Climate Change and Flooding

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House applauds the courage and tirelessness of the UK’s emergency services, Armed Forces and volunteers who are working day and night to protect people from the damaging floods; condemns the reckless cuts to flood defence funding made by the Government, which have left communities more vulnerable to extreme weather; notes that 600 people were evacuated from their homes in Hawick due to flooding, and hopes the Scottish Government will urgently invest additional funds to enhance flood protection schemes in Scotland; further notes the increasing frequency and intensity of storms in recent years and their consistency with the warnings of Britain’s leading climate scientists regarding the impact of climate change; supports the outcome of the UN COP21 conference in Paris, but recognises that international cooperation and ambition to reduce greenhouse gases and invest in clean energy technologies must be increased if global temperature rises are to be limited and the goal of climate safety kept within reach; expresses concern at the Government’s decisions to cut investment in carbon capture and storage technology, privatise the Green Investment Bank without protecting its green mandate, reduce funding for energy efficiency and solar energy and block the growth of wind energy, which all jeopardise the future of Britain’s important low-carbon industries; and calls on the Government to institute a thorough climate risk assessment that considers the implications of the Paris Summit for future flood risk.

Although the climate deal reached in Paris at the weekend gives cause for optimism that the world is facing up to the global threat of climate change, the recent floods have brought home to us the urgency of the situation here in the UK. Climate change is already happening here, and people need not just warm words from the Government, but action.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kerry McCarthy]

May I get into my stride a little bit, and then give way? That was a premature intervention.

For the people of Cumbria, these were the third major floods in a decade. In 2009, they were told that the rainfall was unprecedented and that it was a once-in-a-century event, and yet just six years later, rainfall records in the county were again broken, causing devastation and heartbreak in the run-up to Christmas.

Flooding is already rated as the greatest climate change risk to the UK, and the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change has warned that the frequency and magnitude of severe flooding across the UK is only going to increase. Periods of intense rainfall are projected to increase in frequency by a factor of five in this century. Indeed, the most recent Met Office analysis suggests that global warming of 2°—bear in mind that Paris does not limit us to 2°—would increase the risks of extreme flood events in the UK by a factor of seven. It is not enough to respond to the flood risk simply by focusing on building more flood defences. We need to look at how we can reduce the risk through improved land and river management, and we need to minimise the future risk of floods and other extreme weather events by tackling climate change.

We welcome the Paris accord. Nearly every country around the globe has committed to: reducing carbon emissions, building a carbon-neutral global economy, trying to limit temperature rises to 1.5°, and to reviewing our ambitions every five years. Richer nations are recognising their responsibilities to developing countries with the climate finance provisions. That is all very welcome and will make a positive difference to climate safety, but it would be complacent to suggest that the Paris accord on its own is enough.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The hon. Lady is making a strong case. As she will have heard from Paris, from civil society and from the countries that are most vulnerable to climate impacts, about 80% of known fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground if we are to have a hope of avoiding dangerous climate change. We need a global transition to 100% renewables by 2050. I wonder if she could say whether she agrees with that.

[Kerry McCarthy]

It is very important that we make progress on that. As I will come on to later in my speech, the fact that the Government’s policies seem to be moving away from encouraging renewables—indeed, harming the renewables sector to a very high degree—makes it very difficult for us to make the transition from fossil fuels, which is something we very much want to see.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that cuts to renewable energy threaten both our environment and the economy? In my constituency, Energy Gain UK is a successful local renewables business, which has grown from nothing in four years to having 10 staff and apprenticeships. The drastic cuts to feed-in tariffs mean it may be forced to close, which makes no sense either to the environment or to the economy.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I entirely agree. The renewables sector needs certainty and it has had the rug whisked away from underneath it. There is some incredibly innovative work being done. I visited Ecotricity in Stroud yesterday, to hear about Dale Vince’s proposals not just for building on his excellent work in the renewables sector but for going far beyond that. We must encourage the sector. This is where the high-tech, high-skilled, well-paid jobs of the future are and the Government ought to be doing more to encourage them.

We must acknowledge that the individual pledges made at Paris do not add up to a commitment to keep temperature rises below 2°. We must keep asking what more we can do by way of mitigation and consider what further adaptation to climate change is needed. Domestically, it is clear that the UK is not doing enough. Contributing to the global climate fund does not mean the UK can absolve itself of all responsibility, or pass the buck to developing nations.

While the international community is moving forward, the UK has gone backwards. The Government have axed the carbon capture and storage fund, worth billions of pounds. They have blocked new wind farms and cut energy efficiency programmes drastically by 80% and they propose cutting support for solar power by 90%. They are also selling off the UK Green Investment Bank without protecting its green mandate. They are increasing taxes on our more efficient cars and they are scrapping the zero-carbon standard for new homes. Their preoccupation with fossil fuels and fracking, as I mentioned, means they have threatened the future of our renewable energy industry and we have lost thousands of green jobs.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

The hon. Lady says that the UK is not doing enough. Can she tell the House of one other OECD country that has reduced its carbon emissions by as much as the UK since 1990—just one other OECD country that has done that?

[Kerry McCarthy]

As the hon. Gentleman says, the UK has a proud record on tackling climate change, not least due to the leadership shown by my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) with the groundbreaking Climate Change Act 2008. However, we are now coasting on that historical record and we need to do much more. We are not on course to meet our targets, so we need to do more.

The chairman of the Committee on Climate Change had no alternative but to conclude last month that the Government’s existing energy policy was clearly failing, and the CBI has said that British businesses need clarity. Businesses need to know that the Government are serious about climate change and will not make superficial claims about being green, only to U-turn on key environmental policies.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

On clarity of Government direction and jobs, I understand we have to work together on renewables, but we are setting such a good example with Hinkley Point, on the border with my constituency, which is a low-carbon energy commitment that will generate 25,000 jobs, which will be terrific for the economy and energy production.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I accept that nuclear is part of the mix—that is our policy—but it is not the only solution to green energy in this country, which seems to be the Government’s point of view.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Whatever the solutions, one of the key conclusions from COP 21 is that, in order to drive down from 3.5° to 2.7°, 2° or 1.5°, the UK will have to reset its rest—as it has been phrased. We need to do more faster and with greater urgency, and that is exactly what Lord Deben and the CCC have said. Does she agree that, whatever the solutions, one of the most important things is for the Government to accept the fifth carbon budget and narrow the gap with the fourth carbon budget?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. There is almost a consensus that the UK needs to do more, go faster and introduce stronger targets.

Business needs certainty, but people in Cumbria and other flood zones need it too. Last week, I visited Carlisle and Cockermouth with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. We are grateful to the councillors, business owners and residents who showed us around their communities and homes, and we left impressed by their resilience and determined that the Government must do all they can to rebuild their communities and reduce their future flood risk. They should never have to go through this again.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend, who is right about the need for certainty, will understand the concerns of many of the flood-affected communities that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs cannot provide any certainty over future spending on flooding. Was she as shocked as I was to learn that this year’s flooding budget was £115 million less than last year’s? Is that not short-sighted of the Government?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I agree with my hon. Friend, as I often do. I want to say a little more about what I saw in the constituencies, and then I will answer his point.

Anyone who has been to Carlisle and Cockermouth or seen the television coverage will have been dismayed at the horrific scenes. We have seen people out on the pavements with their entire belongings, people’s homes saturated, people in temporary accommodation. There is an issue with the availability of temporary accommodation in the area. Some have been lucky enough to move into holiday cottages, but there is not much in the way of private rented accommodation to move into. We spoke to people about their massive flood insurance bills, and the thing they raised with us time and again was the excess on their policies. Now that more floods have happened, their premiums are going to go up, or they might not be able to insure their homes at all.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the Government’s new Flood Re scheme does not cover the insurance costs of businesses, and does she share my regret at the lack of solidarity in that scheme?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Small businesses mentioned that to us. The Government’s logic was that businesses could shop around in the market, but those that were hit by flooding in 2005 and 2009 and have been again now will struggle to find insurers. It is enough to put them out of business or at least force them to close for renewal and refurbishment for several months at a time.

[David T. C. Davies]

Does the hon. Lady agree that it would be incorrect to try to link these tragic instances of flooding to global warming because, as the Inter- governmental Panel on Climate Change says in its fourth assessment report 2007, it is impossible to link individual examples of bad weather with climate change?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am not sure that was worth waiting for. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman needs to talk to the Environment Secretary, who acknowledged in last week’s statement that there was a risk. Obviously, individual episodes do not make a pattern, but a clear pattern is emerging of extreme weather events in the UK and abroad.

Between 1997 and 2010, flood defence spending increased by three quarters in real terms, but in the 2010 spending review, the coalition Government announced a 20% real-terms cut. Flood spending was slashed by £116 million in 2011-12 and again the next year, and it was lined up for further cuts in 2013-14, before floods in the Somerset levels forced on the Government the realisation that they had gone too far. After those floods, the Prime Minister assured us that

“there will always be lessons to learn and I’ll make sure they are learned.”

But he has not shown many signs of having learned those lessons. Last year, flood and coastal erosion risk management expenditure was above £800 million, but this year it has been cut to less than £700 million—a 14% real-terms cut of £115 million. How quickly those images of the Somerset levels faded from his mind.

[Mary Creagh]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Does she share my regret that, although the Prime Minister said money was no object, as soon as the television images of the Great Western main line under water had faded from public consciousness, money actually was an object?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I entirely agree. It seemed that money was no object in the short-term clear-up exercise, although there were delays in people getting the money promised to them. The Government are trying to speed up that process this time, by giving the money to local authorities, but council leaders have raised concerns that they simply do not have the resources and staff for that administration. I hope the Environment Secretary will provide some clarity on that.

Last week, the Environment Secretary was still assuring the people of Cumbria that the Government would learn the lessons, and the Prime Minister, on a fleeting visit up north, told them:

“After every flood, the thing to do is sit down, look at the money you are spending, look at what you are building, look at what you are planning to build in the future and ask: ‘Is it enough?’”

I am not convinced that it is enough. In June, the Committee on Climate Change gave flood adaptation a double-red warning, and the Environmental Audit Committee gave the Government a red card for climate adaptation. The Prime Minister did not have to wait for the floods to ask, “Are we doing enough?” The experts had already provided the evidence that we were not.

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

On learning the lessons, is my hon. Friend as surprised as I am that about half of the Chancellor’s fast-track zones to build houses are on floodplains? It is estimated that 9,000 new houses built on these floodplains might not be insurable because of the risk of flooding.

[Kerry McCarthy]

That is certainly an issue. Cockermouth has had planning permission approved for new houses, yet we have seen from the recent floods that the defences, which people thought were safe enough to withstand what was described in 2009 as a once in a lifetime or a once in a century event, were not good enough. The Government need to reassure me, therefore, that any defences around new housing in those areas would be sufficient to protect people and deal with the issue of insurance.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making an eloquent case about Cumbria, but did she take any time to visit Lancashire, because we have had really bad floods as well? In the same year that Labour-run Lancashire County Council has voted to increase councillors’ allowances—they now cost the taxpayer more than £1.2 million a year—it has admitted that the timescale for regular inspections of storm drains has been increased from every 12 months to every 18 months, which undoubtedly contributed to the flooding. Do local councillors not need to get their priorities right?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I have not yet had the opportunity to visit Lancashire, although during the floods I spoke to my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) about the situation there. It is a bit cheap to bring in details of councillors’ allowances, when we are talking about people’s homes being under water and their perhaps being homeless for the next 12 months. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman needs to speak to his Front-Bench team about the massive cuts they are imposing on local government before he starts raising such details.

[Geraint Davies]

Does my hon. Friend agree it would be worth the Government looking at local authorities running insurance systems, because high-risk properties would not be avoided and it might stop them building on floodplains, which they are still doing?

[Kerry McCarthy]

That is probably a question for the Environment Secretary to answer when she responds in a few moments.

The Government have announced and re-announced that they will invest £2.3 billion in flood defences over the next six years. As the EFRA Select Committee has today highlighted, that investment relies on £600 million-worth of external contributions, less than half of which have so far been secured. With the private sector providing just £61 million, DEFRA is looking to local authorities for the additional funding. Clearly, the Government do not get just how hard local councils have already been hit by the cuts. At the moment, just one of the 27 flood and infrastructure projects is currently in construction, and there has been no progress in the past year, while schemes in Cumbria have been delayed.

On maintenance, we have been told that the budget will only be protected, so I ask the Environment Secretary whether she believes that that budget is sufficient, especially given the years of neglect? The Government spent £171 million on maintenance last year. The Environment Agency has recommended that £417 million a year should be spent. It is no wonder that experts at Friends of the Earth are warning that there is a £2.5 billion hole in the Government’s flood defence plans.

[Rebecca Pow]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I want to make some progress now so that Back Benchers who want to speak about what happened in their constituencies will be able to do so.

Last week, the Environment Secretary agreed with me about the extreme weather patterns and the link with climate change. The Government have conceded that the risks might have been underestimated, yet it has now emerged that they are not even using the most up-to-date information. I hope that the Environment Secretary will be able to tell us why the Environment Agency’s flood risk guidance, published in 2013, is based on forecasts from 2006—despite new research in 2011 indicating that river flows could be much greater due to climate change. Flood defence plans are modelled on the medium climate scenarios rather than the high climate change pathway.

Perhaps the Government want to ignore the high emission scenarios because that would mean spending £300 million more, but the costs associated with ignoring the evidence are potentially so much greater. The national security risk assessment cites flood risk to the UK as a tier 1 priority risk, alongside terrorism and cyberattacks. By focusing on the more optimistic projections, the Government are wilfully neglecting their responsibilities on climate change mitigation and adaptation.

As the rest of the work acknowledged this weekend, simply ignoring climate change will not make it go away, yet for two years the UK was hampered by having a climate change denier as Environment Secretary. It is even rumoured that he sought to replace the words “climate change” with the word “weather” in every single DEFRA document, and that he had to have it explained to him that they were not quite the same thing. What is certainly true is that under his stewardship spending on climate change adaptation halved, even after DEFRA’s climate change staffing had dropped from 38 to six people.

Thankfully, the current Environment Secretary is less hostile on this issue, although perhaps not very interested until now, and she will have our full support if her adaptation policies are guided by the scientific evidence and by expert advice. As such, we look forward to hearing more details on the national flood resilience review. I welcome the confirmation that the Cumbrian floods partnership will be looking at upstream options, and I hope these will be included in the resilience review.

A focus on the role of the natural environment in reducing flood risk is, unfortunately, long overdue. I see in his place the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart). His constituency was badly affected, and he did a huge amount of work on the ground in Cumbria over the past few weeks, so I am sure he has very much taken that point on board.

[John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)]

Talking of national resilience, does the hon. Lady think it was a failure of the last Labour Government not to have done exactly the same in 2005? In Carlisle, for example, we have a sub-station in a floodplain area that was flooded in 2005. Fortunately, due to the hard work of the emergency services, it was not flooded in 2015, but should it not have been looked at after 2005 with a view to possibly moving it?

[Kerry McCarthy]

We commissioned the Pitt review. The hon. Gentleman mentions the work of the emergency services, and I would like to take the opportunity to say that when I was in Cumbria I met the Fire Brigades Union and Mountain Rescue, which have done fantastic work. There are calls for the fire brigade’s response to flood risk to be put on a statutory footing, rather than just an add-on to its other duties. Mountain rescue teams do wonderful work based on the voluntary contributions and the work of volunteers. I hope that that will be looked at as part of the review.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

On that point, does my hon. Friend agree that this is a timely opportunity to look again at the funding of fire services up and down the country? On Merseyside, we have certainly seen extreme cuts, and the whole model needs revisiting.

[Kerry McCarthy]

That issue was raised with me. I believe that five fire stations in Cumbria are due for closure. The control centre is in Warrington, but the point was made to me that local firefighters have the best local knowledge. People in Warrington were sending firefighters to places where people’s fire alarms had gone off because of rising water, but those firefighters knew that the towns and villages were already underwater and that the roads were impassable. A lot can be said for retaining local knowledge and for keeping the local fire stations open. I am sure that constituency MPs would have something to say about that.

Flooding has had a devastating impact on farmers and many in Cumbria have, as the National Farmers Union highlighted, been hit by a double whammy, after being informed that they will not receive their basic payments until February. Given the losses they suffer as a result of flooding and the positive contribution farmers can make to land management, I hope that DEFRA will work closely with farmers to involve them in a long-term strategic approach to flood risk, looking at surface run-off and soil management to maximise absorbency and how the Government can promote agroforestry. Studies have demonstrated, for instance, that reforesting 5% of land reduces flood peaks downstream by 29%. The Government could be looking at sediment management and river restoration, as well as woodland development more generally.

In urban and developed areas, sustainable drainage systems could make a positive difference, but progress has been slow and the scope for local authorities to make progress on flood risk management strategies seems limited, especially given the additional budget cuts. As the Climate Change Committee reported, many authorities are yet to finalise their strategies, despite its having been a legal requirement for the past five years. I hope that the Environment Secretary is co-ordinating cross-departmental work to manage the flood risk and ensure that it is factored into plans, including plans for new house building in areas of high flood risk, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) mentioned.

In light of the agreements reached in Paris, I would urge the Environment Secretary to bring forward the climate change risk assessment and consider whether the national adaptation programme is fit for purpose. As the Committee on Climate Change has said, the next programme needs a “clearer sense of priorities” and “measurable objectives”. Even if commitments are met, the Paris agreement means that the Government must prepare for temperature rises of nearly 3°. Will the Secretary of State ensure that the announced national resilience review is only the first step in tackling the problem? It must lead to a realistic resilience plan—and, most importantly, action.

As yet, we do not know what DEFRA needs to adapt to, because we do not know what the Energy and Climate Change Secretary is proposing in order to implement the Paris agreement in the UK. In her statement on Paris yesterday, there was little sense that the Government had any strategy—let alone a coherent, fully-funded one—to meet the UK’s climate change commitments and help the global community to keep temperature rises below 2°.

The UN’s chief environment scientist has even had to intervene to challenge this Government’s policies on renewable energy. While the rest of the world is investing in renewables, she said:

“What’s disappointing is when we see countries such as the United Kingdom that have really been in the lead in terms of getting their renewable energy up and going”

withdrawing subsidies and enhancing the fossil fuel industry. We can only agree with her conclusion:

“It’s a very serious signal—a very perverse signal that we do not want to create.”

Under the last Labour Administration, the UK had a proud record on climate change—from Lord Prescott’s role with the Kyoto protocol and Gordon Brown’s work in establishing the Global Climate Fund to the role of my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), and indeed that of his brother before him, in the Climate Change Act 2008, which has now been emulated by about 100 other countries. It was ground-breaking at the time; we were the first.

That legacy is slipping away and future generations will pay the price. Given that the right hon. Lady failed to answer the questions of my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) yesterday, I hope the Energy and Climate Change Secretary will, when winding up the debate this afternoon, be able to confirm the Government will review the recently abandoned green policies and that the UK will continue to support raising European targets on reducing carbon pollution by 2030.

It is not just on energy where we need leadership. Will the right hon. Lady ensure that there is more co-ordination with the Department for Transport, that BIS prioritises green jobs and that our financial services do not keep promoting and investing in fossil fuels? And will she stop the Chancellor from making short-term cuts to energy efficiency and renewables, ignoring the longer-term environmental, financial and human costs?

Expert after expert is warning that the Government are failing on climate change, and failing to protect people from flooding. They are letting down communities who are dreading the next heavy rainfall, and they are letting down future generations who will bear the brunt of climate change. I hope that both Secretaries of State will agree that the Government have run out of excuses, and that now is the time to act.