Storm Babet: Flooding

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement. Our hearts go out to all the family businesses and farmers affected by this tragedy, but especially to those affected by the tragic loss of life. I thank the emergency services and Environment Agency workers for their tireless work around the clock to keep people safe. More than 1,200 properties have been flooded, and hundreds of people have been evacuated from their homes. Lives have been lost.

Events such as Storm Babet are not unexpected, however. We know that floods happen every winter. The Minister’s statement that assets have not been designed “for such rare, extreme levels of rainfall” shows complacency. We know that climate change is bringing more frequent and more severe rainfall events and, as I know from the terrible floods in 2007, where 16,000 properties were flooded in Hull, flooding has a devastating impact on people’s lives, with their belongings lost and businesses destroyed. The country must be better prepared, and we need to take our climate change goals seriously.

It is therefore incredibly worrying that the National Infrastructure Commission stated last week that

“there is no measurable long term national target to reduce flood risk…and the current target does not factor in risk increasing due to climate change.”

To make matters worse, one in six homes in this country is at risk of flooding—a number that is only set to rise. According to the Environment Agency, more than half of local planning authorities surveyed rarely or never inspected new developments to check flood risk planning conditions had been carried out. Research commissioned by insurers found that almost one third of homes built in the five most flood-prone areas were approved without a flood assessment.

The Government are asleep at the wheel. Why have they put homes at risk of flooding by failing to ensure that local planning authorities can carry out essential works? As I told the Minister last Thursday, an estimated 190,000 homes across the country were under threat from inadequately maintained flood defences in 2020. Does the Minister know where these inadequately maintained flood defences are? Did any of them fail over the weekend? Does she have any plans to find out? Are any of the overwhelmed assets that she mentioned these inadequately maintained flood assets? The Government have failed to get a grip on the challenges facing our country over flooding, but these risks, as I keep saying, will only increase.

The independent review of flooding for London in 2021 noted that the inability of organisations to share data and co-ordinate emergency preparedness action had undermined the response to flooding. I note that the Minister referred to the DEFRA and Cabinet Office meetings two days before the floods were due, but that is not nearly enough. It is time that we ended the Tory practice of waiting for disaster to strike. While the Government want to pass off responsibility to other agencies, a Labour Government would establish a Cobra-style flood preparedness taskforce to protect communities from the danger of flooding. We will plan for the long term and co-ordinate central Government, local authorities and emergency services to minimise the damage of flooding every single winter—importantly, before the flooding takes place. That would ensure that communities have the adequate drainage systems and flood defences to protect themselves.

It is time to turn the page on the Tories’ sticking-plaster politics and make the long-term decisions to protect communities from the devastating impact of flooding. That is how we give Britain its future back.

[Rebecca Pow]

First, we are far from complacent; quite the reverse. The hon. Member suggested that we need to be better prepared; that is what our whole flood budget is geared up to doing. That is why we doubled it to £5.2 billion. It was £2.6 billion, and it is now £5.2 billion, with all the associated flooding schemes that that is delivering—both hard infrastructure and a range of nature-based solutions, which are a high proportion of many of our schemes. I would have thought that she for one would have recognised that, given the £42 million invested in Hull—her own constituency. I visited the scheme in 2022—I invited her but do not think that she came to the launch—and the people I met could not have expressed more wholeheartedly what it had done for Hull and how it had protected properties and businesses. It is now attracting businesses to Hull that previously would not have come as it was too risky for flooding. That is a prime demonstration of what the Government are doing.

On asset maintenance, we continue to invest in all our flood and coastal defence maintenance and have dedicated an extra £22 million to maintenance in the current review period of 2024-25. Of course, checking assets and keeping them well maintained is a critical part of the Environment Agency’s work. Virtually 94% of major flood and coastal erosion risk management assets are in their target condition. In addition, when the warnings began a week ago, the Environment Agency and local authorities went out to check assets, clear culverts and drains and do all the small things that make such a big difference to whether there is or is not flooding in our local areas.

On planning applications, the Environment Agency gives advice when there is any suggestion of flood risk, and 96% of all planning applications complied with Environment Agency advice on flood risk. It is important that there are strong safeguards in place where there is flood risk, and there are, but of course planning departments have to decide whether to take note of the Environment Agency’s advice. We are working hard with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on this very issue—I see the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young), in his place alongside me—as it is critical to protecting our island.

I would have thought the hon. Lady would have welcomed the Cabinet Office meetings. We already have exactly what she is asking for, as we do have a national flood response centre with the Cabinet Office, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and various Government Departments engaging. That was set up on Wednesday, and the Met Office information and the warnings that had begun fed into its meetings—that is why information was able to go out to people. If we can do more and keep more people safe, we will always do that. That is why we have taken note of the incidents. When it is safe to do so, we will review particular things to see whether we can improve people’s safety even more.