Flooding

Chris Williamson Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

I will raise that issue with the Environment Agency, which I found very responsive to individual schemes. If my hon. Friend would be kind enough to give me more precise details, I will try to get an answer for her.

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Pickles]

The hon. Lady only has to look around to see how effective the new schemes have been. We have continued producing schemes. A number of Members have stood up and recognised what has happened. To be frank, I am pretty partisan and I am doing my best to be restrained. I point out politely that the last Labour Chancellor announced that if the Labour party won the last election, capital schemes would be cut by half. I do not believe for one moment that flood defences would have been exempt from that. After all, the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood, who has many fine qualities, has not been able to give a commitment that she would match the spending plans of the coalition Government.

[Chris Williamson]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Pickles]

Oh no, I don’t think so—not for a while.

Councils have the discretion to extend the relief. Since April, they have had the ability to waive the council tax exemption on empty homes to get them back into use, and to use the money to support front-line services or keep council tax down. The Leader of the Opposition supports that policy. However, I believe that the right hon. Member for Leeds Central has his doubts about it. It would be helpful if, in his summation, he made those doubts clear or demonstrated that he is at one with his leader.

The Government have been clear that we can give councils local flexibility. Councils can continue to use their discretionary powers to offer council tax relief to people whose homes are empty through no fault of their own. If councils are raising extra funds by waiving the exemption, they have a moral obligation to fund council tax relief for flooded homes for as long as it takes for families to get back into them. It would be most unfortunate if councils were portrayed as making money from misery.

To support home owners and businesses, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is providing a repair and renewal grant of up to £5,000 per household.

[Chris Williamson]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Pickles]

Certainly part of the amount that I have just announced with regard to businesses will be, although the rate rebate will not be available. This is perhaps a good opportunity for me to apologise to my right hon. Friend because I am afraid my office did not inform him of my visit to his constituency, which was made at short notice. I deeply regret that because he is a most diligent constituency MP, and I know he had been at the site the previous day. That was a good example of how adaptable firefighters have been: the use of the underpass as a balancing pool was a work of absolute genius, and it undoubtedly saved that important pumping station.

[Chris Williamson]

rose—

[Mr Pickles]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Chris Williamson]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. I indicated that I might mention firefighters, but I think I will save that for a little later. He spoke earlier about a moral obligation on local authorities, but are the Government not under a moral obligation to reinstate the significant cuts that they made to the flood defence scheme when they came to power, particularly in view of the Prime Minister’s statement at the press conference he called on 11 February, when he said that the Government

“will build a more resilient country for the future”?

What does that mean if not reinstating those cuts?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I start by concurring with everything said by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn). He was entirely right when he drew a comparison between his constituency and what was happening in Somerset. As I think the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) acknowledged, to some extent farming practices are responsible for the extent of the flooding we have seen. In addition, however, the Government’s own ideological obsession with deregulation is responsible, and I will tell the House why. As hon. Members may know, maize cultivation is now a significant feature of the British countryside in many areas, and it is used for animal feed and—as my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West pointed out—for biofuel.

The problem with maize cultivation, however, is that it has a significant impact on land’s capacity to hold water. When Labour was in office we recognised that, and back in the mid-2000s, I think, we implemented soil conservation measures to take account of that, linking subsidies to farmers to that sort of conservation necessity. When this Government came to power, with their obsession with deregulation, they specifically exempted maize cultivation from all soil conservation measures. That seems absolutely crazy. That crop causes the most floods and does the most damage, yet it is completely unregulated—it is a crazy example of barmy deregulation. As well as investment in flood defences and dredging in certain circumstances, it is vital that the Government make clear the importance of that issue, and take the necessary steps to ensure that sustainable land use is a feature of ensuring—as the Prime Minister said—that the Government secure a sustainable country for the future.

Let me say a little about my constituency, which thankfully was spared the floods on this occasion. According to recent data, 3,372 homes in my constituency are at risk of flooding, and 1,370 are at significant risk. It was really just luck that the rain fell where it did, because had it fallen on the River Derwent catchment area, my constituents would be counting the cost of flooding to their homes. I remember back in the 1960s when around Christmas the homes at risk in my constituency sustained the sort of flooding that we are seeing in other parts of the country today.

We know that funding for the “Our City Our River” flood defence scheme in Derby was substantially cut by this Government when they came to office. That has caused considerable anxiety for my constituents, and made it difficult for many of them to obtain flood insurance. The Prime Minister said that money was no object and that the Government would invest in securing a sustainable country for the future, so I hope that the funds necessary for flood defences in my constituency will be made available. It is no good simply saying, “Well, they can be completed by relying on the private sector and using the funds that it will put in place”. We need to get the private sector to the table, and meanwhile the rain might fall and the floods may arrive.

We know that there are a number of climate change deniers on the Government Benches and in the Cabinet itself—indeed, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is a climate change denier—but it seems obvious to me, from the events of the past few months, that climate change is happening. We are seeing more extreme weather events, and, as I have already pointed out, Derby has been lucky.

It is important to acknowledge the heroic and innovative work undertaken by our fire and rescue services. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has referred to some of that excellent work and other hon. Members have mentioned it in their contributions too. Firefighters have been tireless in their efforts to rescue people and to protect certain areas from being inundated. Without their efforts, residents in areas afflicted by these awful floods would have experienced even more devastation. The Pitt review, which was published some time ago, called clearly for a statutory duty to be imposed on fire authorities to tackle flooding and to be the lead bodies in these circumstances. Recommendation 39 of the Pitt review states:

“The Government should urgently put in place a fully funded national capability for flood rescue, with Fire and Rescue Authorities playing a leading role, underpinned as necessary by a statutory duty.”

I hope the Minister will indicate whether the Government are considering implementing that recommendation.

In addition to adapting to the growing problem of severe weather events and increased flooding, I hope we will see investment in renewable energy. We need to find ways of generating energy in a more sustainable way. We also need to reduce demand for energy, as that would have the twin benefit of tackling fuel poverty. Investing in an energy efficiency regime to tackle fuel poverty would make an important contribution to reducing demand for energy. Finally, in addition to reducing development on floodplains, the Government ought to consider making developers responsible for any damage caused to flooded properties for, say, 20 years after homes have been built.