Environment Agency

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Westminster Hall

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

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) for securing this debate on such an important issue. He made his position clear, even to me in my sleep-deprived state. I hope that I can answer some of the points that he made.

The discussion is taking place in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the context of the current triennial review of the Environment Agency and Natural England. It is clear that the priorities that the Environment Agency deals with are important to society. It is critical that we have a strong, resilient delivery arrangement in place to achieve our ambitions. This review, which is expected to reach conclusions in the spring, is a unique opportunity to look at the work of both bodies and to consider how we can deliver my Department’s priorities effectively and efficiently.

My hon. Friend raised critical issues regarding the agency’s role in relation to flooding, and I shall respond to some specific concerns. First, I should like to emphasise and get on the record how much I sympathise with the distress caused to communities across Somerset by the past year’s extreme weather. I visited the county and met many people when they visited me in DEFRA, as well. I particularly appreciate the hardships experienced by the farming community, as it struggles to cope with exceptionally prolonged periods of heavy rain last year.

The Environment Agency has been active throughout this period, and I pay tribute to its staff for their tireless work and professionalism through difficult times. I visited staff in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) at the time of the floods, around Christmas, and saw people who had not had a Christmas and had been working night and day—people taken from all the agency’s departments to try to assist with that difficult job. I appreciate what they did.

The agency has spent more than £1.9 million since last April on maintenance and operational activities specifically to address the impact of flooding on the Somerset moors and levels. I am pleased that Somerset county council has recently announced that it is setting aside £200,000 to help local landowners and residents to tackle the flooding by clearing roadside gullies and ditches.

Agency staff have been out on the ground, meeting local people, keeping them informed and seeking to address their concerns. They are working with local drainage boards and others to assess the costs and benefits of various options to improve the future management of floodwater in the area, including dredging the rivers Tone and Parrett. I understand that the results of this work will be presented to the regional flood and coastal committee in April.

I recognise that there are real concerns in Somerset and elsewhere about dredging and channel maintenance and whether the Environment Agency is doing enough. My hon. Friend and I live in a world where perceptions are reality. I understand his point. The perception in his constituency and neighbouring ones is that more could be done. I want to deal with that point, but I also live in the reality of the financial climate in which we live, and I have to ensure that every penny that we spend on flood defences and flood protection is spent as professionally and with as much value for money as possible, because it is not his money or mine; it is our constituents’ money.

Dredging is one of the options routinely considered by the agency when deciding how best to manage flood risk. However, each area is different and the agency needs to focus its investment on activities that will contribute most to reducing potential flood damage. In some areas, that will mean dredging. In other areas, different options such as maintaining flood barriers or pumping stations will be a more effective use of taxpayers’ money. As my hon. Friend rightly says, we need to look forensically and objectively at the contribution that dredging would make to managing flood risk on the moors and levels compared with other options, and we need to reach conclusions in that light.

The agency is working in partnership with the National Farmers Union to consider what more can be done to help farmers undertake maintenance, gain access to information and advice, and manage their flood risk. The agency is also seeking to gain value for money by delivering multiple objectives.

My hon. Friend mentioned the scheme at Steart, and my information is that the cost is not £30 million but £20 million, which is perhaps a case for another debate— I hope not, because we have already debated it, but I could perhaps discuss it with him in the margins of a vote one night. The scheme at Steart is an example of seeking to gain value for money. I understand that the defences around the peninsula were in poor condition and coming to the end of their effective life. Improving those defences on the old alignment was neither economically viable nor sustainable, and to have done so would have cost some £1 million per property protected. I have to consider people in places such as Morpeth, Sandwich, Exeter and many other parts of the country who have suffered prolonged flooding. We want to ensure that every single penny of the £2.3 billion that we are spending on flood defences in this financial period is spent properly.

The need to create habitat somewhere in the Severn to meet our obligations under the habitats directive presented an opportunity. By realigning the defences on the peninsula, the agency has been able to continue protecting the village and its access from flooding, while meeting our biodiversity objectives, which is a win-win that enables the village to be protected and agricultural use to continue over much of the site.

I am aware of the complex Avoncliff case, and the agency is working actively with the applicants to resolve it as soon as possible.

I understand the concerns of my hon. Friend’s constituents and of many hon. Members who have taken part in this debate. Members on both sides of the House are committed to representing their constituents at times such as those that we experienced last year, which is truly impressive, and I, as the Minister with responsibility for flooding, appreciate that. In conveying those concerns to me, they are conveying the enormous amount of misery and unhappiness that people are experiencing.

A great deal of work is going on to protect local communities from flooding and to improve our environment, and I want to ensure that that continues. The agency plays an important role in that work and constantly monitors its own performance to learn lessons to help to improve how it operates both locally and nationally. The current triennial review of the Environment Agency and Natural England is considering the roles of both agencies, including on flooding, and the wide range of other services that they provide. In a tough fiscal climate, we must strive for better, more efficient outcomes from our delivery bodies, while being conscious of the Environment Agency’s impact on people’s daily lives.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I commiserate with the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger), who have suffered so badly from flooding.

In my constituency of Woking, we are looking forward to the Minister visiting the Hoe valley scheme in April. There is terrific joint working between the Environment Agency, the council and other stakeholders to take several hundred houses out of the floodplain. In some of my smaller villages, such as Pirbright and Normandy, the Environment Agency has helped me to set up flood forums to explore the problems and potential solutions, for which I should like to express my thanks.

[Richard Benyon]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. I see such examples of good working across the country.

Sir Michael Pitt, in his excellent review following the floods of 2007, said that floods cannot be addressed from my desk in Whitehall or even by some quasi-regional government imposed by previous Governments. Floods must be addressed locally, and the best people to do so are in the lead local flood authorities, which work with the Environment Agency, emergency services and organisations such as the NFU and others that represent key stakeholders. That is the best way to deliver a solution on the ground, close to communities. My hon. Friend points out that involving local communities through flood forums is important because they can give communities superb resilience. I look forward to visiting his constituency and seeing a scheme that I have read about with interest.

My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury raised an important point about who has the power and responsibility for certain waterways. That is a concern, and I am the first to admit that we have not nailed it yet. My constituency flooded badly in 2007, and in a short distance of about 200 metres, four public bodies, including Network Rail, three landowners and the local parish council were responsible for different bits of land through which waterways ran, as well as water that we wanted to get to a river and out of people’s homes. That is an example of the complexity that we face.

If we need to find a different legislative tool to identify responsibilities more clearly, we must do so. That is not really the case on the Somerset moors, where there is a fair degree of clarity about who is responsible for which watercourses and we just want to get the water away. I have looked at that landscape in recent weeks and seen an inland sea. People have not been able to harvest their crops, feed their stock or drill crops for future years. We have a responsibility to protect people, and we are doing so. We protected 180,000 acres of agricultural land last year, by giving people extra flood protection through flood schemes. We take our responsibilities to farming seriously, and we will work with organisations such as the NFU.

Internal drainage boards are key players, and there is a good internal drainage board in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset; I have met the chairman and other members. I want to ensure that we continue to work with such proven organisations, which have incredible skills and understanding: not just macro-engineering skills but local understanding of which culvert must be opened at a particular time and what flooding can be alleviated as a result.

My hon. Friend mentioned a quote that I apparently made on a BBC programme. The quote was attributed to me, but it may have been taken out of context. I think de-silting rivers may well make a difference; it is just a question of whether we can make that stack up against all the other responsibilities that we and the agency have across the country. I am not an engineer or a hydrologist. There are plenty of people in the agency who are and who do it extremely well, and I will take whatever advice they give me.

The current review provides a unique opportunity to consider how best and most effectively to support and encourage reforms to the organisations involved. I am impressed by how the agency is led. Lord Smith might not come from the same political direction as my hon. Friend and me, but he leads the agency well. We are openly considering how the organisations are run, and it is a transparent exercise. The triennial review is important for the future of the Environment Agency and Natural England, particularly for the outcomes that they deliver, whether flood defences, environmental protection, the improvement of biodiversity or all their other responsibilities.

I will continue to discuss the issue with my hon. Friend and with any hon. Member from whichever party to ensure that we get it right for their constituents.

Question put and agreed to.