Managing Flood Risk

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

May I apologise to the House for my lateness? Unfortunately, I got stuck on a train from Newcastle for reasons I do not need to detain the House with. I will take as little time as I can so as not to abuse the position that I have been given in this debate.

I thank the Minister and the whole team for all their work—I am talking about the Prime Minister all the way down through the various ministries. I also want to thank Opposition Members too. The Leader of the Opposition visited my constituency. He was extremely magnanimous with his time and he did not, dare I say it, make a spectacle of himself. Unlike many Members, I welcome ministerial visits and Ministers seeing what is happening in the area. This Minister has been to the region more than most to chair a number of meetings.

We are putting together a report that will be given to the Prime Minister and the House later in the week. As the Minister knows, we must change the whole way that we deal with this problem. Members have expressed the hope that we never experience the same thing again, but as sure as night follows day, we will and we must be aware of that. It is as certain as death and taxes. It may not be the Somerset levels that are affected, but it will be somewhere. There must be fundamental change that crosses the political divide and that is agreed on by both sides of the House.

The one hurdle that we all have to overcome is the Treasury. It will try to stop us spending the money that is required to put in defences and the works that are needed to ensure that the flooding does not happen in the future. Members from across the House must make it clear to the Chancellor that we have to be given the money that we need. We are the sixth-largest economy in the world, yet here we are, unable to raise money to defend our own people from the most basic problem faced by man—certainly in my constituency—since prehistoric times, which is water. We manage it well. When my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) was Minister he put in place a lot of changes to try to make the system work. Although I occasionally berated him in the local press, I respect him for his hard work. [Interruption.] I tried to do that without a smile and failed dismally. It is crucial that we take responsibility for the problem and say that each area will have to be defended properly.

[Miss McIntosh]

May I welcome my hon. Friend to the Chamber? I have a question that is vexing the House and other colleagues in Somerset. If we look at the whole management system of the Somerset levels, to what extent could the damage have been prevented if we had had both upstream flood management storage as well as regular maintenance and drainage downstream?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. She is most astute. One of the problems is that we do not have the capacity to pump into the river below a certain level. I am talking about the area on the border between my constituency and the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath). What happened was that the river backed up. We could not get the water around. We have two points into the sea; one is through the River Parrett and the other is through the King’s Sedgemoor drain. Both are not able to take what we need to pump into them. Nearly 60 square miles of land are underwater, which really focuses our minds on the problems faced by our constituents. Although we have not lost many properties, it has devastated the tourism industry and many other things in the local area. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) knows from his long experience of farming nearby how dangerous these areas can be.

The Minister has made it quite clear that local input is needed. The internal drainage boards and the local Environment Agency—I am not suggesting asking Lord Smith for one second, nor would I—have an enormous input to make, but that must be done in conjunction with local people. That is why the meetings that we have been holding in Sedgemoor or Somerton and Frome have been so important; we have been able to use that local input. I was rather worried when the EA sent John Varley, whom I have met a few times. I find him the most impossible man, although I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury would disagree with me. It is obvious that a lot of people have others’ best interests at heart.

We must do three things. First, we must look at the Bridgwater barrage. That will cost an enormous amount of money, but it is vital. Secondly, we must look at the pump system.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

My hon. Friend talks about the barrage across the River Parrett, which is absolutely essential. The £200 million cost of raising the railway across Sedgemoor starts to make the barrage look extremely cost-effective. The railway would not be flooded if that barrage were there to stop the sea going up the Parrett.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. This year, we managed to shut the main railway line and the A303, and water was lapping against parts of the M5. We really could have stopped tourism in most of the west country. I am glad that that did not happen; it is obviously good news.

[Mr Heath]

I have worked closely with the hon. Gentleman in this exercise. He will agree that the elements that we need from the Government are, first, the initial dredging; secondly, the commitment to build a sluice, or barrage, across the Parrett; thirdly, a funding mechanism for local IDBs or local authorities to fund the maintenance; and fourthly, the long-term management of the whole river catchment area—something that we knew back in the 1980s and ’90s, when we were working on it, but it was forgotten.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

My hon. Friend knows better than I do—he is a Somerset man; I am a usurper from Scotland—that this is an absolute tale of disgrace and woe. It is appalling, and not just one Government are involved; it goes back through many Governments, and it has been an absolute disaster. But he is right: we must sort out the pumps, the rhynes—ditches—the bunds and the dams. We must do this now. Unless this happens quickly, we will be back here, probably next year, with the Opposition asking, “What on earth did you get wrong?” It happened last year; it happened in 2000; it will happen again.

The most difficult thing that we must face is that, basically, everyone thought that Somerset was shut. We had half-term; tourism died completely. That affected the west country because everyone thought that the railway was shut and no one could get through. Therefore, we ended up costing the economy millions.

[Adam Afriyie]

My hon. Friend is making an impassioned speech, after a brisk rush from the train. Things are the same in my constituency; local businesses have been shut down. Some of the longer-term flood defences—the long-term plan to make our country more secure—would actually save the economy money. Perhaps not in the first five or 10 years, but over a 20-year time frame. If the Treasury put the money into schemes such as the lower Thames alleviation scheme, the money would be returned in savings from flood insurance, from businesses not closing and from savings across the economy overall.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. His area has a slightly different type of flooding. We are almost unique. We have massive amounts of land to play with. We can put in the bunds, the pumps and all the rest. Unfortunately, there are buildings right up to the Thames, so there must be a different solution, on which I am sure that my hon. Friend is already making pretty good representations to the Minister, and he will continue to do so.

My hon. Friend’s fundamental point is right: flooding has cost this country millions in the past few months. We cannot ignore that. The Treasury must say what is the cost to the sixth-largest economy in the world of what we have lost. If we can write off the whole of half-term, what will things be like at Easter? We will not have the water cleared by Easter, and the railway will not be open by then. We will still face fundamental problems in Somerset. That will knock on to Devon and certainly Cornwall. Where will we be?

We must sort this out. Therefore, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor must take the brakes off. Allow us to put in our reports—on Thursday in our case, and I am sure soon after in the case of the Thames and many other rivers. The Vale of York needs to be looked after. If we do not get it right, we will be sitting here again discussing the same thing, and that is not acceptable.