Rivers Authorities and Land Drainage Bill (First sitting)

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Committee Debate: House of Commons
Monday 11th March 2019 Public Bill Committees

[David Warburton]

I absolutely agree. The point of the rivers authority is the central co-ordination of risk management authorities, which will ensure that people are not operating in separate areas and attacking things in a disco-ordinated way. It is about co-ordination and bringing things together to plan strategically.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I applaud my hon. Friend for introducing this Bill. I am a fellow Somerset MP, and this is much needed after the devastating flooding that we all experienced and never want to see again. I praise him and the Environment Minister for their involvement with this. The key is that we now do not have to have a shadow precept. The Bill ensures money and financing so we can tackle flood risk reduction work properly and get an environmental gain from it. That will now be on a much firmer footing, and we can guarantee that it will not stop.

[David Warburton]

My hon. Friend is precisely right. It is about planning for the future, and sustainability in the Somerset Rivers Authority. At the moment, it lives from hand to mouth and the local authority pays it voluntarily. Although £2.5 million of taxpayers’ money goes into it, it has no certainty about whether that will continue in five years, three years and so on. The Bill provides that certainty and the safety that the residents of Somerset deserve.

As I said, if there are gaps in the local plan, the rivers authority must publish a plan of proposed additional flood risk management work, which must supplement the work that existing risk management authorities have already planned to carry out. That will help ensure that work is not left for a rivers authority to pick up on another body’s behalf. The rivers authority can then either fund a relevant risk management authority to do the additional work, or contract someone else to carry out the work on its behalf.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

To answer the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, internal drainage boards operate in a quite different way. Effectively, cash comes from local councils, which appoint people to them, and there are people who have to pay the drainage rates—that relates to agricultural land. They carry out their own elections and make decisions together. The local businesses will be ones that are concerned with agricultural land, and they run their own election process. I hope that that provides the hon. Gentleman with some reassurance.

I am conscious of the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness that there is not a separate way of accounting for the item in question on the council tax bill. I am sure he recognises that it is not possible under the Bill to change the existing arrangements by which councils might want to show clearly how money is raised, or, indeed, other aspects of the referendum. However, I assure him that if people in his area, working with the councils, want to come forward on the matter of a rivers authority, it would be open to them to do so if they believed that the benefits would outweigh those of their current arrangement.

I reiterate that the Government support the changes. In my area the East Suffolk internal drainage board operates exceptionally well and, with the de-maining pilot, will take on further responsibilities for certain rivers in the area, with no extra cost to councils or indeed agricultural landowners. I believe that IDBs are generally a force for good. They are a key part of the Cumbria flood action plan.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the Minister for injecting her expertise and local knowledge into the debate. Does she agree that the Somerset IDBs do a complicated job representing landowners, as well as a great job on the conservation front? What is amazing about the Somerset levels is that they are an internationally famous wetland site and the largest area of lowland wetland grassland in the UK. Huge populations of wading birds come there. We have three IDBs in Somerset and they have just jointly produced a biodiversity action plan. It is all part and parcel of why we need to control the water and why the Bill is so important. It is not just about people and businesses, but about wildlife.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which just goes to show how committed farmers and landowners are to improving and enhancing the natural environment in whatever way they can. The flow of water can have a significant impact on nature, and not only in landlocked areas. Members with coastal constituencies will be aware of saltmarsh and intertidal habitats that are critical for the conservation of many special species. I agree with my hon. Friend and support the work going on in Somerset.