Flooding: Irwell Vale and Surrounding Areas

Debate between Esther McVey and Jake Berry

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

I will call Jake Berry to move the motion, after which I will call the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is convention for a 30-minute debate.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered flooding in Irwell Vale and surrounding areas.

It is a pleasure to serve under your redoubted chairmanship for the first time, Ms McVey.

Flooding affects communities all over the United Kingdom. Many Members present will live in an area affected by flooding and will understand that when communities flood, the effect is profound and devastating. It is completely debilitating for those communities. Yes, they may have accepted moving to an area with a 100-year flood risk, but, by gum, have they been surprised to have been flooded two, three or four times in a decade. In the past few years, hundreds of lives across my constituency of Rossendale and Darwen have been negatively affected. Homes and businesses in Whitworth, Bacup, Stacksteads, Waterfoot, Darwen, Rawtenstall, Helmshore, Irwell Vale, Strongstry and Chatterton have been devastated by floods in the past 10 years.

The reason why our area floods is the same reason we are one of the most picturesque and beautiful areas in the United Kingdom: our lovely rivers. We have the Limey Water, the Whitewell brook, the Darwen, the Spodden, the Ogden and the Irwell. In the summer, they are beautiful, burbling brooks; in the winter, they become raging torrents. It is those last two rivers—the Ogden and the Irwell—that really affect the residents of Irwell Vale, where there is a confluence just before the village. Irwell Vale, Chatterton and Strongstry have been flooded repeatedly by those rivers, which has been devastating.

It has proved historically difficult to mitigate the flood risk because the water comes from a wide catchment area. I have visited those communities on several occasions after they have flooded and the impact on their lives has been completely devastating. It is something the Prime Minister has demonstrated that he understands. He recently visited Didsbury, in Greater Manchester, after some flooding, and said that there is a

“huge psychological, emotional and financial cost”

to the communities that flood. I absolutely agree. That is why I am grateful that over the past nine years, the Minister and her Department have already provided £1 million of investment for our local communities to try to stop the flooding. Back in 2014, residents of the village of Stubbins were delighted when their long-awaited flood defences were opened by me and others after finally being completed.

Today, I want to talk about the ongoing challenge in the catchment area that makes up the River Irwell and covers other areas. Floods have particularly affected Irwell Vale, but they also affect tens of thousands of people across the country. That is why the issue is such a priority for the Government.

The Irwell, which cuts through my constituency, is a river that was previously thought to flood very infrequently. In fact, it had a 100-year flood risk. However, it has flooded in 2007, 2012, 2015 and 2020. The communities of Irwell Vale, Strongstry and Chatterton also have the dual risk of overland flooding. It is not just raised river levels; they are in a deep, sheer-sided valley and when there is heavy rainfall, combined with rising river levels, the flooding can come from the back of the houses as well as the front.

In February, I was down there talking to the community, who explained how family members felt they could not leave home because they were constantly clicking “refresh” on the Government’s online flooding monitor; they sort of felt they would be more likely to flood if they were not in the house. Although that is not particularly rational, it shows what a huge impact living on a flood plain and in a community that floods has on the mental health of these families. That is why it is really important we debate that impact today.

For a number of years now, I have worked very closely with the Environment Agency, the Government and the communities, to find a solution that will serve this community not just in the short term, but for generations to come. The Government’s policy is that flood defences are not about how big a community is. This is a small community, but all communities must be supported. I hope the Government will reaffirm that commitment today, because the whole point of the Government’s levelling-up agenda is that no community gets left behind. The smallest hamlet is as important to the Minister as the greatest city, but all too often it is the smallest hamlet that gets flooded and needs the flood defences. I hope the Minister will reaffirm today that no community is too small to have the benefit of Government flood defence spending.

I want to talk more directly about the Environment Agency plan for Irwell Vale, Chatterton and Strongstry. Following the 2015 flooding, the Environment Agency worked closely with me and the local community. It did a large-scale appraisal on a whole catchment basis for the River Irwell and its tributaries. That was followed by a capital funding bid to further reappraise flooding issues and possible mitigation work for the community.

Following the 2020 floods, which were again devastating, the Environment Agency did further extensive work to ensure that solutions would deal properly with increased flooding frequency. I find it extraordinary that between 2015 and 2020 there was such a change in the expectations of flooding in the community that the EA had to revisit all the work that had already been done. That tells us how concerned we should be for these communities, which will be subject to more frequent flooding.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Esther McVey and Jake Berry

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating Rossendale jobcentre, which has just signed up nearly 45 people to its work experience programme, including me and my office? The first young person to come through my office on work experience, Liam, has just secured a job because of that work experience.

[Esther McVey]

First off, three cheers for Liam for getting his job through work experience, as many other people are doing across the UK. Nearly 200,000 people have been on work experience since 2011, more than 40% of whom have got a job. That just shows that people can have a positive future when they have a Government like this in charge.

Youth Unemployment and Bank Bonuses

Debate between Esther McVey and Jake Berry

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

It is clear to everybody in the House, regardless which side they sit on, that we are facing exceptionally difficult economic times in this country. I calculated that by the end of this speech, with a six-minute time limit in force and with no interventions, we will have spent in excess of £500,000 just on debt interest. Our national debt is like a credit card, and the sooner we get to grips with it, the better. I do not want to have to look the next generation of young people in the eye and say, “We were the Government, we were the group of MPs, who shoved our heads in the sand and refused to tackle our national debt,” so that we could pass it on to them.

We have seen a hugely unwelcome increase in unemployment, and an exacerbation of the existing problem of youth unemployment. The Leader of the Opposition admitted in November last year that youth unemployment was not invented by this Government, but was a problem under the previous Government. The motion seeks to link the problem of youth unemployment simplistically to a failed tax on bankers’ bonuses.

This truly is the tax that keeps on giving. So far, there have been proposals to use it to tackle unemployment among older people, to tackle unemployment among younger people, to fund capital projects, to reverse VAT increases, to cut taxes on fuel, to cut VAT on home improvements, to build 25,000 more houses, and today to create 100,000 new jobs. That clearly shows that the Labour party has no new ideas. It cannot be only today’s ICM/Guardian poll that is depressing them. It is also the fact that a party that claims to represent the workers has come to represent the something-for-nothing culture, a party that claims to fight inequality increased inequality in 13 years in government, and at the end of the largest economic boom that we have ever witnessed, Labour left 270,000 more young people out of work than when it came to office. That is an appalling legacy. The solution is not more of the same, not to pile debt on debt, not to try and spend ourselves rich.

The motion sounds like the Opposition are being advised by Charles Ponzi and has about as much credence as the claim by the captain of the Costa Concordia that he slipped and fell into the lifeboat. The Government, however, must take true steps to tackle youth unemployment, and there is no panacea.

One thing we must do is tackle the skills gap. The hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), who is no longer in her place, said that she hoped MPs would today bring forward positive solutions on the question of what they can do. A little-known fact about the junction 4 retail park in Darwen—unless one is the MP for the area—is that it is the country’s specialist area for the creation of computer games. When I ask those businesses how many young people from the area they employ, they say none, because young people in Darwen are leaving our schools without the menu of skills that the businesses want when they recruit. That is why it is vital that we continue to increase the links between schools and local employers.

[Esther McVey]

It is not just computer games and electronics companies that say that. The Institute for Manufacturing, the Institute of Physics and the chemicals industry say that we have not produced enough people in science to be the technicians and engineers, that we have a dearth of those skills and that they have had to bring in people from outside the country to do those jobs, which is a crying shame.

[Jake Berry]

I agree. Of particular joy to me is the fact that my constituency has a new academy school, which has entrepreneurship and technology at its heart. We are starting to have those conversations with business in order to equip our young people for the jobs market.

I want to talk about what hon. Members can do positively in their constituencies to tackle youth unemployment. As we have heard, much of it is about leadership. At the start of next month I will launch the “100 in 100” campaign in my constituency, which is my pledge to get 100 people into 100 apprenticeships in 100 days. Building up to this, I have visited as many local companies as I can to talk with them about what we hope to do, and I have found that there is a huge appetite for giving young people a chance.