Flooding (Cornwall)

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Clark.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) for securing this debate, and to him and my hon. Friends the Members for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) and for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) for their leadership in dealing with the aftermath of this incident, which is to their credit. It is also to their credit that they have generously praised many others, whom I will talk about. The good contact that we had with my hon. Friends and their understanding of the problems is noted in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I am delighted that that communication worked so well.

As my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay said, the intense rainfall in the early hours of 17 November had a huge impact on his constituency and the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for South East Cornwall and for Truro and Falmouth. Such events are not unknown in the south-west. We have seen from previous flooding how resilient communities in that part of the world are. The recent flooding only reinforces that view.

The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State were both moved by the obvious examples of good neighbourliness—the work that people were doing to support their friends and neighbours in this crisis. My hon. Friend rightly mentioned the good work done by Cornwall council, the emergency services and many others. I echo every word of his praise.

The severity of the flooding came as a surprise to many, but that is not to say that the forecasts were wrong. The flood forecasting centre issued an extreme rainfall alert at 16.22 hours on 16 November, highlighting the risk of heavy rainfall overnight that may lead to surface water flooding. The main purpose of such alerts is to allow local authorities and emergency responders to prepare to respond in accordance with their multi-agency plans. I will talk in a minute about my hon. Friend’s important point on widening the recipient base of these warnings to ensure that we can get to more people when such events are predicted.

My hon. Friend made a good point about surface water flooding, which I noticed in my constituency in 2007; if we can develop flood warden schemes, similar to the neighbourhood watch scheme, that would be a useful, successful way of allowing people to do emergency resilience work to protect their homes and belongings. Not everybody is on e-mail or able to get a mobile phone signal, particularly in remote parts of the country. Nevertheless, if we can find ways to get the information to people so that they can start preparing, on a street-by-street basis or by locality, we can improve it. We are not yet where we want to be in terms of getting more people aware of flood risk. I welcome my hon. Friend’s suggestions, some of which I will discuss shortly.

The Met Office issued a flash severe weather warning, as my hon. Friend said, at 22.32 hours on Tuesday 16 November. Flash warnings are issued when the Met Office has 80% or greater confidence that severe weather is expected in the following few hours. The Met Office routinely issues early warnings in advance of severe weather that is expected to lead to significant and widespread disruption. In this case, the Met Office, in consultation with the FFC and the EA, did not issue an early weather warning, as the rainfall was considered unlikely to result in widespread disruption.

In the lead-up to the event, the national and local weather forecasts on television and radio, and on the Met Office website, highlighted the risk of heavy rain and gale-force winds in the south-west. Forecasts of heavy rainfall and extreme rainfall alerts are not rare, as we all know. The total amount of rainfall in Cornwall was not as great as in other significant flooding events. However, it is important to note that the intensity of the rainfall—38 mm in one hour in some locations—was unusual and a combination of surface water, small watercourses being overwhelmed and drains not being able to cope with the intense rainfall, resulted in torrents of water flowing through the streets and into people’s homes and businesses.

Weather forecasting plays a critical role in flood-risk management and the Met Office is independently recognised as world-leading in this regard. However, it is important to manage expectations in terms of what is currently scientifically possible. Those very localised weather events are challenging to predict with a long lead time, but I am confident that the Met Office will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible. It remains as important as ever that local authorities, emergency responders, utility companies and others have well practised plans for dealing with flooding events. In Cornwall, those plans clearly worked very well. The speed of the emergency was matched by the speed of the emergency responders, for which they deserve great praise.

In the cold light of day, my hon. Friend, not unreasonably, pointed to the need for improved warnings for those who are at risk of such events. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State commented on that when they visited Cornwall in the days following the flooding. Let me stress that the Government are committed to improving their warning and information systems for all types of emergency, including flooding, and are looking at a number of options to deliver better public warnings.

The current consultation on our flood and coastal erosion risk management strategy for England says that the Environment Agency and the Met Office will continue to develop and improve the national flood warning service provided through their joint flood forecasting service. They will do so by providing, among other things, warnings and flood information that are geographically as specific as possible so that all who receive flood warnings will know what to do and, where possible, have enough time to take action. These are not simple tasks, and it will take time to get them absolutely right.

The extreme rainfall alert that was first issued at 16.22 would not have been issued before the Pitt review following the 2007 floods. We witnessed the welcome sight in the Met Office of meteorologists sitting next to hydrologists and being able to predict much more accurately where flooding is likely to occur, and to warn communities accordingly. We are building on that capacity and partnership working to ensure that we get better and better at getting it right. We will not get it right every time, because of the freak nature of some extreme rainfall conditions.

We would all prefer our flood management to focus on preventing extreme rainfall from causing damage to property in the first place. I do not want to play down the impact of flooding, but it is right to point out, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay did, that more than 3,000 properties in vulnerable areas throughout Cornwall were protected as a result of flood defence schemes. I share his concern about the failure of some flood defences, and it is imperative that, with the Environment Agency, we look at where those failures occurred, learn from them, and provide the right protection in those places as a matter of urgency.

I take the points that my hon. Friends the Members for St Austell and Newquay and for South East Cornwall made about the Bellwin scheme. I may be going above my pay grade, but I represent a constituency that is part of a small unitary authority. My hon. Friends represent constituencies that are part of a relatively large unitary. When my constituency was flooded in 2007, we triggered Bellwin very quickly. Clearly, the matter is a cause for concern that I understand. Bellwin is dealt with by my colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government, and the Treasury, but review is important. In the light of changing weather patterns, we must liaise at ministerial level, as the Department is doing, to ensure that Bellwin is not too blunt a tool, and that local circumstances are taken into account. However, that is a matter higher up the governmental tree.

Many of those who were affected have already done a huge amount to get their lives and businesses back in order, which is more evidence of the remarkable resilience of people in that part of the world, and of a thriving big society. The Environment Agency has been doing its bit to help clear up and provide full support for the county council. I pay tribute to the surgeries that were held last month in St Blazey, Mevagissey, Lostwithiel and Pentewan.

The Environment Agency is also working with local people to develop community flood plans in those areas. Part of the work will consider what improvements can be made to flood warnings for those communities. That is not a new concept; it already exists. Fill-in-the-blank toolkits are readily available, and are being taken up in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay. I hope that we can expand the flood forums to communities that have been affected, and to communities that have not been flooded, because those are the difficult ones to reach.

Over the next few years, there will be huge technological advances. We are looking at rolling out opt-out schemes for text and telephone warnings, and there is the possibility one day, if it is not too intrusive, of a cell basis so that an emergency can be flashed to a mobile phone cell area and everyone in the area with a mobile phone receives it. That will not reach everyone, but it is a possibility, and such technologies are coming forward. We want to be at the cutting edge, not just because we want to, but because we must if we are to cope with the changing climate.

Insurance cover, and its future availability, is always a concern for those who have suffered damage from flooding. It is fair to say that the Association of British Insurers was very quick to state at the time that insurers’ first priority was to ensure that every claim was dealt with as quickly as possible. Advice was provided on its website for people who were affected. More generally, at a flood summit that I hosted on 16 September, we agreed that the Government, insurers and other stakeholders would continue to work in partnership towards 2013 when, as my hon. Friend said, the current agreement between insurers and the Government will expire.

Looking forward, we know that the risk of flooding is likely to increase. We also know that the current economic situation is very challenging and that, although the floods budget was protected as far as possible in the recent spending review, there will always be a limit to what national taxpayers can be asked to fund. Currently, the costs fall almost entirely on general taxpayers, and that constrains how much can be done, as well as creating the potential for inequity in the system. Nevertheless, DEFRA expects to spend at least £2.1 billion on flood and coastal erosion management over the next four years, and to deliver better protection to 145,000 households by March 2015.

In future, the Government would like to encourage additional local investment in flood and coastal erosion risk management in return for giving areas at risk a bigger say in the action taken. We want decisions to be made locally and voluntarily on whether and how to contribute to schemes. Government support will, of course, continue to focus on those most at risk and least able to afford to protect themselves. That is important.

These are difficult matters and we must get them right. That is why we are consulting on the national flood and coastal erosion risk management strategy for England, and why it is so important. It will help us make the difficult decisions about what Government funding is used for, and how it should be allocated between the different tasks and risk management authorities. I urge everyone with an interest to have their say.

The events in Cornwall four weeks ago posed a huge challenge to individuals, communities, businesses and organisations. None of us wants that to happen again, and we must learn the lessons. But it would be naive to think that we will never face similar challenges in the future. Such events are consistent with the predictions for climate change, and are likely to occur more frequently. The good news is that the people of Cornwall have shown us again their remarkable resilience and capacity for recovery. That was shown not least in the leadership of the Members of Parliament for the constituencies where the flooding took place.

Question put and agreed to.