Flooding: South Yorkshire

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I beg to move,

That this House has considered flooding in South Yorkshire.

I want to speak about the floods that occurred last November, nearly three months ago, that caused devastating damage to my area of Barnsley and across South Yorkshire. Over a period of 24 hours, heavy rainfall, equal to the amount expected for the entire month of November, caused the Dearne, Don and Dove rivers to burst their banks. Thousands of people were affected and, sadly, one person lost their life. My thoughts are with their family

Areas such as Fishlake village were accessible only by four-wheel drive vehicles or boats. Roads, bridges, train lines and stations had to be closed, causing huge travel disruption, and over 1,000 homes and 565 businesses across South Yorkshire were affected. In Barnsley, 89 houses sustained flood damage and 25 roads were closed, but in Doncaster alone nearly 4,000 evacuation notices were issued, with more than 780 properties affected, and the residents of 242 properties were unable to return home for Christmas.

This is not the first time in recent years that South Yorkshire communities have been hit with severe flooding. To give an example from my area, the residents in Low Valley in Wombwell have had to be relocated twice in the past 12 years, during the floods of 2007 and now those of 2019. They need assurances that everyone is doing their utmost to prevent this from happening again.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), who is my parliamentary neighbour and Mayor of the Sheffield City Region, for his continued work on our region’s flooding crisis. He has campaigned for more money for flood defences and given a voice to the devastating impact of floods on people, businesses and communities. While people were being forced from their homes, he pressed the Government to recognise the crisis for what it was: a national emergency.

I will focus on what we need in areas such as mine, where we have become all too familiar with the damage that severe flooding causes, so that we can recover and be protected from flooding on this scale again. In the short term, the communities directly affected need financial support from the Government. Households and businesses are facing real hardship now. The people of Yorkshire have a proud history of coming together when times are tough. More than half a million pounds has been donated by members of the public, local authorities and community organisations to South Yorkshire’s community foundation. The generosity of my neighbours and friends from Barnsley and further afield is both unsurprising and commendable.

The Government committed to match any money raised by the foundation to help victims, but I am genuinely dismayed that the Government are insisting on only providing match funding when both the Mayor of Doncaster and the Mayor of the Sheffield City Region have said that £3 million is needed. On the current match funding formula, the Government will only contribute around half a million pounds. Will they reconsider? The Government can and should commit more funds for flood victims, rather than relying on donations from the very people affected by flood damage. Quite simply, that will ensure that the basic needs of all households and businesses can be met. I note the Government have not yet applied to the EU solidarity fund, which is available to respond to major natural disasters. I ask the Minister, has an alternative equivalent capital fund been established for the vital repairs to local roads and infrastructure?

Despite the recovery efforts from the blue light services, the Environment Agency, local authorities, Government agencies and communities—I place on record my thanks to them all—a number of residents still cannot return to their homes. More than 148 properties have been affected in my borough alone, in areas from Wombwell to Hoyland and Darfield to Burton Grange. Of these properties, 29 do not have insurance or sufficient insurance to cover the cost of repairing flood damage.

Communities are still pulling themselves back together while dealing with damaged homes and fighting insurance battles. People from Doncaster and Rotherham, which were among the areas hardest hit by the floods, are now fighting to get the insurance money they are owed.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. As an MP, I went through similar circumstances in 2007, when we had thousands of people out of their homes for weeks, months and, in some cases, years. What thought has my hon. Friend given to the impact on people’s mental health and wellbeing, and the need for the NHS to provide support? As well as dealing with practical matters, there is an emotional cost to flooding.

[Stephanie Peacock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and she raises a crucial issue. There are families who have lost everything. For example, some are now living in caravans parked on their driveways. They need all the support we can give them. Many depend on recovery grants while they wait in hope of an insurance payout. I know of elderly residents who have had to call off life-changing surgeries because they do not have a place to recuperate. Cancelled insurance plans and unscrupulous insurance companies have left many residents at their wits’ end, unsure about how they are going to get by.

More needs to be done to improve access to insurance plans that can meet the needs of households in South Yorkshire. A comprehensive plan, with investment, needs to be developed to support the people who are still struggling to get by nearly three months after the floods. Across South Yorkshire, rising housing demand has not kept pace with the construction of affordable housing. It is crucial that careful attention is paid to proposed housing locations, particularly those on known floodplains. Housing needs and aspirations should be met, but in secure environments with low flood risk.

In the long term, the South Yorkshire region needs investment to ensure that communities are better prepared and protected against flood damage. In the face of some of the largest cuts in the country to its day-to-day funding, Barnsley Council helped to co-ordinate a multi-service and agency response. Staff worked 24/7 to provide emergency accommodation, clear roads and highways, carry out property recovery assessments and undertake utility safety checks, as well as offering support to vulnerable people. Moreover, it provided an additional £250 per property, on top of the funds committed by the Government, to relief grants to support flood victims.

I thank the firefighters who worked tirelessly to save lives, properties and communities. Despite cuts of £3.3 million, leaving them with nearly half the control operators they had in 2012, the crews on the ground went above and beyond to keep people safe. That included the touching story of two firefighters who used a large pole to hoist an elderly woman’s shopping bag through her window. If South Yorkshire fire brigade funding continues to spiral downwards, that will further limit response times and capacity to help clean up flood damage. The Government must commit to review the funding formula, to ensure the South Yorkshire fire brigade has the resources required to respond to the needs of our region.

Can the Minister reassure my constituents that action is going to be taken across the board to protect South Yorkshire communities? People from our area deserve to feel secure in the knowledge that their homes and businesses, which they have worked for their entire lives, are protected from future extreme weather events. There is more than twice as much flood investment in London and the south-east compared with the north. Quite frankly, that is a disgrace and must be acted upon immediately.

Councils across the region, such as Barnsley Council, have had their budgets slashed, restricting their ability to manage potential flood risks. Despite contributing more than £2 million over the last decade to flood protections, the lack of resources afforded to the council has left it struggling to carry out maintenance work. I welcome the council’s decision to invest an additional £1 million for the cleaning of gullies and other essential works, but it is clear that we need a fully funded, long-term investment plan that will support the communities directly affected and improve the region’s resilience to future flood events.

Without a fully integrated approach to flood defence management, reinforced by major investment and support from the Government, the homes and livelihoods of the people of South Yorkshire are at risk. A long-term catchment-wide approach will be crucial in the coming years. That will include natural flood management measures across catchment areas to slow water discharge, from trees and habitat flooding to peat bog renewal. The Mayor of Sheffield City Region and the four South Yorkshire local authorities are working in conjunction with the Environment Agency to produce a consolidated South Yorkshire-wide investment programme in our flood defences. The programme is likely to cost in excess of £200 million. We need sustained funding in flood defence infrastructure to improve the resilience of regions such as ours to climate change and escalating flooding risk.

We cannot escape the fact that climate change is directly linked to severe flood events happening more often and more severely. More needs to be done to tackle climate change and its impact. People from my area feel let down by the Government’s reaction to the crisis. It is time the Government took flood risk more seriously.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, particularly as your mother resides in my constituency, so this debate has particular relevance to your family. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) on securing this important debate, and it is good to see the Minister in her place. I know she takes the issues around climate change and the climate emergency very seriously and is a sympathetic listener, as I hope she will be today.

My constituents will scrutinise the debate today very closely, because the lives of so many of them have been turned upside down as a result of the flooding that occurred in November last year. As my hon. Friend said, the whole village of Fishlake was underwater, with hundreds of families affected. A sizeable part of the village of Bentley was flooded, with people driven from their homes. Homes in Scawthorpe were similarly affected, and other parts of Doncaster, too. Nobody can really understand the effects of flooding—the fear, disruption, misery, pain—until it actually happens to them or they see it with their own eyes. Doncaster Council estimates that 1,500 people have been affected, either driven from their homes or flooded. That is 1,500 stories of pain and loss. Then there are the businesses whose livelihoods have been damaged: 141 in Doncaster alone. As my hon. Friend said, what makes it even worse for some in my constituency, in Bentley and in Scawthorpe, is that this is the second time it has happened to them. It happened in 2007 as well. They thought, and they believed they had been told, that it would never happen again.

I want to put on the record my thanks to the emergency services and all public sector workers for the extraordinary job that they did: the firefighters from all parts of the country, the police, ambulance staff, the Environment Agency, local councillors and council staff who worked all day and all night; the Salvation Army, who offered temporary accommodation; railway workers who cleared lines; the Army and the RAF, who were eventually called in to help with the crisis. The private sector also stepped up with food, clothing and cleaning supplies. Indeed, people across the country provided donations.

Above all, it is right on this occasion to single out the heroism of the communities in Doncaster for the solidarity that they showed. The people of Fishlake kept the place going, even while it was underwater, including the local pub, the Hare and Hounds. The people of Bentley Town End rallied round each other with a makeshift hub of a local business, Custom Windows and Doors. The people of Stainforth and Moorends in my constituency—villages largely unaffected by the floods—worked day and night to get supplies into nearby Fishlake when it was cut off. Indeed, people across Doncaster helped. The people of Doncaster have set the benchmark for what solidarity looks like. The task now is for us in the House, the Government, insurers and others to do the same.

I want to raise questions similar to my hon. Friend’s. I have five sets of issues that I want to put to the Minister. First, I want to ask about Government help for people who were flooded, including for the uninsured and those with insurance excesses, which can be as high as £7,500 in one case that I know about; and for people who find that they have small print in their insurance policy, which means they have not been covered. The Prime Minister rang me on 12 November, a few days after the flooding began, to ask what were the big issues, and I emphasised insurance in my response. I said that although some people would say it is a moral hazard to help out people who did not have insurance, that ignored the fact that many people could not even get affordable insurance because they had been flooded before. They were offered exorbitant premiums to get themselves insured after the flooding of 2007. He assured me that he would override any objections and would make sure people were properly helped.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

On the Flood Re scheme that was introduced to try to deal with the problem of people who could not access insurance because they had previously been flooded, is it not time now to have a proper review of how the scheme is working, because several groups are not covered by it? It has not helped some of my hon. Friend’s constituents at all.

[Edward Miliband]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. I was going to mention the Flood Re scheme, of which awareness is very low. I think I am right in saying it does not cover businesses; it covers residential properties. There is a real problem. People find they cannot get insurance with a private company, but they do not even get told about Flood Re and are not aware of it.

The Prime Minister went on to say publicly:

“I know there will be people who are worrying about the damage to their homes, who will be worried about the insurance situation, worried about the losses they face. All I want to say to those people is that there are schemes to cover those losses.”

That is the context in which we should see the up to £1 million that the Government are offering the South Yorkshire community foundation. Any money is of course welcome, but all the evidence is that that money is not enough. According to Doncaster Council, the cost of helping the 188 uninsured or underinsured properties is estimated at an average of £31,000 per property, or nearly £6 million. That is the figure for Doncaster alone. Will the Minister explain how the Government intend to keep to the Prime Minister’s promise and his public statement that there are schemes to cover the losses? If she cannot explain, can she signal today that she is willing to look again at the amount required with the relevant local authorities?

Even worse than the amount of money being given is that the Government have said that they will pay out the £1 million only if match funds are found. I do not believe it was the Minister’s decision, but that really is an insult. More than £500,000 has been raised from local businesses and people. Are the Government really saying that unless the amount raised gets to £1 million, they will not pay out the promised money? In other words, the less money is raised from other sources, the less money the Government will provide to help the victims. It makes no sense. Let us imagine a disaster happening overseas in a developing country. If the Government said they would contribute only if the host country found matching funds, there would rightly be outrage. We are not talking about large sums here. I simply ask the Minister to make sure that the Prime Minister’s promises are kept, and that more money is provided.

Secondly, I want to raise some specific questions about the targeted payments for families, where the Government again need to look at what they are doing. There are council tax rebates for people who have lost half their home and are living upstairs, and that is welcome, but there is a limit on those payments of three months. The council tax rebate scheme ends on 7 February—a wholly arbitrary cut-off date, because there are still people living upstairs because the work has not been done, through no fault of their own.

There is also the issue of the flood resilience grant of £5,000 to prevent future flooding. I have constituents who live in areas that were flooded and who may have narrowly avoided being flooded themselves, and they are being told they are not eligible for the grant, but the measure is preventive and they are clearly in areas of risk, because the areas were not just flooded in 2019, but in 2007 as well. I ask the Minister to consider taking a common-sense approach, so that those in flood-hit areas are eligible.

Thirdly, I want to raise significant issues about the performance of insurance companies. I acknowledge that some insurers have acted speedily, including drying out homes and rehousing residents, but there have been many other bad experiences, which the Minister should be aware of—slow pace of response, drying out of properties not being properly carried out, and attempts to claim that people are underinsured so they are entitled not to the full amount, but only a large fraction of it. I want also to draw attention to particular problems that have been reported to me, about RSA Insurance aggressively driving down people’s claims—something about which I have written to the company. I want the Minister’s assurance that she stands ready to engage on those questions with insurers that are failing in their duties and with the Association of British Insurers. I also want her to engage with the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) raised about Flood Re, of which there is very low awareness.

Fourthly, I echo the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East made about the large costs over and above the Bellwin scheme that councils face. Doncaster Council estimates those costs to be in the region of £4.5 million to £5 million: £4 million relates to damage to paths and highways. In that context I should like the Minister to explain—this is perhaps the week to do it—the position on the EU solidarity fund. When the 2007 floods happened, the Labour Government applied successfully and received funds to the net benefit of £31 million. When flooding hit in 2015, the Conservative Government successfully applied for £15 million-worth of funding. The recent flooding, for the avoidance of doubt, happened while we were in the European Union, and the Government have 12 weeks to apply for the funding. The deadline appears to be this Friday, coincidentally. My understanding is that all that the Government need to do is to signal an intent to apply by this Friday. I urge the Minister in the strongest terms to do that—or at least to explain why the Government will not do it, and how the money will be made up.

Fifthly and finally, I want to raise the issue of future flood defences, which my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East rightly raised. My constituents want answers. Why did what happened in 2007 happen again? How can we minimise the chances of its happening again? Will the Government put their money where their mouth is and fund what is necessary? The Environment Agency has estimated that we should be spending an average of at least £1 billion a year on flooding and coastal change infrastructure. I believe that in the last financial year £815 million was spent. My constituents deserve to be better protected, and they deserve to know that the Government will deliver. The South Yorkshire Mayor has estimated that a programme in excess of £200 million will be necessary. What does the Minister have to say about that?

Nothing can make up for the trauma that my constituents have gone through, but the Government can show that they have learned from what was, frankly, too slow a response and an inadequate response by properly resourcing the needs of our constituents at the moment, and by fulfilling the promises that have been made. I hope very much that the Minister will take heed of this debate and come back with answers for my constituents.