Oral Answers to Questions

Blake Stephenson Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy]

Dredging used to be commonplace, but some evidence shows that it can speed up flow and potentially increase the risk of flooding downstream. There are currently no plans for any further dredging in Boston and Skegness, but I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and the EA area manager to discuss this further.

[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

10. What assessment he has made with Cabinet colleagues of the potential merits of safeguarding high-grade agricultural land.

[The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Daniel Zeichner)]

We all know that food security is national security, and most of us also recognise that the impacts of climate change and nature loss pose a significant risk to domestic production, so it is very important that we use our land carefully. Consequently, the Government will be introducing a land use framework to ensure that we protect our most productive agricultural land.

[Blake Stephenson]

High-grade agricultural land in Mid Bedfordshire has been farmed for generations, and it is critical for our food security and our freedom, but it is under extreme pressure. We have talked this morning about climate change and flooding, and also about the Government’s family farm tax. What has not been mentioned so much is urban sprawl, which is a major threat to high-grade agricultural land. We live in an uncertain world and we need our country to feed itself. Considering the threat, will the Minister guarantee that high-grade agricultural land will be protected by this Government?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his points and refer him to my earlier comments: we see more and more pressure, and there are so many things we need to do on our land to house and feed people, so it is important that we have a proper structure in place. It is widely acknowledged that the current planning system does not necessarily do that. The previous Government promised a land use framework; we will actually deliver it.

Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords]

Blake Stephenson Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I welcome many of the measures in the Bill and will focus in the time available on the real action our constituents need from Government to bring our sewage network up to date.

Too often and for too long, our constituents have paid the price for a failure of forward planning by the water industry. In September, my constituency was the victim of exceptional flooding. In the aftermath, as we sought to learn lessons, many stories involved raw sewage coming up into people’s homes and gardens and flowing down their streets in places such as Harlington, Barton-le-Clay and Greenfield, as excess surface water overwhelmed the sewage system. No one, be they in Mid Bedfordshire or anywhere else in our country, should see a storm cloud overhead and fear that they will end up ankle deep in sewage—not in the 21st century.

I say this is a problem of forward planning because a shocking example of industry neglect during the flooding came from new town Wixams. The town is still being built out, with construction beginning this century, and yet the flooding overwhelmed the wastewater and sewage infrastructure, which could not cope with the amount of water being discharged into it. Thousands more homes will be built in Wixams and across Mid Bedfordshire over the coming years. We must do more to force the water industry to ensure that those homes are served by infrastructure that is fit for purpose and climate resilient.

The previous Government recognised that we have a Victorian sewage network, and they stepped up requirements for water companies to invest in improving our infrastructure. This Government must be similarly ambitious. I welcome clause 4, which talks of the importance of nature-based solutions in drainage and sewage management plans, building on the previous Government’s work in their plan for water.

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

In 2023, Chichester experienced 990 spills lasting over 17,000 hours. It is an environmental scandal and a public health crisis. As the Secretary of State said in his opening comments, it is time to clean up our water once and for all, and I welcome the Bill. Does the hon. Member agree that nature-based solutions, such as wetlands, will play a vital role in reducing spills and can be brought in quickly, but only if the regulation allows?

[Blake Stephenson]

I absolutely agree on the importance of nature-based solutions, and those solutions are talked about frequently in my community and, I am sure, in communities across the country. They were not necessarily spoken about five or 10 years ago, but we have a real opportunity to make a difference if we focus and deliver on nature-based solutions.

We must go much further in this area to ensure that all our towns and cities are built to absorb water. On implementing sustainable urban drainage systems, I mentioned this previously to the Minister for Water, and I will keep banging on about it. We must bring into force schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010—I recognise that the Act is from 2010 and a lot has happened since then—and take much stronger action to ensure that drains do not become blocked.

One way we could tackle the problem of abstraction and, indeed, flooding is by backing projects like the Bedford to Milton Keynes waterway park, which would run through the Marston Vale in Mid Bedfordshire and help channel water to where it is most needed. I hope the Government will give that project the support it needs.

Rural Affairs

Blake Stephenson Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Rural communities form the backbone of our country. They grow the food that feeds British families, they are the custodians of our beautiful countryside, and they are home to fantastic village pubs such as the Knife & Cleaver in Houghton Conquest, the Crown in Shillington and the Anchor in Aspley Guise—a shameless plug for three of my fantastic pubs. We all know that fantastic British pubs are the heart of our villages, but I am concerned that they will now struggle to stand still, never mind invest and give youngsters the opportunity of their first job, given the Government’s choice to tax jobs and working people. Pubs across my constituency have told me of their concerns, and I told them that I would raise them today on the Floor of the House.

The problems that we face in rural communities are a world away from those faced by hon. Friends in urban areas. We suffer from similar crimes to urban areas, with particular problems around fly-tipping, wildlife crime and rural theft. Members throughout the House have spoken about those issues at length. I urge the Government to ensure that rural communities are not overlooked in favour of urban areas when they allocate police funding. That is certainly a concern of my constituents, who see police resources soaked up by the high demand in neighbouring large towns.

In parts of my constituency, the benefits of working from home are limited by poor-quality broadband, which limits the growth prospects of some of our brilliant local entrepreneurs and family businesses. Project Gigabit must be delivered at pace, and I will support any measures and efforts to do that.

Bus services are often infrequent and unreliable, and unfortunately under this Government they are getting more expensive. Inequalities extend beyond transport; access to healthcare is challenging, particularly if people cannot or do not drive. I am keen to ensure that my communities have better access to local healthcare, which is an ambition of the Government. We need to do more in this Parliament to ensure that primary care reaches into our villages and hamlets, and that no one is left without the healthcare they need because of where they live.

As the Government consider their plans to build the communities of the future, I hope they will learn from our villages. Decades—centuries, even—of sympathetic development have created communities: places that people want to live and spend time in. We must ensure that the legacy we leave for future generations includes sustainable and beautiful homes, with the right services and good access to the countryside.

[Sir John Hayes]

Such is my hon. Friend’s insight that he has drawn together two fundamental issues. Over-development in rural areas places immense pressure on infrastructure such as healthcare provision, as he described. Does he agree that development should be incremental, so that no community changes beyond recognition, or can no longer be served by the kind of public services that are critical to wellbeing?

[Blake Stephenson]

I entirely agree. A lot is said about sustainable development in planning rules. I know from my community that lots of people feel quite aggrieved by large new developments being built on the edge of villages, fundamentally changing their character. There is more work to do to ensure that our villages grow slowly and sustainably, alongside infrastructure. Lessons should be learned from the many decades of mistakes.

That brings me to another point. We must ensure that our villages are not overwhelmed by suburban dormitories. I am afraid that even though they are rural, some of my communities have been turned into dormitories by house building. People sleep there but head elsewhere to work, so they do not contribute to our local communities as they would have done in the past.

Often, at the heart of our rural communities is a group of unsung people—although they have been much mentioned today—who look after our countryside, employ local people and ensure that every single person in this country has food on their table. They are, of course, our farmers. British farmers might not always seek the spotlight—although sometimes they have shows on Amazon Prime—but without them we would be a much poorer country and our rural communities would be significantly worse off.

We should do all we can to support British farmers and nurture the next generation of them, but instead the Government are regrettably levying a spiteful family farm tax on them. I met farmers in Mid Bedfordshire recently. It is clear that the attack on family farms will force many families to sell up to developers or big international farming corporations, ripping the soul out of our rural communities. For the long-term sustainability of rural communities up and down the country, I urge the Government to reconsider the damaging family farm tax.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Before I call the next speaker, I inform the House that I am now imposing a four-minute time limit.

Flooding: Bedfordshire

Blake Stephenson Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I rise in Flood Action Week to raise an issue that is front-of-mind for so many of my constituents. The flooding in September devastated homes, farms and businesses right across my constituency and those of hon. Friends across Bedfordshire. Indeed, my home in Shillington was flooded. Two months-worth of rainfall in 24 hours caused considerable damage to property and risks for people, especially the elderly or vulnerable, so I thank all the first responders and council workers who worked tirelessly to support my constituents.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South and South Bedfordshire) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this Adjournment debate during Flood Action Week. Constituents of mine were also impacted by the flooding across the county. Last week, I met representatives from the Fire Brigades Union, who said that over 400 calls had been taken in seven hours on flood-related issues alone. I pay tribute to them. Does he agree that there should be recognition of firefighters who carry out flooding rescue, which they do alongside all their other duties even though it is not a statutory service?

[Blake Stephenson]

So many people across so many organisations, including fire and rescue, worked tirelessly to protect our communities. I associate myself with the hon. Lady’s comments about the support provided by our local police and fire and rescue services.

Mid Bedfordshire is not an area at obvious risk of extreme flooding—unlike other parts of the county, we lack major rivers beyond the River Flit—but our soil types range from the thin sandy soils of the Greensand ridge to poorly draining clay soil, each of which presents its own flooding challenges. Our winters are getting wetter, and I know that many families will, like mine, look at the damage done by those floods and worry that such flooding will become the norm.

[Richard Fuller (North Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, which is important for residents of Bedfordshire. He talks about not having rivers in his constituency, but in North Bedfordshire we are blessed with two. Although this flooding was an extreme event, flooding issues have been persistent in places such as Harrold, Clapham and Great Barford, and, most recently and quite devastatingly, in Tempsford and Wyboston in my constituency. Does he welcome the initiative taken up by the Mayor of Bedford, Tom Wootton, to get a comprehensive approach from all the different agencies that can help residents with their flood response, and does he agree that that is a model for assessing flood risk in Bedfordshire?

[Blake Stephenson]

I absolutely agree. I would love to join any of those meetings with Mayor Tom to support those efforts in my wards of Wixams and Wootton.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman, to whom I spoke beforehand, for securing the debate. A conversation that people sometimes have is about the co-ordination between different departments, as the hon. Member for North Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) alluded to. If the flooding of roads and housing development areas is known about in advance, could better co-ordination improve things for our constituents? For many people, it might simply be about having a sandbag available. People need to know those things; maybe that would help.

[Blake Stephenson]

Certainly, one of the lessons that I have learned from the flooding in Mid Bedfordshire is that many statutory bodies are involved in flooding response and resilience. We need to work harder to ensure that those organisations work together. It is so important that the Government, local authorities and others learn the right lessons from those floods, and I hope that this debate can play a role in guiding that conversation.

First, let me reflect on the direct impact on constituents in Mid Bedfordshire. Hundreds of residents have taken the time to describe for me the huge losses that they have suffered, and I thank them for taking the time to do so while trying to recover from flood damage. Emma from Marston Moretaine, who filled in my recent flooding survey, told me:

“Our property was completely soaked front and back. We saw water rise, and beside the path at our house there was gushing water! We had to call for help. Water came in through the sides and foundations, and in the end there was nothing we could do.”

Caroline from Flitwick also took the time to share her experience:

“Severe flooding of my property requiring full water removal from my home and severe repairs. I am currently staying with family but having to relocate for a minimum of 6 months whilst repairs are done.”

Rita from Harlington explained that

“We had internal flooding start at 9.30 am with sewerage coming up from a manhole cover inside our garage. We contacted Anglian water by 10 am. We couldn’t shower or flush the toilet as it was gurgling back up! Then the rains came—the front drive was a deluge. We had neighbours helping with buckets and pumps trying to get the water off our property. It was a fighting battle—the water reached the front door and came into the property.”

Being flooded is not just an inconvenience: it is expensive, and it is heartbreaking for families to see their valuables—some of them irreplaceable—washed away. Shortly after the flooding, I took the time to visit dozens of local businesses, including Disco-licious in Gravenhurst, Maulden Garden Centre and The Dog House day care centre, which is also in Maulden. Those businesses, together with many others, have experienced severe financial losses, and in some cases have seen many years of hard work and investment washed away before their eyes.

Our farmers have been some of the worst hit, with severe and significant flooding reported at several local farms, including at Moreteyne’s Retreat, a smallholding that has been impacted hugely by floodwaters flowing from the A421. In the aftermath of that flooding, I have learned that 74% of the UK’s floodplain is agricultural land. Flooding can destroy whole crop yields, wasting months of work and threatening the livelihoods of our farmers, in many cases at the same time as they see their homes devastated by floodwaters.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has mentioned landowners and farmers. He will be well aware of the internal drainage boards, which do such vital work to protect land and require the resources to do so. The previous Government committed £75 million to drainage boards, but we have yet to see that money delivered by the current Administration. We also need a long-term solution to the funding of IDBs, so that local authorities are not put under undue pressure by having to fund those drainage boards themselves.

[Blake Stephenson]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making that point. He has stolen my thunder, because I was going to make that exact point later in my speech, so I will skip over it when I get to that section.

[Rachel Hopkins]

Say it again!

[Blake Stephenson]

Perhaps I will say it again. England has suffered its second worst harvest on record, with persistent wet weather, and waterlogged fields risk putting our farmers out of business over the medium to long term.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Building on that point, many of our farmers—not only across Bedfordshire, but across the whole of the country—are facing their second serious crop losses in a growing period. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is incredibly frustrating that, despite the last Conservative Government having allocated £50 million through the farming recovery fund, many farmers who urgently need that money—money that was guaranteed to get out of the door—are not yet receiving it from the new Administration?

[Blake Stephenson]

My hon. Friend is exactly right: it is very frustrating. I know that constituents who farm in my constituency are incredibly frustrated that funding will not be made available.

The persistent wet weather is a disaster not only for farmers, but for all of us, because it impacts yield and quality, resulting in higher food prices and threats to national food security. The Government need to take action, recognising that farmers in Bedfordshire are businesspeople, but also that they provide a public benefit by taking flooding that would otherwise flow into our towns and villages. I hope the Minister will work with colleagues to design a scheme to properly recognise the contribution our farmers make by allowing their fields to flood, and to remunerate them for that contribution.

Our local councils—as a councillor myself, I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—have done fantastic work to support residents. They have been forced to pick up the pieces and the bill to manage the response, and now to put things right. They have not got everything right—far from it—but they have stepped up during this emergency and provided significant resources to keep people safe, particularly the most vulnerable. Our households, businesses, farmers and councils now need the Government to step up and do their bit by releasing funds to support our communities to recover and improve resilience. The Minister has discretion in this area, and I was surprised to receive a response to a written question this afternoon suggesting that the flooding was not at a sufficient scale to be considered exceptional enough to release recovery funding—perhaps the Minister will address that point in her closing remarks. I am concerned that the Government fail to appreciate the significant but localised impact of this particular flooding event. My constituents want, and deserve, support.

Perhaps the most high-profile victim of our recent flooding was the A421, which was closed for weeks after more than 60 million litres of water collected in a dip in the road at Marston Moretaine. National Highways has worked hard around the clock to reopen the road, but as we look at lessons learned, significant questions must be asked about how we got here—how a major A-road, connecting Bedford to the M1, built this century, can have been built down into the ground in a historic floodplain, which of course is prone to flooding. It was designed in such a way that it regularly floods a little, but was built with flooding mitigations insufficient to deal with the kind of flooding that could become all too common in the years ahead. As this Government look to build similar infrastructure in the years ahead, we must heed the warnings of the A421 and build in a way that is protected from not the flooding of yesterday, but the flooding of tomorrow.

Roads are not the only area where problems with ineffective infrastructure have exacerbated the impact of flooding on my residents in Mid Bedfordshire. The blocked drains reported right across Mid Beds in places like Lower Shelton, Flitwick, Cranfield, Harlington and Maulden significantly increase the likelihood of surface water flooding. Clearing the drains regularly, if not the sole solution, represents common sense to my constituents and is a quick answer to mitigate at least some of the risk. They want to see the schedule of maintenance improved materially. Leaves fall every autumn and block drains, not every three years, and utility companies dig up roads and fill drains with mud and tarmac, only to leave them to be cleared by the council in its three-yearly cycle. This simply is not good enough, and it is putting property and lives at risk.

I therefore call on the Government to urgently consider introducing a new statutory duty on local authorities to clear drains and culverts regularly, backed by central funding at the Budget to ensure that councils have the resources they need. I also urge the Government—this is the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) raised—to look at the way that internal drainage boards are funded, to ensure that they have the resources they need to manage local flood risks. I ask the Minister to commit to meeting me and interested colleagues to discuss how that might be achieved.

[Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)]

In Leicestershire, we have a lot of landowners who should be doing more to help alleviate flooding. Unfortunately, local authorities have very limited powers to compel them to act. Does my hon. Friend agree that more needs to be done to bolster the power of local flood authorities, which are invariably upper-tier councils?

[Blake Stephenson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I agree that that is something the Government should be looking at.

During the recent flooding, I was appalled to learn that drains and sewers in the new town of Wixams were overloaded with surface floodwater. Seventeen years after construction began in Wixams, the drainage infra- structure should be adequate to accommodate many more houses than have so far been built. I urge the Minister to join me in pressing Anglian Water to take urgent action to expand its sewerage and drainage infra- structure.

Wixams is merely the most obvious example of a problem that residents are seeing repeatedly with development. House by house, development by development, infrastructure is failing to keep pace. While an individual development might not be enough to overwhelm the system or cause knock-on flooding impacts, the accumulated weight of development is creating huge problems across the country—including in Maulden in my constituency, where development has crept gradually up the slope of the Greensand ridge, resulting in water having fewer places to stop and soak, so that it instead surges down into the village. While the flooding infrastructure for these new developments might in theory be sufficient for planners to justify development, planning is failing to cope with the demands placed on it by multiple and interconnected developments, which is piling pressure on to networks and our natural environment.

With the Government set to review the planning system and ask for our towns and villages to take thousands of additional homes, I implore the Minister to work with colleagues to deliver reforms that require flooding authorities to take a wider systems view of the impact of developments. We need to ensure that housing targets do not put the delivery of new homes over the habitability of housing stock, or the safety and sustainability of our communities.

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and for securing such an important debate not only for his constituents, but for all Bedfordshire Members present. The point he is making is really important, and is felt keenly by my residents in Langford, on Southland Rise, where the failure of flood prevention measures put in place as part of a new development meant that several of them have had catastrophic flooding in a very short space of time over the past few weeks. Does he share my view that not only is consideration of flooding risk through local and national planning frameworks clearly in need of review, but we need to ensure that measures are in place for robust enforcement, to ensure that the flooding mitigation measures that are included in new developments actually work as it is claimed they should?

[Blake Stephenson]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. That story is felt and heard all across Mid Bedfordshire, and I agree with the points he made.

As a starting point, I would like the Government to consider urgently introducing secondary legislation to bring into effect schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. The Minister smiles, so she perhaps has a point to make on that when she winds up. I understand from a recent answer to my written question that the Minister wants to be mindful of the impact of over-regulation on developers, but building homes in a way that increases the flooding risk in our towns and villages does nothing to alleviate the housing crisis.

We must also consider the benefits of nature and nature-based solutions. Natural upstream solutions would help capture water and absorb some of the worst impacts of flooding. The Bedford and Milton Keynes waterway park is a great local example of a project that has the potential to remove water during flooding—and, indeed, to deliver water when it is most needed during droughts—and we must press ahead and deliver it at pace.

In addition, we need the Government to look again at their plans to designate inferior-quality areas of the countryside for development, and instead commit to a bold strategy of restoring nature, and in so doing, creating natural flood defences for our towns and villages. In our towns and villages themselves, I would like the Government to commit to a natural regeneration programme, using trees and nature to create sponge cities by enhancing drainage to prevent surface water flooding.

I will conclude with a final lesson that I hope the Minister will reflect on. My constituents were disappointed that, while she took the time to visit those in nearby Leighton Buzzard and to observe the impacts of flooding there, our towns and villages in Mid Bedfordshire received no attention from the Government at all. With a major road closed and a substantial number of houses and businesses impacted, had the flooding in Mid Bedfordshire been concentrated in a single major urban area, I have no doubt that we would have attracted some specific focus.

I have raised questions with the Minister and the Department that remain unanswered. I urge the Government to remember that rural areas are impacted by flooding too, and that they should be properly served by this Government, not an afterthought.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Minister.