Humber Flood Risk Management Strategy

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

This has been a quite extraordinary debate in many ways. Not only have some eminent Members of this House spoken, but the debate has been cross-party and good-natured. I never thought that I would live to see the day when certain Members from different parts of the House would call each other “Friends”. Someone less risk-averse than I am might have referred to Members present as the Yorkshire mafia. I would never dream of doing such a thing, but they have certainly made a powerful case, and I am sure that the Minister has taken note of it. I am also sure that the Prime Minister will have taken note of it before he meets them next week.

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), in particular because the topic is not something that he has simply taken up for this debate. His parliamentary questions and previous contributions have focused clearly and repeatedly on moving the debate about flood risk away from rhetoric and on to the simple facts, and that set the debate off on exactly the right tone. I want to pick up on some of those facts: the Government’s capital spending plans up to 2020-21, which will result in a significant increase in the number of properties at risk of flooding; the fact that flood risk is increasing due to climate change; and the fact that the Government’s maintenance spending plans for tidal defences will result in the deterioration of existing flood assets. The issues are serious and it is right that they have been debated so thoroughly this morning. I want to focus primarily on the first two points: increased flood risk and capital investment.

The Government have set out their forward projections for capital investment in flood defences, which say that they will spend £370 million a year in 2015-16 and in every year through to 2020-21. What percentage of that money will be for new-build flood defences, and what will be for major capital repairs and maintenance? The truth is that we do not know. The Government have chosen to use capital spend as a proxy for spending on new flood defences. As a result, many people will think that they are building more defences and defending more properties when in fact, because of climate change and storm damage, they will simply be spending more on major repairs to existing defences. In other words, there may be no increase in the number of defences, or indeed the number of properties and homes defended.

The Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change has analysed the claim made by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, that 165,000 properties would be “better protected” in the current spending period. It warns that only a proportion of the 165,000 will actually see their flood risk reduce. Many capital schemes are simply replacing or refurbishing existing defences on a like-for-like basis, and to the same crest height. That is not good enough, for all the reasons that hon. Members have outlined this morning. With climate change, many of the houses will be less well protected than they were when the defences were built. Defences may have been repaired, but the risk that they will be overtopped as a result of changing climate has now increased. Too many homes and properties are still at risk, because the defences that we have are less effective than they once were as a result of the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather.

That is one of the reasons why the UK Statistics Authority is still not satisfied with the Government’s flood spending statistics. The UK Statistics Authority has yet to be satisfied that the Government are telling what it calls the truth about flood defence spending. Needless to say, that makes the job of planning for everyone involved in flood risk management incredibly difficult. The Government’s failure to provide a straight answer to the question of how they plan to reduce flood risk has made effective scrutiny of their policy difficult. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden has on previous occasions called for the Government to be more strategic in their interventions, and to stop being

“penny wise and pound foolish”—[Official Report, 10 February 2014; Vol. 575, c. 570.]

He is exactly right.

The Humber flood risk management strategy produced in 2008 seems to strike the right balance on the basis of the best evidence available at the time. However, we must be clear that the evidence on flood risk has changed rapidly and significantly over the past six years. Let me give an important example: the 2008 strategy states that the Environment Agency considered that it would be necessary to withdraw from 11 of the 33 flood management areas in the Humber plan; those 11 areas contained 1,961 homes in 2008. Significantly, in his opening remarks, the right hon. Gentleman said that he has been told by the Government that the 2008 numbers in his constituency have increased by more than 1,000 already.

Since 2008 our understanding of how flood risk is changing has increased significantly. The Met Office has stated that what was a one-in-125-days extreme rainfall event is now to be considered as a one-in-85-days event, and that trend is expected to continue. It is also chastening to consider that sea levels in England are rising by around 6 mm per year. The evidence is clear that the risk to the people of the Humber has increased. The simple message is that since 2010, while the assessment of the risks has continued to rise, the Government have chosen to cut investment in flood defences. We need to run simply to hold flood risk at existing levels. The Humber risk assessment must be redone to reflect new evidence on flood risk and the backlog of work that has not been delivered because of the cuts.

The Environment Agency carried out an updated Humber flood risk management strategy in 2011, which makes it clear that more new defences and the improvement of existing defences will be needed, and that more managed realignment of the coast, as well as increased flood storage, will be essential. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) rightly quantified that at £880 million over the next 10 years. The Minister, however, must be clear about who exactly he expects to deliver the strategic approach to flood risk reduction required in the Humber.

Since 2010 the number of Environment Agency staff working to fulfil the statutory consultation role on flood risk has reduced by 40%. The Government have made adapting to future flood risk voluntary for all local authorities. That is not the co-ordinated, long-term, well thought through plan that the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) spoke of—he is now, I trust, the toast of the Crown and Anchor pub, to which he referred so liberally. Furthermore, the Government have decided not to implement sustainable urban drainage, which would have required developers and water companies to meet some of the cost. No wonder the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden has called for the Government to be more strategic.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Barry Gardiner]

I am conscious that the Minister needs to speak, so if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not give way.

Last week, the outgoing head of the Environment Agency used a speech at the RSA—the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce—to call for cross-party consensus of the kind that we have seen this morning. That is what we had with the Pitt review: an approach that focused on building the capacity for strategic intervention. There were 92 recommendations, but only 46 were implemented. That approach, however, saw improvements implemented at Brough, Swinefleet, Burringham, Gunness, Stallingborough and Halton Marshes.

Since 2010 many of the projects named in the Humber flood risk management strategy have become stuck in the pipeline, because Government cuts have closed off, and in some cases indefinitely delayed, the available funding for essential projects. Examples include the Sutton Ings flood alleviation scheme, a sustainable drainage retrofit that would have protected an area of central Hull in which there are 2,982 homes at significant risk of flooding. The Ulceby flood alleviation scheme would have protected an area of Grimsby in which 2,164 homes are at significant risk of flooding. We urgently need to get back to an evidence-based flood management policy that all parties in the House can support. Nothing else will deliver the risk management strategy required for the Humber.