Climate Change and Flooding

Lisa Nandy Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I thank hon. Members on both sides of the House who have given a voice to communities affected by flooding today. We called this debate to give those communities a voice, and Members who have spoken have done those communities proud.

Members have done something else: they have given a voice to all of us who are deeply concerned about the costs of inaction on climate change and what it will mean for the UK. There is a remarkable degree of consensus—with the exception of the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies)—about the clear link between climate change and the emerging trends in flooding. The Met Office analysis suggests that global warming at or above 2º from 1990 levels will increase the risk of extreme floods by a factor of seven. It is becoming increasingly clear that the sort of rainfall and flooding once seen as rare—as once-in-100-years events perhaps—seem to be happening more frequently. It is right that the Government have acknowledged that.

The Government’s own adviser on climate change, Lord Deben, said that

“if global greenhouse gas emissions do not peak soon and start to fall, 4 or more degrees of warming could take place this century. This would lead to severe and unavoidable…flood risk”

and result in an extra 1 million homes being exposed. The Committee on Climate Change has warned that the annual cost of flood damage to the UK could increase from £1 billion to £5.6 billion by the 2080s.

In her short but moving contribution, my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) made us understand the human consequences, and as her neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), said, this is about the future. The Committee on Climate Change said that the Government’s national adaptation programme lists a range of useful activity, but that it does not amount to a coherent programme. I say to Ministers today that they must urgently rectify that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) said that we need a real plan—a long-term plan, as the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) also pointed out.

We also need to recognise, as the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall) made clear in his contribution, that inaction has a cost. These are lives, homes and livelihoods that are on the line. The hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Callum McCaig) said that we are spending billions tackling the symptoms and not the cause. Quite frankly, we cannot go on like that.

Last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and I called for a new flood risk assessment, and I would like to take this opportunity to commend the Environment Secretary for agreeing to that. What that will not be able to do, however—given that we have to wait until 2017 for the national climate risk assessment—is fully account for the latest understanding of climate change impacts on UK flooding. I therefore ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change today whether she will bring that forward. Will there be a new national climate adaptation plan to follow those reviews?

As my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) said, the leadership shown in Paris must be followed by leadership at home, so I take this opportunity to ask the Secretary of State the following again. Will she take the chance presented by the Paris accord and stop the sell-off of the Green Investment Bank, and stop blocking onshore wind where there is strong local support for it? Will she take this chance to make real progress on the Swansea bay tidal lagoon, and will she find the money to fulfil the promise made by successive Governments to coalfield communities to give us carbon capture and storage, so that those communities have the chance to build the future of energy and future jobs? Will she think again, too, about the deep cuts made to the solar industry—just at the moment when it stood on the cusp of becoming economically viable?

Many Members talked about the need to take the public with us on the journey to climate safety. Just as communities such as mine in Wigan helped to build this country’s prosperity through dangerous, difficult and dirty work down the coalmines, so young people in communities such as Wigan and across the country should be given the chance to build and power the future through jobs in solar, wind and CCS.

The UK team—the Department for Energy and Climate Change team and officials, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) as chairman of GLOBE International—showed in Paris this weekend just what is possible if we put our minds to something, raise our ambition and work together to build the future. In so doing, they built on a proud record of leadership shown by the UK—from 1997 and Kyoto to the Climate Change Act 2008, led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) and David Miliband. Again, in 2015, I was proud to stand with 50 Labour councils around the UK that have pledged to go clean by 2050.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) said, we owe our thanks to the emergency services, the armed forces, the charities, the businesses and the individuals who are doing what they can now to help those families whose homes are under water. We owe it to them to understand the risks and to take action to prevent future flooding.

If the Secretary of State will not listen to me, will she please listen to the powerful and moving speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Sue Hayman) about homes under water, children frightened of the rain, shopkeepers devastated and extraordinary acts of courage from members of the public? This is the courage we need now from the Secretary of State. The costs of inaction on climate change are right before us. I ask the right hon. Lady to show the leadership that we so desperately need, because the alternative is unthinkable.