72 David Heath debates involving the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Flooding (Somerset)

David Heath Excerpts
Wednesday 2nd July 2014

(10 years, 4 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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David Heath Portrait Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
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I am extremely pleased to have secured the debate, which will consider the aftermath of flooding in Somerset. I am delighted to be supported on this occasion by my hon. Friends the Members for Wells (Tessa Munt) and for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne) and the hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger). We have been acting effectively as a team on the issue, and long may that continue.

I cannot honestly say that I have not had the opportunity to speak at length about flooding in Somerset on previous occasions. By my count, this is the 16th occasion this year when I have spoken on the subject. It has been a recurrent theme over my 18 years in Parliament, and sometimes I feel that I have spoken about little else. Looking back in Hansard the other day, I found that in March 2009, in a debate that I had introduced on the subject, I said:

“I am convinced that if we had proper dredging of some of our rivers and proper clearing of debris and strengthening of banks on some of the smaller tributary streams, it would make a substantial difference to the way in which we deal with these matters.”—[Official Report, 12 March 2009; Vol. 489, c. 553.]

I was right on that occasion, as were many, many local people, who had been saying the same things year in, year out for a long time. I had the opportunity to say some of those same things to the Minister’s predecessor, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), when he came down to see me in Langport in April 2012.

No one can honestly say that the flooding in Somerset this winter caught them by surprise; we knew it was going to happen. The good news is that, despite the reports about the conditions underfoot at Glastonbury festival last weekend, Somerset is now predominately dry. The floods have gone. We need to keep repeating that, because there are still people who ring up businesses in my constituency—I am sure it happens in my colleagues’ constituencies, too—saying, “Is Somerset open for business? Are you still under water?” No, we are not under water. Come and have a jolly good holiday in Somerset. It is a much better place to go than places that are further away. [Interruption.] No, I do not mean the Minister’s constituency. Somerset is a thoroughly good place to have a holiday.

Before I proceed to a catch-up on where we are, I repeat, as I have on many occasions, my thanks to everyone who was concerned during the flooding crisis with dealing with the conditions on the ground. People worked tirelessly, whether they were officers of the Environment Agency, the police, the fire brigade, council officers or volunteers. There were so many that it would be invidious to mention people by name, but they know how much their work was appreciated. I also thank those who helped in other ways, such as providing cattle fodder from the far ends of the country or providing cash to the appeals organised by the Somerset Community Foundation and others. We are deeply appreciative of that, as we are of the attention we were afforded for a few brief weeks by the Government.

The Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Minister and many other members of the Government came down to see for themselves what the issues were. Were we lucky that we happened to have a few weeks before the Thames valley flooding to make our point? Yes, I suspect we were, but nevertheless, we did, and we appreciate the attention we were given.

Jeremy Browne Portrait Mr Jeremy Browne (Taunton Deane) (LD)
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Will my hon. Friend expand on the point he just touched on? We all feel a genuine sense of gratitude that leading members of the Government—the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and others—took such a close interest in the situation in Somerset, but surely the task now is to ensure that that interest is not passing and that the legacy of the attention afforded to our county is that we see over a period of years, not months, exactly the changes that were promised during those visits. That will ensure that the risk of floods is alleviated in the future.

David Heath Portrait Mr Heath
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that was why I called for today’s debate, which is perhaps unseasonable. Now is the time not only when work must happen in Somerset, which it is, but when decisions must be taken that will affect the situation for years to come. That is what I want the Minister to respond to.

I will briefly touch on the background, because we cannot escape the fact that elements of the Somerset flooding were avoidable. We expect flooding on the levels; it is a normal state of affairs. This occasion, however, was unprecedented due not only to the extreme weather conditions, but to now widely acknowledged policy mistakes. I have drawn attention to two glaring errors many times over the years, but they now have a common subscription. First, the landscape is artificial and does not maintain itself. Every drop of water that needs to be pumped away from the fields and the communities in the area must be pumped uphill into rivers that are higher than the surrounding landscape. People forget that and talk nonsense about natural drainage and flood plains when such drainage will never happen. The land is effectively reclaimed. It is land from the great mere of Somerset. Unless the water is pumped, drainage will not happen.

Secondly, an environmental heresy was allowed to develop for far too long at senior levels in the Environment Agency. It was assumed that the environmental benefit of the area was in the watercourses rather than in the land in between, which meant that what are essentially canals were being artificially preserved at the expense of the quite invaluable flora and fauna. I hope that that is now a thing of the past.

What is on the list of things to be done and how have we been managing? There have obviously been immediate acts of recovery and restitution. I understand that farm funding is considerably undersubscribed, but the Minister might be able to provide an up-to-date assessment of whether the funding has reached the farmers who need it. I also wish to add one caveat: we have not to date seen huge damage to orchards, but it is possible that it will appear later on. If we need to come back to the Department, I hope the Minister will be sympathetic if orchards have lost tree stock.

Dredging is now happening. There has been a lot of local cynicism as to whether it has been done sufficiently quickly and properly, and whether lip service has been paid, but I am satisfied that genuine dredging is taking place along the identified stretch. After a slow beginning, it is starting to catch up, and I think six crews are now at work. What a pity it is that we do not have the equipment that was given away or sold for peanuts many years ago. Nevertheless, the relevant area has been reconstituted and we have the hard-standings that enable the dredging machines to do their work. Will the Minister update us as to when he expects the initial tranche of dredging to be completed?

Increasing the capacity of watercourses will not satisfy local people, however. We accept the argument that increasing capacity is the most effective use of early funds, but I am conscious of the fact that the upper reaches of the Parrett were also severely flooded. Around Langport, Muchelney and Martock, there are bottlenecks that need addressing. Are we able to increase capacity under the bridge at Great Bow wharf at Langport? There are also plans to widen and deepen the Sowy diversion stream to provide extra capacity, which is a sensible idea that I would like to see happen, but it needs to be properly planned. We need to consider the potential consequences for other communities and reassure them that they will not be adversely affected by the Sowy being used to a greater extent. That issue would be particularly apparent at Beer Wall, which is where my constituency adjoins that of Bridgwater and West Somerset, and Aller Drove, which saw unprecedented flooding. Aller does not normally flood, but this time it did. I think that there was a miscalculation and that someone made a mistake in lowering the level of the river wall. Those calculations have to be right. As we use the Sowy, we must be sure that adverse effects are not happening elsewhere.

Ian Liddell-Grainger Portrait Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)
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My hon. Friend is making some good points about the Sowy. The Minister is aware that part of the Sowy development must include the barrage or the sluice—whatever we want to call it—below Bridgwater, which would complement what my hon. Friend is discussing. Will the Minister also consider ensuring that the scheme goes into the autumn statement? We need money for the Sowy and for the barrage, but it can come only from central Government. Does my hon. Friend think that that may be a way forward?

David Heath Portrait Mr Heath
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I most certainly do agree, because that was going to be the principal point—

David Heath Portrait Mr Heath
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We are at one on the issue. This is the big ask. This is what we need from the Minister. I know that he will not answer today, because he is not in a position to do so, but this is the most important demand.

Purely local schemes to alleviate flooding are also needed. Thorney is a tiny village—a hamlet—that is now rather curiously described as two different places for the purposes of flooding, because it floods separately at two ends, so we now have Thorney north and south, or greater and lesser—I am not quite sure how to describe the two ends of the village. A bund of some kind—a way to stop the water coming in—would be effective, however. That is a relatively low-cost solution and one that is being considered. I want an assurance that it actually will be built to protect the people of Thorney.

Similarly, we need to look at Muchelney Ham, a small part of Muchelney that was subjected to flooding. We also need to examine the highways situation, where the county council will be taking the lead.

I think we all agree that it is extraordinary in this day and age to have a village such as Muchelney completely cut off for week after week. We must establish at least one way to get in and out. Feasibility studies are being carried out as to whether it should be the Drayton road or whether there is a better alternative, but something must be done to ensure that people can get in and out of the village.

Jeremy Browne Portrait Mr Browne
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I am hugely sympathetic to the residents of Muchelney, but while my hon. Friend is on the topic of highways, will he also discuss what could be done to improve the resilience of the A361? It is a major trunk road that links Taunton, the county town of Somerset, to the main body of the county, including Street and Glastonbury, but its resilience is inadequate. There seem to be two tasks: keep the flood water down and try to ensure that the road is open for longer stretches of time during floods.

David Heath Portrait Mr Heath
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I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because the next thing written on my piece of paper is “A361”. I do not like the idea of Taunton being cut off from civilisation and we need to do something about the A361, but the question is, what? I am not convinced that simply raising the level of the road along its entire length is the most sensible use of funds, but we need to do something in combination with the sluice, which I will come back to in a moment. We need to mobilise whatever funding is available—whether from Network Rail, which otherwise needs to do something about its track across the levels, or the roads agencies—and use it in the wisest way to ensure that the road is not closed again and that we all have easy access to the pub at Burrowbridge, which served as such a useful headquarters for the media during the flooding.

Are we going to see the replacement of the necessary pumping facilities? Some have already been done, but we brought in those massive pumps during the crisis and they were an extremely good thing. We need to ensure that they are available when we need them, and without having to ask, as we need a boat to be available when necessary. Such facilities need to be built.

That brings me to the two big ticket items. One is the Parrett sluice, which I agree entirely with, having looked into the matter. As the hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset knows, I was initially sceptical as to whether the sluice would include improvement for my area—it clearly would for his—but I am now convinced that it would. Preventing the influx of water from the Bristol channel at high tide, thereby ensuring that we can drain away water from the upper reaches of the levels, is crucial. We need the Chancellor of the Exchequer to announce the funding in the autumn statement—no doubt about it, we need it there in black and white. When we have that, we will be satisfied that the Government are keeping their promises to the people of Somerset.

Tessa Munt Portrait Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
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While we are on the subject of sluices, will the Minister address the problem of Bleadon sluice, bearing in mind that we have all talked about how any approach has to be for the whole catchment area? My concern is with the Axe and Brue rivers; there is a need for dredging on the Brue, but my most important concern is the Axe, which drains out into the northern part of my patch and over towards Weston-super-Mare. Bleadon sluice was closed by the Environment Agency, which put a red notice on it in 2009. There has been a bundle going on—no one will take responsibility. I was told earlier this year that the sluice was going to be fixed at some point during the year, but we are a long way through it and nothing has happened. Will the Minister address that, since we are on the subject of sluices?

David Heath Portrait Mr Heath
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We cannot divorce the issues of the Parrett and Tone from those of the Axe and Brue. That is why the next ask is equally important: setting up the Somerset rivers authority, to absorb the interests of the existing internal drainage boards and to create real capacity to manage our complex water systems appropriately and with the benefit of local knowledge. That will not happen unless we have a revenue stream to support it, which in turn will not happen unless the Department for Communities and Local Government realises that Somerset is an exception and does not fit its rules. The Department will have to give way to establish what is already the case in some parts of the east of England—a separate levy to fund the maintenance we know to be necessary. Again, that is an ask to which the answer must not be no, because otherwise we will not have done our job.

Will the Minister also update us about how the common agricultural policy reforms as implemented in England—the pillar two payments, in particular—will be used to encourage water retention, the sort of sustainable use of land that will reduce the amount of water entering the lower reaches of the levels at the right time? That is a key component, whether it involves reforestation or simple changes in land use, to enable us to hold more water at higher levels, releasing it slowly when it can get away.

We need a balance between the environment and the community, including the agricultural community. The environment of the levels is precious. I will not have it said that the environmental benefits of the levels do not matter, because the levels are irreplaceable—if we allow them to drown, they die. Therefore, it is in our interests as environmentalists, as well as representatives of our community, to ensure that the balance is created. As I have said often, flooding 3-feet deep for three weeks is fine. That is what we expect in Somerset; it is the levels way. Flooding 10-feet deep for 10 weeks is unacceptable; that is when people are in difficulties, businesses and communities die, and vegetation dies as well.

I hope that the Minister will give as many answers as he can. We will excuse things not having been completed by next winter, provided that we have clear intent that they are under way. After all the promises that we have been given and all the efforts made, however, we will not excuse things simply being said only for nothing to happen. We will have flooding again this winter—that is a fact—but if it is as bad as it was last winter and we can turn around and say, “The Government have failed to do all those things that they said they were going to do,” then, frankly, the Government will have to answer not only to the people in this Chamber, but to an awful lot of people in Somerset, who will be very angry indeed.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Heath Excerpts
Thursday 12th June 2014

(10 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Dan Rogerson Portrait Dan Rogerson
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I reassure the hon. Gentleman that there is nothing “supposed” about those totals, and the money is there for people to bid for—the key question is encouraging people to do so. My hon. Friends and I, as well as agricultural shows, for example, continue to emphasise that people should apply for that money, and we have simplified the system. Many applications are currently being processed, and I encourage all people eligible for those funds—whether farming, fishing or the other funds I have set out—to apply and make use of that money.

David Heath Portrait Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
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Somerset is no longer flooded and dredging has started, which is good news. The Minister will know that one of our key asks is to have a sustainable future for maintenance, which involves setting up a Somerset rivers authority with its own revenue stream. Will the Minister update us on what progress has been made on that?

Dan Rogerson Portrait Dan Rogerson
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My hon. Friend and other Somerset Members have, understandably, consistently raised that issue, and I am delighted that the strategy put in place to deal with such matters is moving forward. Someone has been appointed to take the lead on that, and the Secretary of State was in the area last week. I spoke to people at the Royal Bath and West show, and I am delighted that all the measures that people think will make a difference locally can now be taken forward.

Bovine TB

David Heath Excerpts
Thursday 3rd April 2014

(10 years, 7 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Owen Paterson Portrait Mr Paterson
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We agree with the IEP report that there are lessons to be learned. These were pilots, and we are looking to perfect the techniques for removing diseased animals by controlled shooting and by trapping. There is some very helpful advice in the IEP report, which we intend to take on so that the pilots can be proved to be effective, safe and humane and so that we can roll them out to other parts of the country that are desperate to get on top of TB.

David Heath Portrait Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
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The Secretary of State is absolutely right to emphasise the comprehensive eradication strategy, of which the removal of infection in the wildlife in a highly infected area is but a part, albeit a vital one. Will he continue to consider alternatives to free shooting, which has been shown to be vulnerable to disruption? Will he also extend the competition to find a successful diagnostic tool to identify infected setts?

Owen Paterson Portrait Mr Paterson
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I entirely endorse what my hon. Friend says, just as I endorsed the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams). It would be a huge help if we could develop a polymerase chain reaction testing system that could instantly diagnose the disease in cattle and in badgers. It would be tremendous if we could run such tests on milk samples daily, for example, rather than having to use the skin tests, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) has pointed out, are inadequate and not all that accurate. It would be a huge help if PCR tests could determine which setts had diseased badgers, so that we could focus on them. We are really pressing on with this; it is a top priority for me.

Badger Cull

David Heath Excerpts
Thursday 13th March 2014

(10 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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David Heath Portrait Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
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Will the hon. Lady give way?

Angela Smith Portrait Angela Smith
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Very briefly, because I am aware of the need to keep my contribution short.

David Heath Portrait Mr Heath
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I appreciate that, and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. Given that a lot of people wish to find a degree of consensus on this issue, I am genuinely curious as to why the motion makes no mention of the comprehensive strategy developed by the Government last year, which includes things such as polymerase chain reactor recognition of infected setts; an edge of disease strategy; greater biosecurity; and the routes to infected vaccines. Why is none of that mentioned in a debate that is supposed to be bringing the House together?

Angela Smith Portrait Angela Smith
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The hon. Gentleman has anticipated much of what I am going to say about the constructive way forward.

The first and most important point to make about the pilot culls relates to the meeting of the scientific experts convened by DEFRA in April 2011, which drew two key conclusions about the pilot culls. The first was that the culls needed to be

“conducted in a co-ordinated, sustained and simultaneous manner”

over a short time period in order to minimise potential impacts of perturbation. The second key point was that

“the more that a future culling policy deviates from the conditions of the RBCT…the more likely it is that the effects of that policy will differ”.

Those two important points are at the heart of today’s debate. They explain why a target was set of a 70% reduction in badger density in the cull areas in six weeks, but we find—this is not because of the independent expert panel report—that Natural England withdrew licences after 11 weeks of culling in both zones because it was evident that there was no hope of reaching the target number of badgers.

I wish briefly to address why the targets of 70% and six weeks were chosen. The six-week target was set by DEFRA in the context of the lessons learned by the RBCT, which found that the proactive culls that were completed across entire areas in eight to 11 nights had a much higher likelihood of delivering a positive impact than the prolonged culls—the reactive culls that took place—over more than 12 nights. The risk of the latter is that TB in badgers is further elevated and thus it is expected that any benefits in relation to reducing cattle TB are undermined.

Managing Flood Risk

David Heath Excerpts
Monday 3rd March 2014

(10 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Portrait Miss McIntosh
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I think there is a coherent view across the House this afternoon that when IDBs, district councils and the flood levy from the regional flood committee contribute to the Environment Agency, it is not always clear what work is done. That is something we are here to debate this afternoon.

David Heath Portrait Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
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The hon. Lady said that we will never know what the result of dredging in Somerset would have been. I suspect that we would still have had flooding, but it would have started later, could have been removed quicker and would have been far less extensive. Does she agree that the initial ask we are making of the Environment Agency and the Government—the 8 km of dredging, which is the most crucial dredge—now needs to be under way? The maintenance dredging every year by local authorities and IDBs should not be confined to that area, but should look at other potential problem areas, such as the Great Bow bridge in Langport, and connecting Monks Leaze Clyse through to the River Sowy and the King’s Sedgemoor drain.

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Portrait Miss McIntosh
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I do not have my hon. Friend’s depth of knowledge, so I shall simply refer to Lord Smith’s evidence to our Committee. Page 16 states:

“Lord Smith stated that asset management spend would equate to £169 million in 2012-13, reducing to £146 million in 2013-14 and £136 million in 2014-15. He noted that there were some ‘pinch points’ in specific places such as on the Parrett and Tone rivers. He further noted that no additional revenue or operating funding was being provided to match the new £120 million capital funding announced in the Autumn Statement.”

I refer to the Committee’s conclusion, which my hon. Friend will be aware of, that there should have been some regular maintenance of the Parrett and the Tone well in advance of the floods last autumn.

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Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Portrait Miss McIntosh
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I will come on to the role that farmers can play. Ever since I was the MEP for the whole of the Essex coast for five years, I have not been a big fan of managed retreat and have never been persuaded that it is a good thing.

We should recognise the money that the Government have very generously provided. I believe it is £2 million for tourism and £10 million for farms, but it would seem that we need an extra £20 million year-on-year increase in flood management capital funding over the next 25 years to keep pace with the increasing flood threat. I look forward to hearing my hon. Friend the Minister’s response as to the Government’s view on why that might not happen.

Another great development would be more flexibility to transfer money between capital maintenance expenditure and activities. I also urge my hon. Friend the Minister to grab this opportunity to review either the Treasury Green Book or the Environment Agency’s point-scoring system. We heard evidence that the cost-benefit ratio for household protection schemes is 5:1, but that for all other assets it is 18:1. This is, therefore, a good opportunity to address that. During Prime Minister’s questions some two or three weeks ago, the Prime Minister said from the Dispatch Box that all flood funding was up for review. Did he mean a review of the scoring system, which is long overdue? Although it was visited in a modest way in 2010, I believe it should be reviewed from top to bottom.

We concluded that the current model for allocating flood defence funding to protecting property is biased towards urban rather than rural areas. In fact, our report argues that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has failed to protect rural areas and that there is a risk to food security as more land becomes at risk of flooding.

I attended the National Farmers Union farming conference last week. The NFU states that 58% of the most productive land—that is, grade 1, farmed English land—is within a floodplain. Our report states that 14% of agricultural land in England and Wales is at risk of flooding from rivers and the sea. A drop in our food self-sufficiency raises a long-term question over ongoing food security.

David Heath Portrait Mr Heath
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I am very pleased that the hon. Lady is making a point about the difference between rural and urban areas. There is a further complication when it comes to Somerset, in that people assume that it is a traditional floodplain, but it is not: it is reclaimed, inland sea. It is the great mere of Somerset. Therefore, all of the equations that would work elsewhere do not work when every single drop of water has to be pumped up and over to a river that is higher than the surrounding land.

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Portrait Miss McIntosh
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My hon. Friend makes his local case very powerfully, and I commend him for doing so.

How points are scored needs to be revisited. It is important to give a higher value for the benefits of agricultural land and of the protection of land to secure future food production. The big question is about ensuring that reduced regulation on farmers and landowners can allow them to remove vegetation from river banks. Now that we have had six months of the seven pilot schemes for the vegetation removal process, I would go so far as to urge the Minister to end the pilots and to roll out the process across the country, so allowing farmers to remove vegetation from their river banks.

I want to say a word about the role of internal drainage boards.

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Ian Liddell-Grainger Portrait Mr Liddell-Grainger
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I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. This year, we managed to shut the main railway line and the A303, and water was lapping against parts of the M5. We really could have stopped tourism in most of the west country. I am glad that that did not happen; it is obviously good news.

David Heath Portrait Mr Heath
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I have worked closely with the hon. Gentleman in this exercise. He will agree that the elements that we need from the Government are, first, the initial dredging; secondly, the commitment to build a sluice, or barrage, across the Parrett; thirdly, a funding mechanism for local IDBs or local authorities to fund the maintenance; and fourthly, the long-term management of the whole river catchment area—something that we knew back in the 1980s and ’90s, when we were working on it, but it was forgotten.

Ian Liddell-Grainger Portrait Mr Liddell-Grainger
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My hon. Friend knows better than I do—he is a Somerset man; I am a usurper from Scotland—that this is an absolute tale of disgrace and woe. It is appalling, and not just one Government are involved; it goes back through many Governments, and it has been an absolute disaster. But he is right: we must sort out the pumps, the rhynes—ditches—the bunds and the dams. We must do this now. Unless this happens quickly, we will be back here, probably next year, with the Opposition asking, “What on earth did you get wrong?” It happened last year; it happened in 2000; it will happen again.

The most difficult thing that we must face is that, basically, everyone thought that Somerset was shut. We had half-term; tourism died completely. That affected the west country because everyone thought that the railway was shut and no one could get through. Therefore, we ended up costing the economy millions.

Flooding

David Heath Excerpts
Wednesday 26th February 2014

(10 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Paul Flynn Portrait Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
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If we are able to answer one question, it will give us the key to what I believe are the long-term practical solutions to the problems of Somerset and elsewhere. Why did the Somerset levels flood and the Gwent levels not flood?

Having represented part of the Gwent levels continuously as an elected person since 1972, I know them well, and members of my family live in Somerset. The areas are almost identical. They share 2,000 years of history, and their topographies and geographies are identical. The Gwent levels were drained by the Romans, and the sea wall was built by the 20th Augustan legion 2,000 years ago. During that long period, the levels have been treated very much the same. Drainage has been put into both. They have recently shared exactly the same weather—they are only a short distance apart—and exactly the same tides. There is no dredging on either side. So why on earth was there flooding on one side of the Severn estuary and not on the other? I believe that the answer lies in farming techniques.

As has been said, dredging is not a panacea. In 1928 there was a flood here, on this spot. The terraced houses opposite, in Page street and Millbank, were flooded, and people died. That flood was caused by dredging, which was carried out in the lower reaches of the Thames to increase access for ships. Yes, water did flow out more quickly as a result, but it also flowed in more quickly. It was easy for the tide to come in. In the dredged areas, the tide came in and met the water coming down from the hills. If dredging is seen as the answer in Somerset and is proceeded with, the lower reaches of the Parrett will be exposed to the extraordinary characteristics of the Severn, which holds more sediment in suspension than almost any other river in the country.

David Heath Portrait Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
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I am sorry, but I think that the hon. Gentleman is completely mistaken. The River Parrett is tidal for 18.3 miles of its length from the Severn estuary. It is precisely because of the tidal surge from the Parrett that we cannot move the water away from the Mendips, the Quantocks and the other hills. That is not comparable to the situation in the Gwent levels, where the topography is different.

Paul Flynn Portrait Paul Flynn
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If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, on the characteristics of the Severn we know that on both sides of the river we have the second highest rising and falling tides in the world, but the issue is the amount of sediment because of the length of the river. In the Severn estuary and on the beaches, sometimes the rocks are clean and nothing has been deposited, but on another tide 1 foot of mud may be deposited there. Given the 18 tidal miles of the Parrett, it will be easy for the sediment to come in. However, the sediment is not just coming in from the tidal reaches of the river; it is also coming down from the hills. That is key. Dredging would create an open door to allow the sediment to move in from the Severn in greater quantities, as it did with the Thames in 1928.

What is the difference between the two areas? The difference lies in the Quantocks, the Mendips, around the Welsh hills and the Wentwood. There is a difference in farming in the two areas. That is made clear in a report in Soil Use and Management. It contained a warning, six weeks before the floods moved into Somerset, that a disaster was brewing. It said that surface water run-off in the south-west of England, where the Somerset levels are, was reaching a critical point—it said that six weeks beforehand. It added that on 30% of the land that researchers investigated, instead of percolating into the ground the water was pouring off the fields.

One of the main reasons was the increase in the growth of maize. There are other reasons, but when I was first elected the maize grown in this country occupied 1,400 acres. It now occupies 160,000 acres. What are the characteristics of that? It breaks up the soil and allows the water to run off. Maize is being grown in Britain not for food for humans but for animal food and biodiesel. One could ask whether, in trying to solve the climate change problem in that direction, we are creating a bigger problem in the other.

There was another warning—a clear warning—in 2005, when a Government report published a devastating catalogue of the impact of the changes in land use. As well as warning of the loss of fertility from the land and the poisoning of water courses, it said that

“increased run-off and sediment deposition can also increase flood hazard in rivers”.

That point was made in 2005. That Government paper urged:

“Wherever possible, avoid growing forage maize on high and very high erosion risk areas.”

The Government of the time—this is crucial—made it a condition of receiving some £3 billion in subsidies that farmers took action against that. The Government argued that ground cover crops should be sown, as a condition of receiving the subsidies, under maize and the land should be ploughed, then resown with winter cover plants within 10 days of harvesting to prevent water from sheeting off. Why is that not happening in Somerset? The reason is that the current Government have dropped that condition. That is one of the main causes of the extent of the floods. They issued a specific exemption for maize cultivation from soil conservation measures. We are now in the position of looking for instant solutions. Dredging is the cry. It has some effect but it can be deleterious as well.

We have thrown money at the problem, which most people are asking for. That will help, but in the town that I represent, there were regular floods 20 or 30 years ago. Now there are areas where fields are designed to flood and to take the excess water, and they have not been flooded for decades. There are plans. If we go ahead with some of the instant solutions being suggested in Somerset, we will decrease the flood threat to farmlands but we will greatly increase the threat to urban areas. One field flooded is far less damaging than having 100 houses flooded. We have to look realistically at the changes that are taking place. Of course the weather was thoroughly exceptional, but there are whole areas of Somerset that have been flooding for centuries. The “ey” suffix on the names of many of the villages there means “island”, and historically they were islands—little mounds standing up among the flat areas.

I welcome the reasonable way in which the Secretary of State has put his case today. We are now looking for long-term solutions. We are not looking for solutions that merely address the immediate political problems; we need solutions that will last for decades and that will take into account the changes in farming on our hillsides. The land there is no longer retaining the water and allowing it to percolate through slowly; the water is now rushing rapidly down and causing these freak flooding incidents. Thank goodness we have also come back to the realisation of the seriousness of global warming, which the motion also mentions. For so long, we have heard Conservative Members saying that it is not serious. It is, and we must act against it.

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David Heath Portrait Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
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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.

David Heath Portrait Mr Heath
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Yes, because it will give me an extra minute.

Damian Collins Portrait Damian Collins
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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?

David Heath Portrait Mr Heath
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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.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Heath Excerpts
Thursday 13th February 2014

(10 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Dan Rogerson Portrait Dan Rogerson
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The view of Lord Krebs’s sub-committee on Flood Re is being debated in another place. I have been ensuring that, as Flood Re goes forward, it takes account of extreme weather events and factors involving climate change. As I have set out, the Government will be investing more in flood defences than any previous Government, given our spending review deal on capital investment. In the first four years of this Parliament, we have spent more on flood defences than the previous Government did in their last four years in office.

David Heath Portrait Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
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Farmers and others in Burrowbridge to whom I spoke last night are extremely grateful for the generosity of those farmers from the other side of the country who have sent forage to help feed their animals, and also very much welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday of an extra fund for farming that will help them to redrill the land and get it back into a productive state. Does the Minister have any more details about that scheme, how it will be applied and what the process will be?

Dan Rogerson Portrait Dan Rogerson
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and colleagues in Somerset for all their work in representing their constituents, and I look forward to the next meeting of the action group, which I hope he will be able to attend. The farmers have suffered a great deal since their land has been inundated, and I echo what he said about charitable efforts to help them. The fund announced by the Prime Minister will set aside money to improve the land to bring it back to the condition that we would like to see it in, and details on how to apply for that will be published in due course.

Flooding (Somerset)

David Heath Excerpts
Monday 3rd February 2014

(10 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

Owen Paterson Portrait Mr Paterson
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The hon. Lady raises a very important point, which has had some publicity. We have already had samples taken from around the levels and Public Health England has been very vocal in making it clear to all local residents that they should be extremely careful with their personal hygiene and, obviously, that they should not drink or bathe in the water. The standards set are for drinking water. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise the issue, which we have discussed on several occasions at Cobra. It is vital, given the current difficult circumstances and the enormous amount of water on the levels, to realise that the water is going to be dirty and contaminated. People must be really careful about washing themselves and, in particular, washing wounds.

David Heath Portrait Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
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In Somerset we are getting increasingly bemused by the number of armchair experts from hundreds of miles away who seem to know more about the levels than we do. The right hon. Gentleman knows exactly what I want him to do in terms of dredging and the long-term management of the moors and levels, and I thank him, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), and the Prime Minister for listening and acting on that.

On an entirely local issue, I went down to the villages of Long Load and Long Sutton again over the weekend and they are cut off because of a collapsed bridge. They need an alternative crossing over the river or repairs to the bridge. Will the Secretary of State look into that and see whether something urgent can be done?

Owen Paterson Portrait Mr Paterson
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I am grateful to my hon. Friend and, until recently, ministerial colleague for his support and advice. We have of course discussed this matter frequently over the past year. He better grab me immediately after this urgent question and give me the details, so that I can raise it at Cobra, because it is exactly the sort of thing that we are trying to fix at Cobra.

Rural Communities

David Heath Excerpts
Thursday 9th January 2014

(10 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Portrait Miss McIntosh
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Indeed. Obviously, the purpose of today’s debate, as the hon. Gentleman is highlighting, is the “Rural Communities” report and the Government response to it. We published our report in July and they responded in October. It is a source of disappointment that the Government are leaving it to rural communities to make their own arrangements; some will be better placed than others to do so.

Let me go back to the report’s highlights. We believe that school funds should revert back to varied lump sum payments going to rural schools according to their need. We also looked at the rolling-out of superfast broadband to rural areas, finding that it should be prioritised to those with the slowest speed. We urge the Department to impress upon BT that it must refocus its priorities. It is pointless giving those who have a fast speed an even faster speed; we believe that we should improve access for communities that have no, or extremely slow, broadband. We also urge BT to indicate which areas will be covered by 2015 under the rural broadband programme, thus allowing the areas that will not be covered to make alternative arrangements.

The Department is proceeding to “digital by default” when the next round of the common agricultural policy comes into effect, but we urge the Department to ensure that all rural areas will have fast broadband. We must ensure that the Department is able to provide the outlying farms that are too far from the cabinet and do not have fast broadband with paper copies of things in the interim. Incredibly, when I try to use my mobile phone at home in a rural area, I find that I do not have mobile phone coverage; voice not spots should also urgently be addressed.

David Heath Portrait Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
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My hon. Friend makes a crucial point about the so-called last 10% in rural areas, such as Devon and Somerset, where roll-out has taken place. Unless we achieve 100% accessibility for high-speed broadband, we will do an immense disservice to people in very rural areas. Does she agree that when those areas or properties are identified, the Government should make funds available to ensure such accessibility? We want not a bidding system or matched funding, which is not available in rural areas, but the Government to finish the job.

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Albert Owen Portrait Albert Owen
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I would welcome people from Lancashire, the Lake district and other areas to debate that question in my constituency.

I am very proud of my constituency and that it is both rural and urban and that there is interdependency between both communities. When we talk about rural communities, we need to point out the interdependency between them and nearby large market towns, villages and larger conurbations. The new A55 means that Lancashire is very close to north Wales. We need that connectivity with other parts of the United Kingdom.

Many rightly say that people choose to live in a rural area, but the challenges mentioned by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton often lead to many people choosing to leave rural areas due to a lack of work opportunities and facilities. I say genuinely to the Minister that it is a challenge to us all and to all governments—local government, the Welsh Government and the UK Government—to work with the European Union and others to ensure that we get the balance right between industry and tourism. It is not a question of either/or—we can have both. Rural areas can have quality industrial jobs alongside farming and food production and tourism. That is the challenge for us all and I appreciate the way in which the hon. Lady and her Committee have shadowed the Department.

I am at a slight disadvantage because, although I have read the report, I have not read the Government’s response to it. I shall do so after this debate, because some of the issues raised by the hon. Lady are disturbing and I wish that the Government would look more positively at some of the recommendations. We need to get the balance right.

Depopulation is one of the big issues. When an area loses many people, capital grants are reduced and that makes it even more difficult to sustain and regenerate local communities. In the 1980s and 1990s, our county—which is coterminous with my constituency—was the only one to lose population during the two census periods from 1981 to 2001. We lost a lot of talent and a lot of families who had been there for many years. Economic decline is an issue in rural and periphery areas. We have the double whammy of being on the periphery, which has made it very difficult for people to travel to visit in the past. I am pleased with the great improvement in road and rail infrastructure, but a lot more needs to be done to help areas on the periphery such as north-west Wales and Anglesey.

I want to concentrate on an issue that the hon. Lady and her Committee have not addressed on this occasion: energy. I also want to discuss tourism, farming and food and infrastructure, but energy is rightly a dominant issue for debate. As a member of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, I have raised many of these issues for some time.

My area—the facts and statistics bear this out—is a net producer of energy and a net generator of electricity. Wales as a country is a net producer of energy and a net generator of electricity, but it is also a huge, main hub for imported gas. Areas of west and north-west Wales, Pembrokeshire and various other areas actually supply a lot of the United Kingdom with its energy, electricity and liquefied petroleum gas imports, and yet we pay some of the highest electricity prices in the country, which is hugely unfair. Much of that—I raised this issue during business questions and have raised it for many years—is due to the energy market’s failure to provide a level playing field for the distribution and transmission of electricity, particularly to rural areas. We produce the bulk of the energy, yet we have to pay more for it. I hope the Government will look seriously at that issue.

We have highlighted the problems with power outage in rural areas, some of which are blighted by power transmission lines running through their communities. The figures clearly show that households and businesses in north-west and south Wales are paying higher prices for their energy. I stress that businesses are paying more as well. As Members throughout the House will know, energy costs are one of the biggest factors for businesses. Their margins are squeezed in very difficult and austere times and, on top of that, high energy costs are having a huge negative impact on rural communities.

David Heath Portrait Mr Heath
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The hon. Gentleman is making a very important point about energy costs in rural areas. He will know—he may intend to go on to say this—that the issue is about not just electricity, but LPG, fuel oil and the fact that houses in rural areas are often much more difficult, if not impossible, to insulate because they do not have cavity walls; they have solid walls and are in damp areas. All those things put together mean that people living in rural areas face very high and unsustainable bills simply to keep warm.

Albert Owen Portrait Albert Owen
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Absolutely. It is good to have the hon. Gentleman back on-side. He and I debated this issue during the previous Parliament and my arguments were very consistent when I sat on the Government Benches. I am glad to see that, now he does not have ministerial responsibility, he is again championing those off-grid, which is the next topic I wish to address.

Energy Ministers are taking the off-grid issue seriously, but not enough practical steps have been taken. I am very pleased that my party is now calling for something for which I have been campaigning for some time: for the energy regulator to take responsibility for those not on the mains grid. This is an historic element of privatisation. When the energy markets for gas and electricity were set up, they encompassed the old generators that were on-grid and left an unregulated off-grid, which means that many people are paying a lot more in energy costs for their gas supplements.

When the Government, the energy companies and, indeed, the regulator talk about discounts and dual-fuel discounts—this issue affects every Member who represents a rural community—that does not apply to people who do not have mains gas. They are paying considerably more for their energy. The average price is a luxury for many people in rural areas. They pay considerably more, not only for the distribution and transmission cost, but for not benefiting from the energy companies.

I have been pressing for many years, with some albeit limited success, for the energy companies—the electricity companies, in this case—to give loyalty bonuses to people who stay with them. It is perverse that the energy market encourages switching and gives dual-fuel deals when it could and should give loyalty bonuses and help those in rural areas who do not have access to dual fuel.

Flooding

David Heath Excerpts
Monday 6th January 2014

(10 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Owen Paterson Portrait Mr Paterson
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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.

David Heath Portrait Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
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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?

Owen Paterson Portrait Mr Paterson
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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.