Flooding

David Heath Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I thank the Chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee for her comments. Emphatically yes, we have reacted—look at what we are doing. I agreed a whole range of projects with the noble Lord Smith and we got them passed in a difficult spending round. We have agreed extra funding, as I have just told the Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, for revenue spending and we have agreed, unprecedentedly, a programme of increased spending on capital up until 2021. We are spending more money in this spending round than in the previous four years, we have brought in partnership funding and we have set out an ambitious programme. We are reacting—the hon. Lady needs only to look at what we are doing on the ground.

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

Not unusually, a large part of my constituency is under water at the moment, and many people who live on the levels say that the situation is the worst that they can remember. I know that the Secretary of State understands this, but will he push the Environment Agency very hard to go ahead with the plans to clear the waterways and the rhynes and particularly to dredge the Parrett, the Tone, the Brue and the Axe, because if we have not got the capacity to get that water away, it will stay there for a very long time?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He and I worked closely on this matter when he was my colleague in DEFRA. Together, we have come to a number of schemes that are being piloted—seven across the country—allowing local farmers and landlords to clear their own low-risk waterways, under supervision from the Environment Agency; but obviously, if that work is to go ahead and be meaningful, there must be proper dredging of rivers, and we will work on that with the Environment Agency.