Humber Flood Risk Management Strategy

Greg Knight Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) on securing this debate on a subject that, to different extents, touches all of us in the Chamber today. I do not intend to repeat the arguments that he adduced to the Chamber. He made an excellent speech and made the case very well, but I will reiterate a number of points.

Included in the area at risk of flooding in the Humber and east Yorkshire area are 30,280 hectares of agricultural land and the UK’s largest storm water pumping station. Those problems need to be addressed. One of my biggest concerns about the present situation is the flood defence grant in aid system, which determines who receives help. The system largely favours urban areas because it dictates that residential properties have the highest risk ratings. That means that rural areas have little weighting, meaning they have less chance of securing funding, which could have a serious negative effect on food production and the sustainability of agribusinesses in this country. With a significant proportion of the UK’s high-grade agricultural land in low-lying areas such as east Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, there is likely to be a danger to the UK’s food security and independence unless something is done.

Furthermore, smaller residential settlements in rural areas find it difficult to attract flood defence grant in aid funding because of the formula, which means that if flood risk cannot be addressed or mitigated, there is a danger that rural communities will not only remain at risk but may become less viable over the longer term. As east Yorkshire is comparatively remote, there are significant co-dependencies between work forces and businesses in rural areas and the East Riding urban areas. That should be taken into account in any adjustment of the formula by the Government.

One of my constituents contacted me a few days ago and said, “We have a climate change levy in this country. When assessing what to do with the money raised by that levy, surely there cannot be anything more important, in expenditure terms, than flood prevention. Why is the climate change levy revenue, among other measures, not being ring-fenced for flood defences?” Perhaps the Minister will give us his thoughts on that.

I hope the Minister will agree to look again at the formula and agree that we need not only a properly funded flood defence system across the country but an integrated approach to flood risk management, which the current level of expenditure and the current formula do not deliver.

The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) mentioned the devastation across the whole eastern part of the country in 1953, and indeed there was widespread flooding and devastation then. After that disaster a fireman, Andy Devine, who was called on to help, said:

“Where we had to pump out, there was the sea one side and water the other side…we might just as well have tried to pump the sea dry.”

Such a hopeless situation must never be allowed to happen again. Being invaded by floodwater, from whatever source, is just as devastating to a thatched cottage as to a terraced house. I hope the Minister will now deliver effective action that will help east Yorkshire to face future flood risks with more confidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), whose points on flood insurance are well rehearsed. I supported her on the matter during proceedings on the Water Act 2014. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) on securing the debate. Coming on last means that unfortunately I will be repeating not only what he has said but what many other right hon. and hon. Members have said, but as we have 10 or 11 minutes until the Front Benchers start to be called, I am sure that you will indulge me in that endeavour, Sir Roger.

The Minister will, sadly, hear again many things that I have previously said, not least because at the time of the tidal surge we were considering the Water Bill and I was serving on the Committee. I used that opportunity on more than one occasion to regale the Minister with accounts of what was happening in my area, but just for the record I want to talk about my constituency again now, with specific reference to what happened in December.

My constituency was hit most of all in December and, as any flood extent map will show, it remains the constituency with the most land at risk of flooding. Unfortunately, we were hit from three sources. We saw the Humber coming over at South Ferriby and Winteringham, the Trent coming over at Burton-upon-Stather, Burringham, Keadby and Amcotts and the Ouse coming over at Reedness, so in total about 11 communities and 300 to 400 properties were flooded. As right hon. and hon. Members have said, we were lucky, although we do not feel particularly lucky, that the impact was not a lot greater.

I live right on the bank of the River Aire, and I was standing by the river at the time of the surge that evening. The water was within inches of coming over, even though we enjoy very high levels of protection there—the highest that the Environment Agency offers. I was also standing on the banks the next morning for the high tide of the River Ouse at Goole, which also had a near miss and where there are 18,000 residents. Had the circumstances come together in the way that other right hon. and hon. Members have said we were lucky to avoid, our area would have been devastated.

Unfortunately, such events are not new to our area or, in particular, to my constituency. We had flooding in Goole in 2011, 2012, 2007 and 2008, and in Crowle in 2012. It is a recurring theme in our area, not least because of the geography. The flood risk extent maps explain why. My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden gave a potted history of the draining undertaken by Vermuyden in our area. That was hundreds of years ago. People have been living happily in our area since then, and it is of concern to people, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) said, that previous regimes and previous flood plans seem to operate on the premise that the rural areas can operate as a sponge, or be sacrificed, for the benefit of other areas. I want to explain why that is particularly dangerous in my constituency.

In 2007 we were faced with the first draft of the River Trent flood catchment management plan. Had it not been for the IDBs and several farmers who were well educated on the issue of flooding, that could well have been the policy that the Environment Agency adopted. It was only by arguing—we got up petitions and all the rest of it—that the Environment Agency was made to think again and to reassess the matter. It concluded that had it adopted the policy that it originally wanted to adopt, which was one of withdrawal, retreat and sacrifice, the entirety of the Isle of Axholme, apart from two high spots at Epworth, would have been underwater within a decade or two.

[Sir Greg Knight]

If the Government of the day, as a matter of policy, decide that it is all right to allow agricultural land to be flooded, is there not an argument to say that farmers should be paid for storing water just as they are for growing crops?

[Andrew Percy]

That is an interesting idea. I think that we would all prefer it if farmers were allowed to continue producing food, but my right hon. Friend raises one of the biggest criticisms of the current funding regime: the value placed on agricultural land is not sufficient. I am not against flood alleviation projects—of course not—and that includes the sacrificing of land at Alkborough flats in my constituency. That operated very well and possibly lowered water levels in the Trent to such an extent that it prevented a couple of communities from flooding. We do not have a problem with some of these schemes, in appropriate areas. What we have a problem with is the value placed on agricultural land and rural communities generally under the current system. In the original drafts of the various flood catchment plans for our area, there seemed to be a policy of retreat and sacrifice of rural areas. That has abated somewhat through various processes, for which we are very grateful.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden and others, including the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), have highlighted the nationally important infrastructure in our area and the national risk register. In my constituency, to add to the list of nationally important infrastructure that we all seem to be trotting out today, there is of course the port of Goole, which is England’s busiest and biggest inland port. We also have the power station at Keadby, which of course was one of the communities flooded in December. There is the Drax power station just across the way, and biomass imports come through my constituency via the railway lines. My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) talked about petrochemicals, and of course we have the motorway and rail infrastructure and agricultural land. I believe that 55% to 60% of our land is grade A agricultural land, so it is some of the most productive land in the country.

We have mentioned the Isle of Axholme, but of course the defences along the Trent and the Ouse do not just protect the 50,000 acres and 20,000 residents there. They are also major defences for Doncaster and Thorne. A catastrophic breach of those defences would have a significant impact on Doncaster, but although that is sometimes taken into account, it is not always accounted for in funding decisions.