Flooding

George Freeman Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Robertson]

I am going to say why it is important to have both national and local strategies.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. To his point, in my part of Mid Norfolk, where the clue is in the name—it is not on the coast—we have seen in the past 10 years an extremely high rate of flooding. In 2020, 200 houses were flooded with sewage; two months ago, 100 houses in Attleborough were affected . This is getting worse and worse. It is partly climate change, yes, but also house dumping and inappropriate investment in infrastructure. Does he agree that, as well as a national strategy, we need to ensure that in such counties, where 38 agencies have responsibility, somebody has to be held to account to avoid the flooding of our constituents’ houses?

[Mr Robertson]

My hon. Friend is right, and makes a good point I will touch on. Although some flooding is occasionally inevitable, we can take action to avoid some of the worst excesses. Since 2007, a number of schemes have been implemented in my area, at Deerhurst, Longlevens and Westbury, and some minor improvements have been made elsewhere, but we were flooded again a few weeks ago. People in Sandhurst and Tewkesbury itself suffered when their homes were flooded. People in those areas feel that more could have been done to prevent the effects of heavy rainfall.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robertson]

My hon. Friend and neighbour makes several good points. I am sure that the Minister has heard that and we can take up those issues. This issue is not going to go away. If anything, it is going to get more prevalent. Above all, we need to rethink how we identify areas that constitute not just flood plain but flood risk, with particular reference not only to the proposed new properties but to existing ones. In those areas, we should avoid any further development.

We then come to the problem of water management. At the end of 2022, some people in my area had their Christmas completely ruined by failures in the drainage systems, which resulted in raw sewage re-entering their houses. Not only were their houses damaged by these events, but people had to move out of their homes while they were being repaired over the Christmas period. In some cases, pumping stations had failed and homeowners had to pay the price of that failure.

We need to have a clear policy in place with regard to new buildings. Should they be able to tap into existing drainage systems, or should there be a threshold beyond which they need to ensure that extra drainage capacity is in place before building commences? That is a point that I raised with the then Prime Minister in 2021-22. It is not just about large-scale developments; sometimes building an extra house here or there can, over time, cause problems for others in the area. Making sure that watercourses are clear obviously helps to reduce the risk of flooding. Councils have a responsibility to ensure that riparian owners carry out the correct amount of work, but this is not always the case.

That takes us to the question of river dredging—an issue that I raised in the main Chamber recently, when my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley said that he would look into the matter. I understand that dredging has taken place in the Somerset levels and has been a success. I do not intend to pretend that I am an expert on dredging—I am not at all—but it seems logical that if a river can contain more water without bursting its banks, surely that has to be helpful in avoiding flooding.

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Does he agree that it is really important that the Department—I am grateful that the Environment Minister is in her place—understands that rivers’ principal function is to drain water to the sea, and that our ditches’ and watercourses’ principal function is to do that? At times in Norfolk, it is beginning to feel as though the environmental agencies are more concerned with keeping them full of mud and plants than making sure that they fulfil their primary purpose, leaving constituents—farmers and people with sewage in their houses—to pay the price. We need to remember that drainage is about drainage, first and foremost.

[Mr Robertson]

Absolutely. That is why rivers run to the sea. It is a very good point.

One of the arguments made against dredging—I am afraid it is on the Government’s website—is that clearing one part of a river just pushes the water downstream, but the logical conclusion to that argument would be to say that we should never place flood defences anywhere, which we are obviously not going to say. Rather, it is one good reason that we need both national and local approaches to the problem. For example, looking at the River Severn as a whole, we might come to the conclusion that the whole river needs dredging so that the water can be moved out to the sea as quickly as possible, as my hon. Friend suggests. I know that dredging is controversial, but we need to have a conversation about its benefits, and a proper analysis carried out by the Government and the Environment Agency.

Of course, it is not just buildings that flood at times of heavy rainfall, but roads. In the recent floods, three of the four main roads that serve the town of Tewkesbury were closed, leaving just one to cope with the traffic. Further down the A38, towards Gloucester, the road was closed, causing further inconvenience to motorists and bus passengers. These roads have been closed a number of times in the past, so it is no surprise that they were closed again. Perhaps the only surprise is that little or nothing has been done to protect the roads, so we need to consider what further steps we can take to avoid road closures in the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Freeman]

In Norfolk certainly, the internal drainage boards are the most expert bodies at handling drainage. Could I make the gentle suggestion that we pay for them through some of the Environment Agency’s substantial funding, rather than through council surcharges, which are very stretched?

[Rebecca Pow]

The drainage boards play a very important role in all of this. They play an important role in many cases, including the provision of nature-based solutions and regulating water levels, as was touched on earlier.

We have allocated a whole raft of funds to help. We announced the frequently flooded allowance, which I really pushed as the floods Minister. That has enabled a whole range of projects that previously did not qualify for floods funding to get off the ground. Because of that fund, we have finally seen spades in the ground in Toronto Close—in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), who sent me a picture just yesterday—and a whole range of other colleagues have got projects off the ground.

We have got our natural flood management programme running, because that is another way of managing the water, as well as the £200 million coastal innovation fund. We also have specific pathway projects, one of which is working in the Severn area, to look at more adaptive ways of coping with flooding in the future, which touch on many areas mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury.

I hope everyone is aware that we have listened to the issues relating to flooded farmland; we have had comments about Yorkshire in particular. On 4 January, new actions were introduced under the environmental land management scheme, particularly with regard to grassland management and arable land management for flood resilience, as well as water storage on farms—with decent payments. I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury to have a look at that, because we have been listening to our farmers.

We have also listened regarding the issue of sustainable urban drainage, which has been one of my pet subjects since I have been in Parliament. Getting that switched on is in our plan for water, and we are working with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to speed up and switch on schedule 3; again, my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury touched on that, and it is so important for regulating water in our housing developments.