Flooding

Lord Empey Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The noble Baroness asks what we are looking at beyond flood defences—the actual physical barriers. There was quite a discussion during the Water (Special Measures) Bill about natural flood management and the work we are doing and promoting in that area. She may recall that we amended the Bill to ensure that we looked at more natural flood management schemes—nature-based solutions, as she suggested. We are doing that not just through the Water (Special Measures) Bill; we have made a number of announcements on this issue because we see it as an important part of the long-term solution. We need to look at long-term solutions, particularly, as the noble Lord said, because of the climate change pressures. In a way, building a flood barrier is a short-term solution because we do not know how long it is going to last for, so we need to combine that with longer-term solutions. Recently, for example, some balancing ponds have been developed with a grant near where I live. That is the way forward: barriers and longer-term nature-based solutions hand in hand.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, a number of Members have raised the question of flood plains and building houses. There will already be a number of planning applications approved yet not activated by a number of those who own the land—they have their planning approvals and maybe five years to do something about them. Is it possible to seek a review of those to see that we are not putting more people into high-risk situations as a result of the applications that have already been approved?

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raised a very good point about slowing down the flow. That may mean some form of additional forestation, or it may mean providing variations to certain waterways and so on. Is an attempt being made to combine the two things together? At the end of the day, we are facing change, and there is virtually nothing more debilitating than seeing people flooded out. Anyone who has had to go out and look after constituents in this situation knows there is nothing like the misery they face and how appalling the situation is, because it is not just water that goes into their houses. That is something that I think is often overlooked.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

If a planning application has been approved in a flooding area, I would expect it to have been granted alongside mitigation measures that the developer would have had to provide to get planning permission in the first place from a local authority. Clearly, I do not know the detail of every single planning application that the noble Lord is talking about, but whether that would be available for review would be a matter for policy development through MHCLG as well as for local authorities, because it is local authorities’ responsibility to provide planning grants and look at applications.

On some of the other matters that the noble Lord raised—this is probably relevant to some of the other questions too—I want to draw noble Lords’ attention to the fact that we are reviewing the flood funding formula. A lot of the issues that have been raised are down to the fact that the existing formula follows a complex process and risks slowing down the development of the kinds of schemes that perhaps many noble Lords would like to see. We are aiming to bring in a new approach from April this year, and that is important. Where I live in Cumbria, the existing formula certainly did not work for us when we were badly flooded, and the Government had to provide an extra top-up amount of money. That is not the way to go forward. We need to ensure that communities are properly supported with the kinds of budgets that can bring in the long-term solutions that will be needed to protect them against potential future floods.