Flooding Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Martin Vickers
Main Page: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Brigg and Immingham)Department Debates - View all Martin Vickers's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(10 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Paterson
IDBs certainly have a great role to play, and I am a strong supporter of them. It is all part of our long-term proposal to push responsibility for low-risk waterways down to as local a level as possible. That is how we can help to free up a lot of those waterways, which have been blocked because work on them was stopped under the previous Government. I am happy to discuss my hon. Friend’s other question with her directly.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
May I refer my right hon. Friend back to the floods of 5 and 6 December, and thank him for his visit to my constituency in the immediate aftermath? Subsequent meetings with the Environment Agency have suggested that it will prepare both a short and long-term strategy, and my residents—particularly in Barrow Haven, which has been flooded twice in the past six years—are anxious for those plans to be implemented speedily. Can my right hon. Friend give a categorical assurance that he will do all he can to ensure that the Environment Agency carries out that work?