Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dan Rogerson and Diana Johnson

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

4. What steps she is taking to ensure that communities affected by flooding recover.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)]

The Government have committed around £560 million to support those affected by flooding last winter. That includes an extra £270 million to repair and maintain critical flood defences. We are helping households and businesses through the repair and renew grant and through council tax and rates relief. Farmers and fishermen are receiving funding for repairs through existing schemes and we are supporting businesses through a £10 million hardship fund.

[Diana Johnson]

After Eton flooded in February, the Prime Minister promised that money would be no object. However, for many Hull homes and businesses hit by the December tidal surge, that soon changed to “Out of sight, out of mind,” and they are still awaiting help. Can the Minister tell me what percentage of the promised assistance to flood-hit communities has actually gone to those affected?

[Dan Rogerson]

As I set out to the hon. Lady, there are a number of schemes in place. Some are still paying out and will do so until the end of the financial year. If she has particular concerns about issues in her part of the world, I would be happy to meet her, as ever, to discuss them, but those schemes are available to all those affected by flooding during the period of extreme weather from early December last year through to the end of April.

Flooding

Debate between Dan Rogerson and Diana Johnson

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson]

I do not know why, but perhaps the Minister will be able to enlighten us. Obviously, the statement of principles ran out last summer and it has had to have a temporary extension until the new Flood Re scheme comes into place in 2015, even though this needed to be sorted out as quickly as possible.

Let me return to the issue of the exclusions. Leaseholders are excluded from the scheme, as are council tenants and small businesses, including people who run a bed and breakfast from their home. Landlords are not covered, even where there is a jointly owned freehold with each flat owner as a leaseholder. It is not clear whether tenants wanting contents insurance will be covered. There is no answer from the Government on the position of home owners or builders who acted in good faith, following all relevant planning guidelines and Environment Agency advice, but find themselves with homes that will now not attract home insurance cover under the Flood Re scheme because they have been built since 2009. Under Flood Re, a home built on 31 December 2008 will be covered whereas a house next door that was built on 1 January 2009 will not be. The scheme seems very arbitrary, and it is also not clear whether Flood Re covers the surface water flooding which we had a problem with in Hull in 2007.

Worse still, one part of the Government does not seem to know what the other part of the Government is doing. The Treasury and the Department for Communities and Local Government are promoting their Help to Buy scheme heavily in Kingswood in my constituency, an area hit by flooding in 2007; large Help to Buy posters are plastered everywhere. The problem is that the Treasury and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are also signalling that those thousands of new homes being built and sold under their Help to Buy scheme should not have been built in the first place and will not be covered by Flood Re. The Government are getting themselves into real difficulty on this, and the people buying homes under the Help to Buy scheme at the moment will be shocked to know the position the Government are putting them in.

Clearly, there are some flood-risk areas where building should not happen—areas where there is coastal erosion and outlying areas that will not be helped by flood defence infrastructure.

[Dan Rogerson]

The hon. Lady has been consistent in raising the issue of the Help to Buy scheme. The scheme operates across the country, and the choice of where to buy a property and on what terms to do so is up to the person who buys it. Of course, the developer will also have gone through a process of developing it. The Government are not encouraging and actively pushing people into buying those particular homes; people are choosing to buy them and use that scheme. So perhaps she needs to give a little clarification on what she is accusing the Government of.

[Diana Johnson]

I do not know whether it is parliamentary to say this, but I am gobsmacked by that response. I thought the whole aim and purpose of the Government’s scheme was to encourage people to buy a home. It just so happens that 90% of my city is below sea level and on a floodplain, so someone who buys a property in Hull will probably be faced with it not being in the Flood Re scheme, yet the Government are still encouraging people to buy homes there. I am grateful for that at least—they have not abandoned Hull completely—but there is a problem with their Flood Re scheme.

The National Association of Home Builders estimates that 5 million homes around the country will not be covered by the Flood Re scheme, and the insurance firm Hiscox has in the past few weeks called for the deal to be made universal. As I have said, Hull, 90% of which is a flood risk, is currently protected, but it could be better protected still with more adequate investment and by ensuring access to affordable insurance cover. With that in place, Hull and other flood-risk areas have a viable economic future with a functioning property market and a strong business sector.

With climate change leading to rising water levels and more frequent volatile weather, the scientific advice is that flooding will occur more regularly in a larger proportion of the country. This small country cannot write off the major towns, cities and areas of farmland that are now at risk of more regular flooding. Yes, there are limits on what we can afford to do, but we need to think too about the limits on what we can afford not to do.

The free market and little England approach does not equip us to face these issues. Climate change deniers such as those in the UK Independence party also do not help. They want to wreck Hull’s hopes for wind turbine jobs and send them abroad. Some of its members even appear to hold the view that same-sex marriage is responsible for the flooding.

Let us turn a major problem into an opportunity for economic growth. We could invest in flood defence infrastructure and support renewable energy with a balanced energy policy so that we meet our future energy needs in a way that also combats climate change.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dan Rogerson and Diana Johnson

Thursday 13th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

Northamptonshire county council and its flood and water management team in particular are working on that with the Environment Agency as the lead local flood authority. They are hoping to introduce schemes that will address the concerns that my hon. Friend raises, but if she would like to write to me on a particular local issue, I am happy to look into it.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I welcome the £5,000 that has been announced for households that are flooded, and I understand that it will be available to households that flooded in Hull during the tidal surge in December, but can the Minister explain to people in Hull why it has taken two months for that announcement to be made, and only after the playing fields of Eton flooded?

[Dan Rogerson]

Ministers have been on the ground across the country at various events. I visited a community to talk about how it was affected during the east coast flooding. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has also visited a number of communities. As the hon. Lady pointed out, the money that is available to help people will be there for all communities, no matter where they are in the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dan Rogerson and Diana Johnson

Thursday 21st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)]

Government financial support and action under our anaerobic digestion strategy and action plan is leading to growing uptake of AD. Since the strategy was published the number of plants has increased from 54 to more than 120 and a further 200 projects have planning permission.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

T6. The Government claim that excluding homes built since 2009 from the Flood Re insurance scheme is sending a message to developers not to build in flood-risk areas, so can the Minister explain to me why posters heavily promoting the Government Help to Buy scheme are plastered around Kingswood in my constituency, even though my constituents will be outside the flood insurance scheme in an area that is prone to flood risk?

[Dan Rogerson]

The details of the scheme agreed with industry, which I welcome and we look forward to taking forward in the forthcoming flooding Bill, are predicated on what was agreed under the previous regime. We are happy to debate this, of course, and if the case is made to change it, we will look at that. As the hon. Lady says, however, our current plan is to send a very clear message that we do not want to see further building on the flood plain.

Sure Start Children’s Centres

Debate between Dan Rogerson and Diana Johnson

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

I do not think it was said to be a waste of money. The argument was that things can always be done better, which is what the National Audit Office said. I hope that all Members agree that where issues have been identified independently and targets and aspirations for a policy have not been met, we can look for ways to do it better. My fundamental point is that, despite the financial situation, good councils up and down the country will prioritise children’s centres and keep them open to ensure that services have a reach—even if there is no insistence on having full-time workers in every specialism in every centre, which is what I would like to see if the money were available to fund it.

[Diana Johnson]

Of course all Members would agree that if efficiencies can be made, it is all to the good and we should see it happen, but is the hon. Gentleman honestly saying that a 50% cut to the children’s centre budget in Hull can be seen as a good thing and that services will improve because it is an efficiency saving?

[Dan Rogerson]

Of course I am not saying that spending less on a service is desirable. If we have the money in the first place, I would like it to be spent on front-line services, but I am not in a position to comment on how every single penny has been spent in Hull. I am pleased to note that my Liberal Democrat colleagues running the city council are keeping the children’s centres open and will provide services at them, which will reach across all the communities of Hull.

I conclude on that note. I hope that the debate will proceed by focusing on the positive aspects that Sure Start has delivered and the opportunities to continue delivering them.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Debate between Dan Rogerson and Diana Johnson

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Diana R. Johnson]

With the greatest respect to the hon. Gentleman, who is a very new Member of this House, it is clear, having checked the amendment, that I have made a mistake, as I said. I tried to explain why the previous Government wanted to include economic education in PSHE. We want to make PSHE mandatory in academies, and I am keen to set out why the Government have got this completely wrong.

Pupils are pupils whether they attend an academy or any other type of school, and they all need to develop the life skills to make choices on subjects such as nutrition, sex and relationship education, and personal finance. In many constituencies across the land, we are very concerned about levels of teenage pregnancy. A few moments ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) spoke about teenage pregnancy rates in European countries where there is comprehensive sex and relationship education. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion also touched on that subject. We believe that making PSHE mandatory in academies and, indeed, in all schools is the way forward to ensure that young people have the information they need to make sensible and good life choices.

[Dan Rogerson]

I understand the point that the hon. Lady is making. I agree that it is important that all schools should have this subject as part of the curriculum; I have believed that for a long time. I understand that when there was a debate on this in the other place, a similar amendment was tabled by her noble Friends. However, given that the amendment has to work within the confines of this Bill and is therefore restricted to the new academies that it covers, it would not achieve the aims that she is talking about. Does she concede that this might not be the time and place to do this, and that we need to revisit the issue across the piece?

[Diana R. Johnson]

This Bill is about academies, and we have made it clear in the amendment that we want to make PSHE mandatory in academies. The position taken by my party is that we believe that PSHE should be mandatory in all schools—academies and non-academies.

We want to put PSHE on a formal footing to send out a clear message in academies about how important the subject is and how important it is to develop it as a professional subject and to train more teachers in it. Many schools already provide very good PSHE, including some academies, but more can still be done to improve its teaching. Hon. Members will know that in the previous Parliament the Labour Government attempted to legislate in the Children, Schools and Families Bill to make PSHE compulsory for all pupils in all schools, including, importantly in this case, academies. The key principles that we set out in that Bill were to make the teaching of PSHE promote equality, encourage the acceptance of diversity, and emphasise rights and responsibilities and the need to reflect on contrasting attitudes within society—in other words, to give children and young people the opportunity truly to develop their life skills. At that stage, the Liberal Democrat coalition partners fully supported the Labour Government’s policy of making PSHE compulsory for all pupils, including those in academies. It will be interesting to see tonight whether the Liberal Democrats now differ in their position.

Young people and parents both tell us that they want PSHE taught in schools. A National Children’s Bureau report showed that children wanted to be able to talk about issues important in their lives, such as emotions, relationships, mental health, sexual health and so on. In a popular survey, 81% of parents agreed that every child should have sex and relationship education as part of the curriculum, and in a survey by Parentline Plus, 97% of parents said that they wanted drug and alcohol education to be delivered in schools. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence recently recommended that all primary schools should teach PSHE.

--- Later in debate ---

[Diana R. Johnson]

The proposal is as it is. In the previous Parliament, there was a long debate on opting out of PSHE, especially regarding sex and relationship education. The proposed amendment does not address that matter, but if the Government were minded to accept it, they may have to consider it further. The proposal is for

“a statutory entitlement for all pupils”

in academies.

There was huge disappointment among parliamentarians and many other organisations at the failure of the previous Parliament to legislate on PSHE owing to the fact that the Conservative party would not accept the PSHE clauses in the Children, Schools and Families Act 2010 during the wash-up period. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats now have an opportunity for an early win on PSHE for our young people who will be educated in academies.

[Dan Rogerson]

The hon. Lady’s telling of events of the closing days of the previous Parliament is interesting, but obviously, the wash-up process is somewhat arcane for those of us who were not party to the negotiations. Could the previous Government have dug their heels in and pushed for those PSHE clauses with other interested parties?

[Diana R. Johnson]

I, too, was not party to those negotiations, but I understand that that was not possible.

I intend to press amendment 26 to a Division to test the opinion of the Committee on that very important proposal.