continues:

“When data is ordered direct from the EA, it can take three weeks to be sent through depending on the region”,

and he says that he has tested that.

The scale of resolution on the Environment Agency website is 1:5,000, which does not enable a particularly accurate identification on a per property basis. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s website fares rather worse because the scale there is 1:25,000, so individual property analysis by the home owner is clearly going to be difficult. These are the data that are supplied to insurers to make decisions.

Of course, what happens? It gets boiled down to a postcode approach—the “postcode lottery” of which we constantly hear many examples. He says:

“The problem with postcodes is that many home owners/businesses may be paying more than they should”,

and he gives an example of a postcode—in I do not know what part of the country, but it is obviously an urban area—which is neatly bisected by a blue-ink line of flood risk.

There is a particular issue here as to whether the data that are produced by this public agency, for public consumption and for the benefit of society as a whole, will be available at reasonable cost—let us not say that it should be free—for the home owner and individual consumer. That is the question that I pose in the context of this amendment.