Coastal Erosion

Douglas Ross Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) on securing this extremely important debate. Moray has suffered from significant flooding over several decades. Millions of pounds have been invested in flood alleviation schemes in Forres, Elgin, Dallas, Newmill, Keith, Rothes and Lhanbryde, but none of those is a coastal community. Coastal communities, which suffer just as much as inland communities, feel neglected in our area. Portknockie, for example, suffered landslips just last year, and although I welcome yesterday’s announcement from Sustrans and Moray Council—in response to my correspondence— that work is being done to reopen a path between Portknokie and Cullen, I still have constituents living in homes at the top of a landslip, precariously close to the edge, who fear every day for their properties.

For 10 years before being elected to Parliament, I was a councillor on Moray Council. Part of my Fochabers Lhanbryde ward was the communities of Garmouth and Kingston. They have suffered more than most. Ross House, which 10 years ago was 150 yards from the River Spey, now has the river lapping against its walls. That shows how much coastal erosion there has been. Garmouth and Kingston golf course, like Montrose golf links in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Angus, has suffered considerably. We have had a par 5 go to a par 4, and it is now a par 3 because so much of it has been washed away.

I welcome the fact that Garmouth and Kingston could be designated as potentially vulnerable areas under the new Scottish Environment Protection Agency scheme, but I was struck by the words of my hon. Friend, who said that too much time is spent on studies and not enough on action. I endorse that wholeheartedly.

Many studies, at my request, have looked at dredging, for example. Every time that I, as an elected representative, and communities say we should dredge the River Spey, people come back to us to say, “Well, no—you’ve got to worry about the flora and the fauna.” I am sorry, but I do not worry about the flora and the fauna; I worry about my constituents, who are living in fear every day that their house might be flooded, that they might be moved away or that they could lose property altogether. Some of the studies have to look at the real personal impacts of flooding and coastal erosion in their area.

I would finish with a quote from a lady from Garmouth who said, “We want action, not sympathy.” They are fed up with warm words from politicians of all Governments. What they want now is action from their Governments, whether that be the Scottish Government, the UK Government or local authorities, because they are living in fear of coastal erosion. It is only right that we as politicians stand up for them to get the changes they need and deserve.

[Sir David Crausby (in the Chair)]

I ask the two Opposition Front-Bench spokespeople to divide up their time to give the Minister enough opportunity to wind up the debate and to allow the mover of the motion time for a brief response at the end. I call Kirsty Blackman.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Thank you, Sir David. I will do my best not to take too long. I am grateful to you for chairing the debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) for securing it and the Backbench Business Committee for scheduling it.

This is a useful debate; it is clear that this is a serious and worrying issue with the potential for long-lasting devastating effects. The other point made clear today is that the issue is not the same in all areas. Just like the varied coastline throughout Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales, the issues that each part of that coastline faces are different.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) mentioned, the Scottish Government fund such issues on a recurring basis, with £42 million of capital funding per year since 2008. That is really important in relation to flood prevention and coastal erosion, which are linked.

[Douglas Ross]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s point, but the figure from the Scottish Government that she cites pales into insignificance when we take into consideration that the Elgin flood alleviation scheme alone cost £86 million. The funding coming from her Government in a year does not even fund half of that scheme.

[Kirsty Blackman]

The Scottish Government would have more money to spend on issues such as flood prevention and coastal erosion—

[Douglas Ross]

If they were not obsessed with independence.

[Kirsty Blackman]

The Scottish Government would have more money if Scotland was an independent country and we had the ability to raise our own taxes and, for example, support immigration and grow our population in the way that we would like it to grow. Immigration is important for coastal communities, particularly because of the people who have moved out of those communities. As my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston mentioned, many of the houses in Pennan are owned by second-home owners, not people who live there. We need to grow Scotland’s population so that people are living there and standing up for and protecting those areas.

The hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) was very clear about how important it is that his constituents are protected, which I completely agree with, but I was concerned about his disregard for the flora and fauna that we also need to protect. A huge number of people have raised concerns about the effect of plastics in our oceans, for example, and I think many of our constituents would be hugely concerned about the impact on marine wildlife of any changes that are sought. That is why it is important that any decisions on protecting areas from coastal erosion are made with the best information, and why the Scottish Government have funded the national coastal change assessment. Phase 1 is completed and they are on to phase 2. Given the dramatic effects of climate change, and that coastal erosion is speeding up, it is incredibly important that any decisions are taken while looking at the current effects of climate change. It is an ever-moving feast and we need to have the best possible information before taking any decisions.

It was interesting to hear some of the issues hon. Members have with studies taking place. Angus Council’s study will not be finished until July 2019; the hon. Member for Angus is pushing for action right now, when the council has not completed its study. The other point that bugs me about what that council is doing is that it has not committed to use the full funding it has been given for the purpose of protecting against coastal erosion. It takes a special kind of hypocrisy for a council to say, “We are not spending all of the money we have been given for this purpose, but we would like some more.” I do not think that is a sensible position to take. The case made by the hon. Member for Angus would be much stronger if the local authority could evidence that it had spent all the money it had been allocated in the correct way to protect against coastal erosion.

Further on funding, the Scottish Government have committed to putting their Crown Estates money towards the betterment of coastal communities, which will be a recurring amount of money provided to councils such as Angus. It would be useful if that council would commit to using the money for preventing coastal erosion, particularly in relation to the concerns around the golf links that the hon. Lady mentioned and the erosion that is happening at some speed in that area.

I represent Aberdeen, with its beautiful beach that was immortalised in the mid-20th century railway posters as “the Silver City with the Golden Sands”. In 2006, action was taken in Aberdeen to protect our coastline from erosion and we now have what are called T-groins—large defences that ensure our beach is not washed away. It was good that that action was taken, but it did not receive universal buy-in when it was first put forward. People, not least the surfing community, raised a number of concerns. It has taken time for that to bed in and for us to be able to prove that it has not had the negative effects suggested.

One of the important things going forward with action on coastal erosion is to ensure that communities buy into it and that we are doing whatever we can to protect housing, properties and tourism, but also marine life. In Scotland, the marine litter strategy was introduced a number of years ago—it is not a new thing. It is about tackling the issues that damage the most vulnerable marine wildlife.

It is very important that we come together. We absolutely must look at making sure that studies are done so that the best possible, futureproofed, action can be taken, but we must get the communities on board, including those in the wider community—perhaps those who do not live near the coast but are particularly concerned about the impact on wildlife. As I have said in Westminster Hall a number of times, we need to work together and we can all learn from each other. Action taken in some places in Scotland could be replicated in some places in England, and vice versa. We need to make sure that with any action we take to protect any of our coastlines, we are learning from the experiences of others and ensuring that those coastlines are protected for future generations.