Flooding

Lord Walney Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It is partly an issue about house building on floodplains, but there is also an issue, which stems from this piecemeal approach to the problem, of people looking after their own patch, preventing their own land from flooding, only to exacerbate the problem further downstream. We need a coherent overall approach that protects everybody.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Does she advocate pressing the Government for a complete review of the guidance to local authorities, because at the moment they can say, “Oh well, the Environment Agency hasn’t designated it a floodplain”? Clearly, their thinking is out of date, given the changes in climate conditions in recent years.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The Secretary of State will say that it is ultimately a decision for local people, but we need to look at the broader picture. For one local authority to say, “It’s okay to build on a floodplain”, perhaps ignores the impact on communities in the surrounding areas. We need an overarching approach.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)]

As the Member of Parliament for Dumfries and Galloway, a constituency badly affected by storms Desmond and Frank, I am honoured to be able to give my constituents a voice in this place today, but before I speak about the flooding impact in Scotland and the Scottish Government’s response, the incredible work of the emergency services and the unbelievable resilience of local communities, I wish to deal with the wording of the motion put before the House today.

As a new Member of this place—and new to politics, thankfully—I have been astounded at the procession of ideologically based legislation from the Conservative Government. I have searched long and hard for an evidence base to much of what they suggested, and have searched in vain. I have also been completely dismayed at the amount of misinformed mud-slinging that goes on with these motions devised by the Labour party—in particular the needless pops at the Scottish Government in circumstances where they are actually performing marginally better. We thought Labour would have learned a lesson from the disastrous police debate motion a few weeks ago.

The mud slung at my party and the Scottish Government in this motion is to criticise the 6% cut to the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency budget for next year. I will deal with that head-on in a moment, but first I want to make one thing explicitly clear. It relates to the tone of this debate: my constituents deserve better; your constituents, Madam Deputy Speaker, deserve better; all of our constituents deserve better. They do not care, when they are clearing up the sewage and debris from the front room, about the mud-slinging and political points-scoring in this Chamber. They want to know what we can do to help, they want to know that we care about their plight, and they want to know we are on top of the processes and plans, to ensure we can minimise the risk of severe flooding in the future. But there is a recognition, in light of factors such as global warming, that we may never be able to devise defences and plans capable of completely eliminating flood damage when mother nature decides to sneeze as heavily as she did this month.

[John Woodcock]

What the hon. Gentleman says about his constituents is clearly heartfelt, but they are surely concerned—I speak for my mother, who is one of them—about the 6% cut that the Scottish Government are imposing on flood defences. Is he really going to defend that? [Interruption.] Is he going to defend the cut to SEPA, or is he going to—[Interruption.] I am sorry, but I do not seem to be able to continue as SNP Members are chuntering so much. I am trying to speak over them, but they are so noisy that I cannot seem to get a word in edgeways. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. Although I am enjoying the intervention, a lot of Members wish to speak. I would be very grateful if we could keep interventions as brief as possible, otherwise we will not get everybody in to speak.

[John Woodcock]

Why is the hon. Gentleman defending the 6% cut to SEPA?

[Richard Arkless]

If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I will, as I just intimated—if he had opened his ears, he may have heard—deal with that point head-on in a few moments. In relation to his mother, if she is a constituent of mine, please offer her our services to help her in any way we possibly can.

[John Woodcock]

What did the hon. Gentleman say about my mother?

[Richard Arkless]

I was politely offering the hon. Gentleman my office’s assistance if his mother has been affected by the floods, and I do so with the utmost sincerity.

The wording of the motion in relation to Scotland is as follows: it states that the House

“notes with concern the recent decision…to impose a six per cent cut on funding to the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency”,

yet in the last three calendar years culminating in this year there has actually been a cash increase in SEPA funding from £36.4 million in 2012-13 to £39 million in 2015-16. The 6% cut pertains to next year—to the future—and has not affected in any way Scotland’s ability to deal with the travesty of the last week or two. May I remind all colleagues that all budgets across the UK have had to stomach a cut at some level?