Coastal Erosion

Kirstene Hair Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered coastal erosion.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. The future of Britain’s coastline, and of our coastal communities, is finally getting the political attention that it deserves—not a moment too soon. From the need to curb plastic waste to prevent environmental damage to our shores to the opportunities that Brexit presents for reviving our long-struggling fishing communities, Britain’s coasts are coming to the forefront of the political agenda. I am glad, because if our coastal communities are to benefit from this renewed focus on their future, we need to act now to ensure that they have a future.

Coastal erosion threatens large parts of Britain’s coasts and puts houses, businesses and entire communities at risk of flooding or, in some cases, total destruction. Many hon. Members will be familiar with this issue, as coastal erosion threatens about 17% of the UK’s coastline, specifically along the east coast. The Environment Agency estimates that more than 700 properties in England could be lost to coastal erosion by the 2030s, while in Scotland, erosion is believed to pose a risk to a fifth of the coastline and the erosion rate has doubled since the 1970s. In 2013 and 2014, storms and extreme tides caused erosion that experts believed would never happen, but it has happened, and even quicker than they thought as it occurred almost overnight. Businesses and individuals are increasingly concerned about the impact of the increasingly rapid degradation of our coastline.

Our coasts are vital areas and hubs of economic activity. As well as the obvious tourism draws, they are home to much of our crucial infrastructure. In Scotland, the soft coastline, which is about 19% of the total, and which is most at risk, includes roads, railways and Scotland’s water network. There are 30,000 buildings, 100 km of railway lines, 1,300 km of our roads and a large amount of cultural and natural heritage located near to potentially erodible stretches of the Scottish coast. They could come under threat if erosion rates continued to increase in the near future.

[Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. She will be aware that East Anglia suffered serious floods as the result of surge tides in 2013. The private sector has financed a lot of the recharging of the beaches through a community interest company in my constituency, but does she agree that that will not be enough in future and that there will have to be some form of ring-fenced funding?

[Kirstene Hair]

I am sure my hon. Friend will be pleased to hear what I am calling for the Minister to provide for my community and his.

It is time that Government at all levels took the issue more seriously. In the past, they have been guilty of putting too much emphasis on study and not enough on preventive action. If ever there was a time for urgent action, my constituents would say that it is now.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, which is important to communities in my constituency such as Pennan, Crovie, Gardenstown and Rosehearty, which to some extent have all suffered coastal erosion or flooding recently. In England, there is a dedicated scheme that local authorities can bid into for funding to combat coastal erosion. In Scotland, there is no such dedicated fund, and local authorities must decide how to fund such works from the overall funding they receive from the Scottish Government. Does she agree that it would be better if Scottish local authorities also had access to such dedicated funding?

[Kirstene Hair]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The Scottish Government have put such scathing cuts on all our local authorities—indeed, Angus has taken one of the biggest hits—that there is no way they can expect them to fund millions of pounds to secure our coastlines. I agree that they need to take further action.

Erosion is a pressing issue in my constituency, as in many other areas of the United Kingdom. Like most of Scotland’s east coast, Angus has experienced a large increase in erosion since the 1970s. Hon. Members know that they have a big rural issue when “Countryfile” pitches up in their constituency. The BBC recently covered the incredible acceleration of Montrose’s erosion in a piece that alarmed viewers across the United Kingdom.

Montrose is one of the largest towns in my constituency, with a population of about 13,000, and it is particularly threatened. The Montrose golf links, one of the oldest golf courses in the world, is literally being washed away hole by hole, green by green. That vital part of Montrose’s local economy—a piece of history that has survived for 456 years—is slipping away before our eyes.

The course loses 1.5 metres of land to sea every year. The second, third and sixth holes have already had to move since last summer. That cannot go on forever—it probably cannot even go on for another decade. At this rate, the links will run out of space at some point and will have to relocate entirely. Action is needed to save this historic and beautiful course, which is economically important and a valuable piece of Angus’ cultural and sporting history, for future generations. In 1999, GlaxoSmithKline invested in rock armour for a stretch of the coastline, for which the local area was incredibly grateful, but we cannot continue to lean on private businesses for that type of infrastructure, which costs millions of pounds.

In Montrose, we also have the booming port authority along the shoreline, which is already feeling the financial strain of coastal erosion. It was previously dredging 60,000 tonnes of sand per annum, which has now reached 150,000 tonnes—a marked change in five years.

The flooding aspect of erosion can often be overlooked, but it remains a real threat in Angus. We know the economic, cultural and personal damage that flooding can do to a community, if we think back to the flooding that we saw wreak havoc across Scotland in early 2016. The disruption, the clean-up operation, the rebuilding of infrastructure, the reconstruction of defences and the insurance claims all came at huge cost to the local and wider economies. Failure to act and invest in proper defences for coastal communities is not only wrong; it is a false economy.

I am glad that, since 2010, the UK Government have spent £3.2 billion on flood and coastal erosion risk management, as opposed to £2.7 billion in the five years before that, which is a real-terms increase of 8%. Those figures show that there is action from the Government, not just words. That is the sort of long-term, real-terms increase that we need if we are successfully to tackle coastal erosion. I hope that the UK Government will not only maintain but redouble their commitment in this area, and that the Minister will provide more clarity on that.

The Government also need to work with local authorities, the Environment Agency and others to ensure that the approach to erosion is well funded, proactive and, most importantly, ambitious. We need constantly to look 10, 20 or 30 years ahead with a long-term strategy, as opposed to short-term fixes that do not serve our communities.

Sadly, I have found the Scottish Government lacking in ambition in this area. Their enthusiasm for centralisation is renowned, but in this instance, it has left the local authority, Angus Council, with fewer resources and more responsibility. Unlike England, the funding model means that Scottish local authorities receive no dedicated funding, and coastal defences must come at local authorities’ expense. At a time when Angus Council has been forced to find budget savings of a staggering £40 million by 2021—one of the largest cuts to any local authority across Scotland—it simply cannot take any more financial strain from the Scottish Government, if we want to ensure that our frontline services remain in place.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate, but I have to take issue with some of what she says. The council in her constituency is Tory run and it has not used the full amount of money allocated to it for coastal erosion by the Scottish Government. Billions of pounds are being cut from the Scottish Government’s budget by her Tory colleagues. Perhaps she will address those issues.

[Kirstene Hair]

The Scottish Government funding—I will come on to that in a little more detail later—goes nowhere near far enough towards trying to address the problem in Angus. In fact, there have been numerous letters to the Cabinet Secretary, who is the hon. Lady’s colleague, to suggest that we need more funding in Angus, but the responses have been filled with empty words.

The fund that the Cabinet Secretary announced was the same old Scottish National party announcement—an all-singing, all-dancing fund—but the Scottish Government have not detailed the amount of money in the fund, nor have they detailed how Angus can benefit from it. However, I will indeed go into that matter in more detail later.

Significant dedicated erosion funding must be put in place, such as the UK Government’s flood and coastal erosion risk management schemes in England. The issue is important and specific enough not to have been put under the umbrella of flood risk management. At a time when the Scottish Government should be looking at ways to boost Scotland’s poor economic growth rate—I say that on the basis of their appalling current record—they should be doing all they can to protect the economic potential of coastal Scotland from slipping beneath the waves.

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I am so grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and for securing this debate. Does she realise that I fully support her call for erosion funding and I will be seeking a meeting with the Minister on this issue? The most significant ground instability problem and the largest occupied landslip in the United Kingdom is the undercliff on the Isle of Wight. Part of the road there gave way, and it has done so many times, lastly in 2014. My problem is that the council is unwilling to invest in rebuilding that road unless we can understand better and at reasonable cost the water flows underneath that part of our coastline. Therefore, we need projects such as the coastal erosion fund to give us the funding to understand some of these more geologically sensitive parts of the United Kingdom.

[Kirstene Hair]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and I absolutely agree. There are huge studies going on in my constituency as well, because we need to do the groundwork, but we also need to have the funding ready for when those studies complete, so that we can go ahead with the work that needs to be done.

Of course, when it comes to coastal erosion, the waves do not respect local authority boundaries. Erosion affects areas up and down the coastline and different local authorities face common and related problems. This is not something that should be left to local authorities alone; there is space for a much more joined-up approach to erosion at all levels of Government. However, such action must also be timely. I do not want to see Montrose ending up as a cautionary tale for other parts of the coastline.

Unfortunately, the Scottish Government are risking that happening by leaving the implementation of further solutions to the 2022 to 2028 six-year plan for flood risk management. Angus cannot wait until 2022, or until any time between 2022 and 2028. Even by 2022, swathes of the Angus coastline will have been lost. The risk of flooding and erosion to Montrose, Arbroath and other coastal communities in Angus will be even more serious than it is today, and existing defences are being put under increasing and unbearable strain.

It is the responsibility of local authorities, the devolved Administrations and the UK Government alike to start working together on the issue as a matter of urgency, so that we can quite literally hold back the tide that threatens so many of our coastal communities. The Government are due to publish their updated national flood and coastal erosion risk management strategy next year, and within that I ask the Minister to consider ways to make that work happen, ensuring that everyone involved in protecting our coasts around the whole UK is working effectively together.

Will the Minister ensure that the dedicated funding is available from Montrose to Margate? If the Scottish Government cannot support my constituency, can Scotland’s other Government step in, once again, to help?

Coastal erosion and the associated issues warrant their own fund, and such a fund must not work as slowly as the flood risk management strategies. In Angus and across Scotland, erosion is happening fast and we need a scheme that operates more quickly than on a six-year cycle.

I hope that the Scottish Government will take these suggestions seriously and give communities fighting erosion the renewed and dedicated support that they need, but what about the individuals and businesses who cannot be helped, or who do not get the help they need in time? They deserve our support too, and I ask the Minister to consider a form of compensation scheme for those who lose their property or land to erosion. It is only right that those affected by erosion get help to rebuild or relocate, and such a scheme would help to cancel out the deterrent effect of the threat of erosion if people considering moving to or investing in a coastal community had that reassurance.

No such scheme exists anywhere in the United Kingdom and it is my hope that sooner rather than later we get such support in place—not only in Scotland, but in all parts of the United Kingdom.

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is speaking passionately about this important issue. Is she aware of the economic impact that flooding can have? A number of businesses in my constituency have been affected by flooding and have then been unable to get insurance for their premises, so they now face relocating to another part of Scotland just to allow them to continue doing business—not because they have been directly affected by flooding, but because insurance companies are no longer able to provide them with insurance on competitive terms.

[Kirstene Hair]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend and hope that the Minister will take seriously my call for this kind of compensation scheme, which would help constituents in the borders, in Angus and indeed across our United Kingdom in areas that are prone to flooding.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kirstene Hair]

I am running out of time. I have just a little of my speech left and we have a huge number of Members who want to speak.

Our coastal communities are thriving areas and we must do everything we can to support them. To do that, we must act on erosion and act quickly to secure their future not only to protect our coastline from erosion, but to eliminate, as far as possible, the looming threat that erosion poses. So let this be a call for ambition, co-operation and urgency—from the Scottish Government in particular, but also from the UK Government, the other devolved Administrations and our local authorities. We should all be invested in the bright future of our coastal economy. Let us not allow erosion to spoil it.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirstene Hair]

I thank the Minister and all Members who have participated in the debate. I am delighted to have cross-party support on an important issue for our constituents and for our beautiful coastlines throughout the United Kingdom. Clearly, the UK Government and the devolved Administrations are called on to do more.

I want to clear up one point about Angus. The studies finish next year, so we need the funding to be ready and, indeed, we need enough funding—the funding promised has a question mark over it and is not enough to put my constituents out of fear. I shall continue to campaign for the Scottish Government to confirm and release the funding sooner, and I shall continue to campaign for the UK Government to see whether we can implement a compensation scheme, so that our constituents need not continue to live in fear if they live in a coastal community.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered coastal erosion.