Flooding

Damian Collins Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

Sadly, in Somerset we are used to flooding. After last year’s floods, which we thought were a one-in-100-year event, it is dismaying—that is an understatement—to see even worse flooding this year. We can cope with three feet of water for three weeks, but not 10 feet of water for 10 weeks. To put it in context, if we flooded the City of London, the City of Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Camden and Islington, that would still be smaller than the area currently flooded in my county. Although we have now managed to open Monks Leaze Clyse, the River Sowy is flowing and some of the biggest pumps we have ever seen in Somerset are working, it will nevertheless be weeks before we remove the floodwater.

I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks on behalf of my constituents to the people working for the Environment Agency, the internal drainage boards, the police and fire services, the Royal Marines and the local councils, who have been doing sterling work. I would also like to thank all the volunteers and the huge number of people who have donated to the Somerset Community Foundation to help those facing hardship as a result of the flooding. I thank the volunteers from the Flooding on the Levels Action Group for their sterling work in my constituency and the farmers from across the country who, as the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) said, have been sending forage to our farmers. It is very much appreciated.

I would also like to thank DEFRA Ministers, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister for coming to Somerset, seeing the situation for themselves and then acting on the basis of what they saw. As a result, we have had not only a very much enhanced crisis reaction, but the £10 million fund for farmers, the fund for small businesses affected, the tax and business rate relief and so on. That is very good news.

We are less pleased with the number of myths that have been propounded about Somerset, often by armchair experts who suddenly know all about the hydrology of the levels. Some of those myths have been pernicious. Some have been made in contrary directions. For example, some people have said that everything will be all right if we dredge, but it will not, as the Secretary of State said earlier. Dredging will not suddenly empty the levels or prevent flooding in future. Equally, those who say that dredging makes no different are talking nonsense, in my view. The fact that our rivers—the Parrett and the Tone, in particular—are at 60% of capacity means that we cannot turn on the pumps in large parts of my constituency because there is nowhere for the water to go. It means that the flooding starts earlier, stays longer and covers a greater area.

Equally, some people said, “If you dredge the river, it will turn into an uncontrollable torrent.” Those people had clearly never seen the River Parrett. It is probably the slowest river in the whole of western Europe. It drops 1 foot every mile; it is not going to turn into an uncontrollable torrent. We have also heard that the silting problems on the Parrett come from upstream, when in fact most of the silt is deposited by the very large tidal flow on the 18 miles or so of the river that is tidal. Although there is a contribution from upstream, that is where the main problem lies.

Why are we in this position? It is not because of purposeful negligence on the part of the Environment Agency, but for 20 years now it has been pursuing a policy with which I profoundly disagree. It has been doing that for two reasons. The first reason, which is perfectly valid in Treasury terms, is the cost-benefit return on investment that favours the protection of big cities and towns. I understand that, but, as a Somerset man, I do not see why we should be left out. The other reason is the heresy that sees the rivers as the area of environmental focus rather than the very precious ecology of the levels between the rivers. The rivers are the way of getting the water away from areas that are of vital importance.

We have been sent away to produce a 10-year action plan, and we are very near to completing it. I do not want to pre-empt it, but I will be very surprised if it does not include the dredging for which we have already issued the licences. Just as important is the maintenance of that dredging year on year. In that regard, we will need some significant changes to the revenue stream for local authorities and the internal drainage boards to enable them to do the job. We also need to deal with whole-river catchment. We need upstream measures, for which I hope we will use pillar 2 money within the common agricultural policy in order to retain more water in upstream areas. We need reforestation, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane); changes in cropping, because that will contribute as well; and sustainable urban drainage systems in our towns so as to prevent run-off. We must consider a barrage or a sluice on the River Parrett to prevent the tidal surge that deposits so much water and silt upstream.

We need to revisit our emergency responses so that they are quicker and more adept at dealing with the circumstances in which we find ourselves. We have been learning as we go, and communications are much better now than when this emergency started. However, I wonder whether we would have had the same attention in Somerset had the flooding of the Thames valley happened first. I was very pleased that we were able to make the rapid progress we did.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Heath]

Yes, because it will give me an extra minute.

[Damian Collins]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we also need to look at co-ordination between bodies such as UK Power Networks and the Environment Agency to make sure that when power goes down it is restored to pumping systems, in particular, as a priority so that we can keep the water moving?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We need to revisit the whole issue of resilience in a big way.

The transport links to the south-west, which are tenuous at any time, have now been shown to be inadequate—not only the railway system but the roads system. The A303 is completely incapable of doing the job that we ask of it as a strategic route to the south-west. Where else in the country would the main road to the county town—the A361, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne)—be flooded and closed for months? For months we have not had access from central Somerset to the county town. The village of Muchelney—the name gives a clue, because “mucheln ey” means “big island”—has been cut off for a very long time. The bridge between Long Load and Long Sutton has been closed for a long time. These situations are hugely disruptive to people’s normal lives. Unless we can address some of those issues, we are not doing the job that is expected of us by our constituents.

Lastly, we need resilience at household level and at community level. Points were made earlier about equipping people individually to put in measures to prevent ingress of water into their houses and to make villages better able to deal with the problem. Of course, the planning issues that the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) mentioned are fundamental as well. It is quite extraordinary that in some of the flooded villages in Somerset one sees bungalows nestling under the level of the river next to them. One wonders why people would build bungalows below the water table, and yet they have done so and we need to address how to deal with that in a much more satisfactory way.

The fact is that the Somerset levels are a man-made environment. The area is not a floodplain, as some people call it; it is reclaimed inland sea. Every bit of water we remove from Somerset has to be pumped over the banks of the river to a river that is higher than the surrounding land in order to get it away. That means we need special measures to deal with our special circumstances. A one-size-fits-all policy from the Environment Agency is never going to work for us.

I am proud of the stoicism and practicality of my constituents in immensely damaging and difficult circumstances. I am glad that the Secretary of State indicated that he will not oppose the motion, because I would have voted for it.