Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Hollingbery and Dan Rogerson

Thursday 13th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

1. What future plans he has for spending on flood amelioration measures in Hambledon, Hampshire.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)]

May I begin by passing on the Secretary of State’s apologies for not being here this morning? He continues to recover from eye surgery and will be back soon. I am sure the whole House will join me in wishing him a speedy recovery.

As the country continues to experience the onslaught of stormy weather, I should like to express my deepest condolences to the friends and families of those who have lost their lives, and to put on record that our thoughts are with everyone who continues to experience the misery of flooding.

Hampshire county council is discussing a proposal with the Environment Agency, but the business case has not yet been submitted to the agency.

[George Hollingbery]

Yesterday marked the passing of 40 days and 40 nights of flooding in Hambledon since it was first flooded by groundwater, and no one yet has any idea when the floodwater will recede. Every night, the residents sleep in shifts to monitor their pumps, and every day they wake up wondering whether that will be the day on which their house will be flooded. The village has been cut off from the rest of the world for over a month now. An engineering solution that would avert most of this now almost bi-annual flooding has been drawn up and costed, but funding remains a sticking point. Will the Minister meet me and potential partner agencies to try to agree a deal and get this vital work done as soon as possible?

[Dan Rogerson]

I very much applaud the tremendous efforts of the Hambledon community in its response to the groundwater flooding and the issues it is facing. I know that the Environment Agency is working closely with Hampshire county council to support the community in making the strongest case in its bid for flood defence grant in aid, and I would indeed welcome a meeting with my hon. Friend and any representatives he wishes to bring along to discuss the matter.

Water Bill

Debate between George Hollingbery and Dan Rogerson

Monday 25th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

I had a premonition that I might get such an intervention from my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Select Committee. I know she is pleased that we are, as a Government, making progress towards implementing this process in April 2014. She would like it to be sooner, but we have to make sure that we get it right. The views of the Select Committee have been very useful in making sure that we get it brought in adequately.

We heard a couple of very specific questions on market reforms. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay asked about small charities that operate from residential properties. The reform would affect non-domestic properties, so if a charity is operating from a property that is primarily residential, it will not have access to it, but it will be open to it if it is operating from other premises.

On abstraction reform, I entirely agree with Members’ comments about the need to tackle abstraction, which is damaging our rivers. We are tackling this in two ways. First, we are taking action using the tools already available to address over-abstraction. The Environment Agency has reviewed thousands of abstraction licences and has changed about 80 of them, returning 75 billion litres of water per year to the environment in England. That is equivalent to the annual average water use of a city larger than Birmingham. There is clearly a lot more to do in the individual catchments that have been mentioned, and we have to take account of the stress that is put on them.

The Bill will also help by removing water companies’ right to compensation to ensure that the funding of these schemes moves into Ofwat’s price review process, which is a far better way of tackling over-abstraction. In the longer term, we need a reformed regime fit to face the future challenges, and we will publish a consultation on possible options in December. [Interruption.] These reforms will affect a range of businesses, so we need to get them right.

[George Hollingbery]

An awful lot of gibbering and jabbering and yibbering and yabbering is going on on the Opposition Front Bench. Will the Minister please remind us of how much abstraction reform occurred in the 13 years of the Labour Government just past?

[Dan Rogerson]

Very little, I think is the answer. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

Dealing with abstraction gives me an opportunity to welcome the contribution by my predecessor, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), not only because of all the work that he put in and how he has informed our debate, but because by seemingly being very popular across the House he will make it much harder for anyone to oppose what is in the Bill, as it was his work that got us to this stage. I am sure that that will help to develop the consensus, because everyone agrees with the conclusions he drew and the position we are in. The Government are clear that any moves on abstraction and upstream reform must work together, so what we are establishing in the Bill will come into effect alongside the abstraction reform that we are moving towards. We have to get this right because it is crucial that we have the water resources to deliver the growth and environmental outcomes that we want to see.

Many Members covered flood insurance. I am all too aware of the devastation caused by flooding and its financial and emotional impact. I recall the destruction in Boscastle in my constituency. I became the Member of Parliament for North Cornwall a year after that tragedy, where fortunately no lives were lost. It also affected other nearby communities such as Crackington and Canworthy Water. The problem was that flood insurance companies were not up to the task. Fortunately, the Association of British Insurers was able to step in to offer advice and to help resolve the issues. As we have heard, other Members have similar recollections from their constituencies.

Flood risk management remains a top priority for this Government. We have committed record levels of capital spend and more than quadrupled contributions from other sources. As a result, we will have improved defences for 165,000 households by March 2015 and an extra 300,000 by 2021. I recently visited South Zeal in Devon, where residents shared with me their harrowing experiences of flooding. They also showed me the actions the community is taking to become more resilient to flooding, to keep down their insurance premiums in the long term. This Government are committed to providing access to affordable insurance for households at high risk.

We will table new clauses in Committee. Draft clauses have been available for some time and much of our work in Committee will be based on them. Were we to delay the Bill after this Second Reading debate, we would not be able to deliver our programme in a timely fashion. That is our objective. Yes, it is regrettable that those clauses are not in the Bill as drafted, but these are very complicated negotiations to ensure that an industry-led solution works not only for the industry, but fundamentally for communities and residents who need support.