Flooding Preparedness: Yorkshire

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Wednesday 30th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a chilling speech. It is a reminder of Storms Desmond and Eva, in which my constituency experienced significant flooding, as it did in February this year. Five years on, those residents are still waiting for their property level resilience to be put in place. Does he agree that that is completely unacceptable and that we need a better system in place to support residents ahead of floods arriving again?

[Dan Jarvis]

I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend is right to make that point, which will form the basis of the remarks I am about to make.

We need to acknowledge the scale of the problem. About 1,000 homes in South Yorkshire and 565 businesses were directly affected by November’s floods, but the impact of flooding goes far beyond the material and economic damage. It carries a human cost—lives disrupted, homes abandoned, futures made uncertain and full of hardship. This is a growing threat: a once-in-a-lifetime disaster in South Yorkshire was followed weeks later by further flooding in West Yorkshire. Calderdale, for example, has suffered three major floods in the last eight years. Hull was badly hit in 2007, and York—my hon. Friend’s constituency—was hit in 2000, 2015 and again earlier this year, as she just described. Other parts of the UK from Scotland to Cornwall have suffered from flooding.

We are lucky to be a rich country with the means to help people and to respond to this danger, but that requires us to recognise the challenges we face, to deploy our resources as we need to, and to confront the longer-term causes of the crisis. I deeply regret that this Government have so far failed to do that. It is not that they have done nothing—indeed, I acknowledge and appreciate the efforts the Minister and her Department have made; the Environment Agency in particular has done sterling work in Yorkshire—but it was only yesterday that the Government gave a date for the flooding summit we discussed with them back in November last year.

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

I thank the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) for securing this very important debate. He knows how seriously I take flooding. He spoke passionately, as he always does, for his constituency. However, he will know that we have spoken a number of times over the past few months, so he cannot say that I have not engaged with him—nor, indeed, can other Opposition Members. I have definitely been listening. He will know already that that letter has gone out, inviting hon. Members to the said event to discuss flooding in South Yorkshire. I hope he welcomes that. I worked hard with the Secretary of State to press for that. He also knows that we were hit with an election and then, when we came back, the coronavirus pandemic. He knows that that really is the reason for not having fixed the date yet. It is now firmly in the calendar and I am very much looking forward to discussing properly many of the issues he raises. It will be on 8 October.

[Rachael Maskell]

I appreciate the Minister giving way, but the Secretary of State was in my constituency when he made the announcement that the event would be for Yorkshire. He certainly made a commitment to my constituents, the local authority and others that we would be part of the flood summit. What has happened to that commitment? Are we expecting another flood summit for the whole of Yorkshire, or one for North Yorkshire?

[Rebecca Pow]

I will come on to talk about much of the funding that has gone to the rest of Yorkshire. We have had a great deal of engagement with colleagues and MPs, and I will cover that in my remarks.

What I want to say at the outset is that flood and coastal management is a very high priority for the Government. I am acutely aware of the impact on businesses and individuals, as the hon. Gentleman clearly points out. Coming from Somerset, I really am aware of exactly how it affects people. I want to go back over the long recent history of flooding that Yorkshire has suffered. There have been a number of significant flooding events, notably in 2007 and 2012. There was the tidal surge of 2013, and then, in 2015, about 40,000 properties flooded. Sadly, people were affected. Very sadly, some people have died. This is very serious, and we take it very, very seriously. I will come on to highlight some of the different parts of Yorkshire that have suffered incidents and how we have dealt with them.

In November 2019, South Yorkshire, which obviously includes Sheffield, Doncaster and Barnsley, saw rainfall of more than twice the monthly average. That resulted in widespread damage, the majority of which was in Doncaster, Bentley and Fishlake, as the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) has highlighted to me a number of times. In just 48 hours, about 150% of the average November rainfall fell over the River Don. Overall, the river levels rose to, and in some locations exceeded, the previous record which occurred in 2007.

In West Yorkshire in February, the impacts of Storm Ciara were felt most in the Calder valley, with over 800 properties severely affected. River levels rose to their highest or second highest recorded levels at Hebden Bridge, Mytholmroyd and Dewsbury, and at Gargrave on the River Aire.

About three weeks later, East Yorkshire—Yorkshire is a huge place, as we all know—was affected. The River Aire catchment area received over three and a half times the normal amount of rainfall for that time of year, and 100 properties were flooded in Snaith and East Cowick. February was the wettest on record for Yorkshire. At this point, and on behalf of the House, I must pay tribute to the emergency services, the Environment Agency, the local authorities, the Army, Government officials and everyone who helped and responded in those very difficult times.

As I said, the Government are absolutely committed to investing in flood risk management, with £2.6 billion in flood defences committed between 2015 and 2021 to better protect 300,000 properties. As hon. Members will recall, at the Budget we confirmed the doubling of Government investment in flooding and coastal defences in England to £5.2 billion over the next six years from 2021. That will better protect a further 336,000 properties, including 290,000 homes. I think the hon. Member for Barnsley Central will agree that that is not insignificant.

In July, we published a long-term flood policy statement, which I really hope the hon. Gentleman has read because a great deal of effort went into it. We have had a real rethink of our direction on flooding, and that statement touches many of the things that are important to him and us. It includes five ambitious policies to accelerate progress and better protect and prepare the country, and 40 supporting actions, so I urge him to have a look at it. Alongside that, the Environment Agency has published a long-term flood and coast erosion risk management strategy for England, which dovetails with Government thinking.

Partnership funding, which the hon. Gentleman touched on, will continue to play a key part in delivering our £5.2 billion capital programme. DEFRA’s partnership funding policy will help communities to be clear about what they can expect from DEFRA and what levels of partnership funding they need to enable projects to go ahead. The hon. Gentleman touched on that, and those details are quite clear about the partnership funding that has to go hand in hand with Government funding.

In 2019-20, the Government are investing more in Yorkshire than elsewhere in the country. Over time, Yorkshire has actually been very successful in securing Government funding and attracting partnership funding. The 2015-16 severe flooding in West Yorkshire, in Calderdale, Leeds and Bradford—I went up there on a visit—and York and North Yorkshire, drove major investment in complex and innovative schemes, in particular in Leeds, the Calder valley and even York. I say to the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) that York has received £45 million of central Government flood funding to protect 700 homes, and £32 million for the Foss barrier to protect another 1,100 homes. That is a clear commitment.

Since 2015, the Yorkshire Regional Flood and Coastal Committee, which represents 12 local authorities, has received investment of £671 million, £496 of which is from the Government, to better protect 66,000 properties from flooding and coastal erosion. We can debate the hon. Lady’s intimation that the Government have neglected to fund Yorkshire for a long time, but I have given some facts and statistics that clearly show that the Government are committed to Yorkshire.

East Yorkshire has had £42 million invested in the Hull river defences. I have mentioned North Yorkshire already, so let me come to South Yorkshire. Sheffield City Council is leading on a number of schemes, including Sheffield’s lower Don valley, where the completed £19 million scheme has better protected 250 homes and key businesses. For Sheffield’s upper Don valley, a £23 million investment will reduce the flood risk for more than 400 homes. That was recently awarded in the £170 million that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) referred to.