Managing Flood Risk

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I was not aware that there was a time limit and will race through my final remarks.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Just to help the hon. Gentleman, there is a voluntary time limit of about 10 minutes.

[Richard Benyon]

I will be as quick as I can, Mr Deputy Speaker.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton makes an important point. It is a matter of regret that we have not yet brought forward the sustainable drainage provisions, which were the subject of much discussion. I can assure her that I wish we had brought them forward sooner. When they are brought forward, they will make life much better. On the automatic right to connect, I am also on record as agreeing with her on many points.

My most important point today is that we should not look at England’s flood problems through the prism of one area’s hydrology—particularly that of the Somerset levels, which have a complex hydrology. Looking at the Somerset levels as one cohesive hydrological problem is a mistake: parts of them did not flood, or did not flood so badly this time, possibly because of actions that had been taken.

The most important thing we can do is listen to the experts. A very good report was published last week by the Chartered Institution for Water and Environmental Management. We do not use CIWEM enough; its 10,000 real experts are at the beck and call of the Government, the Opposition, companies and local authorities. They have produced a really important report. I brought it with me, but someone has nicked it. [Laughter.] That is what people get if they leave their papers in the House. The report is really good and I suggest that hon. Members read it if they have not done so already. It shows some of our difficulties in managing flood risk and the problems of dredging indiscriminately.

We all have experts in our constituencies. One of mine is Dick Greenaway, who was the surveyor for the Thames Conservancy but has now retired. He has fascinating knowledge of the history of flooding. After the 1947 floods, an enormous amount of dredging took place in the River Thames. A lot of the experts of the time said that it would not work and it was being done for political rather than proper hydrological reasons. The dredging was picking up bronze-age remains close to the surface of the river bed, showing that it had not changed for a long time. Dredging can cause more problems. Since we stopped dredging the Thames to any large degree, the base of the river has dropped because of the action of the river and the change in climate. We ignore people such as Dick Greenaway at our peril.

In conclusion, we should now turn our attention to land use. We have an enormous amount of work to do in joining up land use issues, common agricultural policy reform, the drainage activities of some landowners and land managers and our management of rivers in respect of the water framework directive or flood problems at a certain point or further downstream. Some of what I have seen around the country has been very damaging in terms of flood problems lower down. We have to address that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Parish]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Mr Parish, you have got away with it once. I am not going to let it go twice.

[Mr Stuart]

I would like to say a few words on how my constituency has been affected. It was devastated in the 2007 floods. The impact on homes and businesses was far greater than it has been in the current floods, but, as others have said, flooding is devastating for every home and business. About 1,100 homes and businesses were flooded by the tidal surge in December that affected people around the Humber estuary. Whatever the cause, flooding has a tremendously strong effect.

I would like to praise the work of internal drainage boards in my area. The south Holderness internal drainage board undertook work to dredge Hedon Haven. Dredging needs to be done in the appropriate way and in the appropriate place—I can imagine dredging having a detrimental effect in the valleys mentioned by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). The incredibly flat area of Holderness is effectively a man-made ecosystem. It is hard to see improved dredging, which would allow very slow-moving water to get out, leading to anything other than an improvement. It will not stop one-in-200-year flooding events having a negative effect, but it will make them last slightly less long with a less wide impact. Dredging also appeals to local people, who like to feel that those bits of the system that drain water away are kept in a state of usefulness.

One point I would like to make to the Minister is that when the Keyingham internal drainage board in my constituency was looking to carry out dredging at Stone Creek and Hedon Haven, the new Marine Management Organisation decided to charge it for a licence. We spent years pulling all the pools and the political will together to get the sign off to allow us to dredge and let the water out, but what happened? This glorified new quango came along and sent in a suggested bill for thousands of pounds to grant a licence, even though the Environment Agency, when it had done similar work elsewhere, had not charged anything. The MMO decided that it had to do so much more work it ended up charging £10,000 for that one bit of dredging. Will the Minister please ensure that quangos do not inflict charges that stop local people doing what is necessary to make sure that things are more sensibly managed?

After 2007, there was a good response from people who had, up until that point, not performed as well as they should; whether that was Yorkshire Water, the Environment Agency or the council. In our area, people did not know who owned the pumps, let alone whether they were responsible for keeping them going, but since 2007 they have worked together. In front of Willow Grove in Beverley, Yorkshire Water has done a great deal of work, and the local council then came in and worked closely with local residents. In 2007, a very beautiful row of houses was famously pictured all flooded. The picture went out around the world. A flood wall has now been erected in front of those homes, trees have been planted and the Westwood area has been restored. Local ownership really can work and we need to ensure we keep it that way.

We need to ensure that we have as broad an understanding as possible of catchments and their impact. That is why all the agencies involved—the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) who is in his place, Members of the European Parliament, Hull city council, East Riding council—supported setting up the River Hull Advisory Board, which I chair. The Environment Agency and others have supported finding the funding to try to have better modelling of the River Hull catchment, so that we can ensure the effective protection of agricultural land—which deserves consideration—rural areas and the urban areas in Hull. The truth is that we are all in it together and we need to ensure that we have a coherent and cohesive approach that works. I pay tribute to all the agencies that have worked together on the River Hull Advisory Board. We really are taking forward a better understanding and a better policy for the future.