Weather Events (South West England)

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) on an extremely valuable introduction and on getting this debate on the table. Clearly, for all of us in the south-west, the impact of the storm in the weeks from 3 February onwards was more than significant. Certainly in Dawlish in my constituency, the damage was unprecedented. According to Network Rail, the breach in the sea wall was something the like of which had never been seen before.

Not only Dawlish was damaged—there was significant erosion damage in Dawlish Warren, which depends on tourism for its livelihood. Losing four metres of sand not only reduces the defence mechanisms, but the lack of sand on the beaches impacts on tourism, and there has been a delay in the recharge project to bring the beaches up to standard.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

All along the coast, from Cornwall to my hon. Friend’s constituency, we have seen unprecedented coastal damage that will affect tourist businesses. Does she agree that the message must go out that the south-west is still very much open for business?

[Anne Marie Morris]

My hon. Friend makes absolutely the right point. It is clear to me from the conversations I have had with Network Rail that we will be open for business for Easter. It has been a challenging time, but from everything I have seen—I see the concrete lorries filling that wonderful hole—I am absolutely sure that we will see a successful result.

As for the damage, I will focus on Dawlish, which is where the most significant impact was. It would be wrong not to mention some of the other things that have happened, and the erosion is a part of it. We have also had significant flooding in some of our smaller villages. I have 40 villages in my constituency. I will not name each of them and list the damage that occurred, but Ringmoor and Stokeinteignhead were significantly damaged. However, Dawlish is where the most significant impact of the storm was felt.

Some 56 families had to be evacuated late at night. The police had to knock in windows to get residents out. Countless businesses lost trade and, although that was partly due to sodden buildings, it was also because the train was not running. The cafés that usually got the business from the tourist footfall simply did not do business. The district and county councils were brilliant in all that they did, doing much more than might otherwise have been expected. Volunteers were fantastic. There was a lot of action during the night. Tea was available 24 hours a day, served by a wonderful lady, and the Network Rail team, in their orange jackets, have now become almost iconic in Dawlish. The local community love them to bits and see them as local heroes. They are still giving them cups of tea and pats on the back, and whatever else it takes to keep them going.

During the crisis, First Great Western finally got up to speed and put in place the coaches that were needed, but it is fair to say—I am sure the right hon. Member for Exeter knows this—that there were severe challenges going south from Exeter, and I heard tales of queues of 200 people struggling to find places on coaches.

We need to remember that the impact of everything that has happened was not only physical, but emotional and economic. For my constituency, the impact has been devastating. That coastal railway line has stood the test of time since Brunel built it, although it has breached before. There are some wonderful pictures of previous breaches when passengers got off the train, walked over the rocks and got on another train on the other side. I am not sure we could do that today, but the pictures are interesting.

The coastal railway is an economic lifeline. The loss to the region is—conservatively—£2 million a day. It is crucial that the line is up and running for Easter. As the right hon. Member for Exeter mentioned, the line is particularly crucial in my area, not only because it is an economic lifeline, but because it is a flood defence. It protects 951 properties in Dawlish, Dawlish Warren, Starcross and Cockwood. It is absolutely mission critical for me as the Member of Parliament and for the constituents I represent that the railway line is made better and more resilient, and that it is there for the long term.

We must look seriously at what can be done to support the railway line. I hope the Minister addresses that in his remarks. There is new technology that will allow a secondary wall to be put on the external front, with wave-breaking technologies that will reduce any damage. There is also the potential for a breakwater to be put further out. I believe that has been done in Sidmouth and Plymouth. I see no reason why it should not be considered in Dawlish. Indeed, from conversations I had with Network Rail last year, I understand that it was already under review. However, I thought 2019 was too late and simply not an adequate answer.

The Dawlish station footfall, believe it or not, is 480,564 people per year. That is the 2012 figure, the most recent I could find. Over the past 10 years, the footfall through Dawlish has risen by 81%. The footfall for Teignmouth is 566,528 individuals a year—again, that is the 2012 figure—and that has seen growth of 98%. If we add the footfall in Newton Abbot, the number is similar to that in Exeter St Davids or Plymouth, so this is not a small rural area. It is a significant part of the south-west, with a significant local economy, much of which is driven by tourism, and it is absolutely crucial that the Government support it.

The Government’s help has been very welcome. The resilience review, which I gather the Army will be undertaking in five weeks, will make a big difference. My question is this: if the Army can do it in five weeks, why has it historically taken Governments years? Can we not make the process faster and have a real assessment of what can be done, with some proper open discussion about what money is needed and what money can be spent? Although the Prime Minister has said money is no object in relation to flood damage, given the budget left by the previous Government, there is not a lot of spare cash. However, this is a critical area for spending, and we must future-proof the railway.

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[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. It is great that the Minister responding to this debate knows a great deal about the south-west of England, representing as he does North Cornwall, which is also feeling the impact of the issues that we are grappling with.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) on securing this debate, and he made a characteristically passionate speech. However, I say gently to him that his analysis appears to be that everything was great before 2010 and disastrous since 2010. That is not the real world. Other than that, I appreciate the passion and power with which he put forward his argument. He is right to say that we have to do more, both on flood risk management and on upgrading and making our infrastructure more resilient.

The greatest challenge that we in the south-west face is peripherality. People think that, when they get to Bristol, they have arrived in the south-west, but they have not; they are in the south midlands or the west country, not in the south-west. Plymouth is 110 miles from Bristol. I often thought, as I got off the train in days gone by—it seems a long time ago that I got off the train at Plymouth—that I felt sorry for people going on to Penzance in Cornwall, which is another hour and a half on the train. We are a long way from anywhere. Of course, peripherality keeps us beautiful and it is one of the great things that keeps our region from being overwhelmed.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the railway has become more important since Plymouth lost its airport? It is the main link to the south-west and Cornwall now.

[Mr Streeter]

I agree—it is the main link, although the M5 and A38 are pretty good in terms of bringing all the many hundreds of thousands of visitors who will come to us at Easter. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), who represents Dawlish so ably, that the south-west is certainly open for business.

If our big problem is peripherality, the solution to that is connectivity. This is where our rail link is so important. Yes, superfast broadband is important, as is the M5-A38 link, but as we have just heard, we do not have an airport at Plymouth any longer—there are airports at Newquay and Exeter, but not in Plymouth, which is the engine room of our sub-region—therefore our rail link is extremely important.

I remember a trip to India in 1990s with some Indian business people, just after the monsoon had struck, as it does every year in India. A frustrated Indian businessman said to me, “This is what is holding us back. Every year our physical infrastructure is overwhelmed by the weather and often is swept away and we have to start all over again.” We do not want to be in that position in the far south-west. We must have in place robust infrastructure that underpins our connectivity.

Let me mention the impact on Devon. There was, of course, flooding, which my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot talked about. By the way, just after the Dawlish breach, iconic pictures, now on the BBC’s “Spotlight” archive, show my hon. Friend raging against the elements, overlooking this breach, almost trying to turn back the storm and doing her utmost for her constituents in fighting for urgent action, which, of course, has followed. Those pictures will live with me for a long time. King Lear has nothing on my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot.

Of course, we have had flooding before, but the battering our coastline took was a new thing this year. In 2012, we had a lot more flooding inland, but it was the coastal attack that was so spectacular this time. There is a worthy scheme to compensate some businesses that have felt the impact of these storms and help has been announced for people in Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, but no help has been announced for the people of Torbay or Plymouth. This may be an oversight. Perhaps a civil servant thinks that Devon includes Plymouth and Torbay, which, of course, geographically, it does; but legally it does not. Will my hon. Friend the Minister please look into that to ensure that those businesses on the seafront in Plymouth that were swept away by the storms are compensated in the same way as those along the Cornish or Devon coastline? My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders) would make the same point for his constituency if he were here.

[Mr Streeter]

I beg my hon. Friend’s pardon. Of course, that is right. He will no doubt make that point in his speech, which we anticipate.

Although we are talking about weather, the main focus of our attention today is rail resilience. Network Rail has responded quickly and I pay tribute to it. On the very day of the Dawlish breach, it attended a meeting with the Secretary of State for Transport, here at Westminster, and it was obvious that it was going to grip the situation. It gave a six-week timetable, which has slightly slipped because of further storms, and is getting on with it. I understand that it has 100 people working 24/7 to fill up this wonderful hole, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot described it. Congratulations to Network Rail on such a rapid response. The Secretary of State has also responded quickly, and it was good to see the Prime Minister coming down and taking personal control.

I, too, thank First Great Western. It gets hammered and gets a lot of criticism, but it has responded. Perhaps it took a couple of days, but it has now responded well. The service that it is putting on for many of my constituents is excellent.

[Sheryll Murray]

My hon. Friend might like to know that some constituents visited me yesterday and they were full of praise for First Great Western and asked me to mention it. Does he agree that this is now the trend, rather than people complaining about First Great Western?

[Mr Streeter]

I agree. It provides an increasingly impressive service to the far south-west. There is another debate to be had—it is not a matter for this Minister—about the future of the franchise and how, with only two and a half years to run, the company lacks the ability to invest in upgrading its rolling stock, and so on. That needs to be tackled, but that is for another day.

The real challenge will be not getting the Dawlish breach restored and the trains running again before Easter—I am confident that will happen—but, as my hon. Friend said, the report to the Government on alternative or additional routes that I understand will be made by July. That is when the fun will begin, because there will be myriad views on the right approach. Let me say, first, that I agree that the existing route has to be reinforced and kept open. We should consider alternative routes from Newton Abbot to Exeter that would be faster and straighter, because that would make the link from the far south-west to London much quicker and more acceptable, to business people in particular. That needs to be fully explored. However, I agree that the existing line must be kept open. All we may really need is an additional line to be used in extremis, but which can be used for freight and local traffic. Then if there should be another breach in years to come, traffic can be switched to that alternate route. It would be wise to wait until we see the report, but it will be important for those of us in the west country to try to reach a consensus on the right way forward. I am afraid that at the moment there are probably as many views as there are Members of Parliament in Devon and Cornwall, which is not helpful. We need to try to reach a consensus.

That issue is eclipsed by the far greater issue of funding. I agree with many of my constituents who ask me, “How on earth can you support HS2?” There is already tremendously impressive infrastructure from London to Birmingham and further north, while in the west country we have a Victorian line that is unfortunately looking more and more vulnerable. I have come to the conclusion that it is very difficult to answer that question, except by saying—as I have already said to Ministers—that it will be impossible for me to support the Government on the Second Reading of the hybrid High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill unless there is a firm commitment on the table for a fully funded package for an agreed alternative route. That has to be new money. There is a lot of money in the five-year budget, but a lot of things have to be done with it; it has to be new money. We are probably talking about hundreds of millions of pounds.

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[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. I also thank the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) for obtaining this important debate.

I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), who said that the Dawlish line needs to be restored. As well as connecting to Cornwall, the line is a great tourist attraction. It is a lovely railway line to travel along. Given that it is 150 years old, it is amazing that it is still there. The line is a remarkable achievement of Brunel, who was such a great engineer. Restoring it is important.

We also have to consider a complementary line that would potentially make it much faster to get from Plymouth and Cornwall up to London. We already have a second line that comes from Exeter up to Waterloo; it runs through my constituency. We have a loop at Axminster, but we need a loop at Honiton, which would help. We also ought to consider twin-tracking the railway all the way down from London to Exeter because that would give us a line to Exeter. Furthermore, we should consider whether we can go across from Exeter towards Okehampton and down to Plymouth. We could try to go across Dartmoor itself, but that might not be easy.

Those things have to be done, and I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter), who pointed out that billions of pounds are to be spent on HS2. Every time I have been through the Lobby to vote for HS2, I have held my nose for the simple reason that I did not want to support it. If we do not see real and meaningful investment in the west country, it is our duty to speak up and stand up for our constituents, and I believe we will. I look forward to my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) reinforcing that point in a minute.

We have to consider the current structure, but we also have to consider sea defences. After I said in Parliament the other day that we do not have to retreat from the sea, The Daily Telegraph poked fun at me slightly by saying that I am like King Canute. Of course King Canute actually stood in the sea to try to persuade his courtiers that he could not keep back the sea. On the Somerset levels there are now Dutch pumps. The people of the Netherlands do not retreat from the sea for the simple reason that, if they did, they would probably lose between a third and two thirds of their country, and they do not intend to do that.

We have to treat sea defences as an infrastructure project. People can rightly argue, as the Government have, that we inherited a huge £120 billion financial deficit in the day-to-day running of the country, and we are reducing that deficit, but there has never been a better time for investment in capital projects and infrastructure because we will never see lower interest rates. I lived through a period of interest rates of 12% and 15% when I was farming, and those rates were cruel and painful to say the least. We now have much better interest rates, so let us use them to our advantage. We need to protect our coastline.

The A30 and the A303 need to be dualled so that we do not only have the M5. The A30 down from Exeter is a good road, but the A30 that runs on the edge of Dorset into Wiltshire, Somerset and the south of my constituency needs to be dualled. We do not want to be held up entirely by Stonehenge. We have to sort out Stonehenge, but it should not be the sticking point against dualling the rest of the road.

On his visit to the west country, the Prime Minister said that 100% of the need will be provided under the Bellwin agreement. There are potholes all over Devon and Cornwall. The roads are horrendous, and a fortune has been spent on them. The roads have to be put right. I was driving through Seaton the other day, and I nearly drove into a pothole the size of half a car. The pothole was not quite that bad, but it was huge and would cause amazing damage.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. Friend agree that Bellwin should be extended to allow local authorities to repair potholes properly, rather than cold-filling potholes only for them to become deeper a couple of weeks down the road?

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend is right about the need for good repairs. The county councils naturally argue that a major repair is much more expensive than just filling a pothole, but she is right that it is a pointless exercise if all the tarmac comes out of the pothole five minutes later. An awful lot of money is available to be spent.

I also welcome the Prime Minister’s pledge of £5,000 grants to help businesses through the floods. Will the Minister give us more detail on how people can claim that money? It is always great when the Government offer money, but people would like to be able to claim and use it.

On the Somerset levels, it has been said that raising the railway line across the moors would cost £200 million. There is one solution to ensure that that railway line does not flood, and that is a sluice at the end of the river Parrett to stop the sea from coming in. At the moment, the sea comes in and drives the fresh water back, and that is what keeps the moors flooded. I cannot guarantee that the sluice would mean that the moors never flooded again, but a tidal sluice on the end of the Parrett, north of Bridgwater, could mean that the depth of water on the moors would not be enough to flood the railway line.

Doing the arithmetic, it would cost £200 million to raise the railway line and that will never happen. I reckon that a sluice across the Parrett would cost some £50 million and if hydroelectric power was put there as well, the project would start to show its worth. It would help farmers, properties and nature conservation. When there is water over the whole Somerset levels for six to eight weeks, there is nothing left when the water recedes. There will not be the lovely flora and fauna or reeds and rushes that everybody wants, because it will all have rotted. Then there is the farmland, what has happened to people’s property and the stock that has had to be moved across the moors. We have to look at the situation seriously.

The other great benefit of having a sluice across the River Parrett is that the water could be penned in during the summer and the area could be made like a mini Norfolk broads. That would bring the benefits of a huge tourist attraction. Devon and Cornwall need a railway line, but we have to cross Somerset to get there, and we need to consider that. I know that the right hon. Member for Exeter does not like dredging and all those things, but they must be part of the armoury. We can hold water in certain places and further upstream, but in the end rivers such as the Parrett and Tone silt up, and without dredging we will not get the water away fast enough.

The management of those waterways has to be much more local, and that is where inland drainage boards can do a lot more. We might need more drainage boards. Will the Minister consider that? We might, dare I say it, have to get people living in houses further up the catchment area to pay a small amount, because their water is flowing down and flooding the lowland areas. There are ways of raising money, which will help. Local management would be so much better.

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[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) on securing this debate, which is very appropriate at this time. I thank you, Mr Hood, for calling me.

As we have heard, the south-west has borne the brunt of the weather, and nowhere has that been more impressive than in South Dorset and, in particular, on the island of Portland. It is still there, I am glad to report, but there were moments when people considered abandoning some of the homes, because the sea had risen by some 60 feet, I would guess. If one goes to the Cove House inn—the pub faces the storm—and looks at the sea when it is benign, it is hard to imagine that it can come in through the pub’s top window. The two wonderful landladies, Jackie Breakspear and Amanda Broughton-South, withstood and held firm, despite the best that the sea could throw at them.

Before I briefly speak on behalf of the fishermen and the chartered crews, who have suffered badly, I pay tribute to all those who fought heroically, and not just recently. We seem to forget that this fight has been going on since Christmas. As the right hon. Gentleman said, these men and women have been working flat out for weeks, hour after hour, in the most appalling conditions.

I pay tribute to the Environment Agency and the local authorities, which did a wonderful job, but I pay particular tribute to the Royal Engineers. The sea came over the top of Chesil beach and deposited about 16 tonnes of pebbles by the Little Ship pub. The question that every MP dreads asking when we go into these situations is, “Can I help?” The landlady, Lynda Davis, said, “Yes, Richard, you can actually. You can remove 16 tonnes of pebbles.” I had this horrific image of spending the rest of my time before the general election with a bucket and spade trying to clear them.

Using my former-Army nous, I moved across and met a young lieutenant. I said to him, “You have got all this kit. I would be most grateful if you could just pop across to the Little Ship and remove 16 tonnes of pebbles.” I am still not used to being called sir, but he said, “Sir! No problem. We will get that done.” Within two days, 16 tonnes of pebbles had been removed. What was even more astonishing was that that young officer told me that his grandfather used to run the pub. What an extraordinary story!

I must also pay tribute to the volunteers, not least the appropriately named Storm Wallace, who became an overnight star. Yes, her name is Storm Wallace. The young lady went on the internet and within days she had 300 people on a beach clean of Chesil beach. It was very impressive, and we are all back there this Sunday, because the sea dumps all the rubbish on the beach.

The fishing fleet and the charter fleet have suffered gratuitously. The concentration has been to a large extent on people and their homes, and rightly so, as well as on the farmers who have lost acres and acres under the water. The fishing fleet and the charter fleet make their living at sea. I am indebted to Andy Alcock, who is the secretary of the Weymouth and Portland Licensed Fishermen’s and Boatmen’s Association. He has armed me with a lot of the information that I will impart. Mr Alcock is a fisherman himself, with two boats and six employees in the high season. He told me that many of our fishermen in South Dorset—that includes Swanage to the east of my constituency—have been unable to put to sea for 60 days. That is two whole months.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the small boat fishermen do not have the luxury of migrating or working in unusually strong weather? They suffer a lot from the consequences of the storms, and they should get help.

[Richard Drax]

I concur entirely with my hon. Friend. Many of our local fishermen, particularly in constituencies such as ours, are small boat operators, and they simply cannot cope with the enormous seas that we have been facing day after day.

Normally, at this time of year, the milder conditions in Weymouth’s microclimate might allow bass fishing to continue throughout Christmas and even new year. Netting for sole, cod and plaice continues throughout the winter months. On average, a Weymouth fisherman can count on being able to put to sea for three in every 10 days in December, January and February. This winter, since December 14, they have been able to fish for only five days. On other occasions, after spending three and a half hours getting to the fishing grounds, the appalling conditions have forced them to return. The result: no fish and no income.

On a good day, a fisherman might earn between £100 and £150. On a bad day, the take is much lower, and of course on many of the days it is nil. However, it is extremely rare that two entire months should pass without any earnings at all. Inevitably, the consequent loss of earnings has eaten into fishermen’s savings and is causing great difficulties.

The loss and destruction of expensive equipment has made recovering from such a dip in income even more difficult. Static gear such as lobster pots, crab pots, whelk pots and fixed nets have been particularly vulnerable because owners have been unable to reach them. Last week, fishermen were finally able to go out and count their losses. Gary Chard, skipper and owner of the “Gordeano Star”, has spent the six days he has been to sea since December 18 finding and repairing his equipment. He told me that of the 36 strings that he fishes, only 21 have been found. Some have moved more than a mile, and finding them has necessitated huge sweeps of possible locations. Each string is valued at £2,000, making Mr Chard’s equipment losses alone about £30,000.

Mr Alcock told me of another of his members who makes a living by tending 18 strings of lobster pots, using a small 18-foot Plymouth pilot boat in the inshore waters around Weymouth. Following the recent storms, the lobsterman found only five of his strings in place. Two more are stuck under the Lulworth ledges and need a diver to retrieve. The rest have gone. Most will be found, eventually, but that could take months, and it is likely that many of the strings will be wound around other nets and lines. Most will be unusable.

Yet, in the interim, that man must earn a living. Self-employed, the fishermen are not covered by the usual welfare safety nets. Mr Chard told me that British fishermen will soon be an endangered group. He asked whether the Government could consider loan grants, using the valuable fishing licences attached to British registered fishing boats as security—a question I pose to the Minister.

Certainly, I would urge the Minister to look kindly on applications from fishermen to the business hardship funds, which I understand are to be administered by local authorities. However, it is not clear where the money is, who is going to dish it out physically, how someone gets it—do they write or telephone in?—and how much they are going to get. I think I saw in one press release that the average amount would be £2,500, which clearly will not cover the vast costs that the people in the charter and fishing business have incurred. I would be most grateful if the Minister clarified exactly what the situation is.

I know that money is tight, but £10 million is nothing—really nothing—to cover the vast costs that the businesses have incurred. When businesses are allowed to apply for the funds, exactly who will qualify? I can see that farmers will; they have been in all the press releases. The Liberal Democrat leader, having been down to the south-west, issued a press release that included fishermen, which I was relieved to see. I have not seen charter boat crews included, but I assume—perhaps the Minister will confirm this—that they will be, because they have to go out and make a living but have not been able to. Some clarity on that important point would be most appreciated.

Finally, Swanage beach is crucial for our town. The whole of our tourism industry is to a large extent based around the beach, because it attracts hundreds of thousands of people down to a beautiful part of the world. The town council has spent £2 million to recover the beach and prepare it for the summer. Will the Government consider helping us here? That is a vast sum of money, which the town council simply cannot afford, despite the low interest rates. I would be grateful if the Minister imparted some information today.

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[Dan Rogerson]

We need schemes before we can talk about how they will be funded. The £130 million was for flood defences and coastal defences that have been impacted by recent events.

I am happy to respond to the right hon. Member for Exeter and the hon. Member for Brent North with my own views on climate change, which are on the record. I am convinced that we are seeing changes in the weather. As parliamentarians, we have all had such advice. It is difficult to draw direct links as a result of particular events, but we can look at trends and the changes that are happening, the advice from the Met Office in recent weeks about weather patterns over the Atlantic and so on, and what has driven them. That gives us cause for concern and I am personally convinced that there is a man-made element to such events, which is why the Government continue to take forward at international and national level a number of measures to decarbonise the economy and make progress on mitigation, as well as on the adaptation works in which my Department is involved.

Several hon. Members made points about land management. That is crucial, but I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) that we need to strike the right balance with food security and a thriving farming sector in upland areas and throughout the country. We have heard the concerns of the National Farmers Union. We do not want to hear the message that we should flood the farmland and give up on it. We can undoubtedly make a contribution through land management practices.

I am aware of the project on Exmoor and I know that South West Water is proud of its contribution. The right hon. Member for Exeter was kind enough to mention that the Department had been involved as well. Were the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, here, no doubt she would be talking about the slowing the flow project at Pickering—we have heard a great deal about that—in which the Department has also been involved.

We take seriously the huge potential to do more to retain water through land management, but, on dredging, the Somerset levels is a man-made environment. Those rivers do not function in the same way as many other catchments, because they have been raised above the level of the surrounding land, as well as redirected and rerouted. We are looking at maintenance and I am chairing the action group on the Somerset levels, which the Secretary of State has challenged to come up with the action plan. Some will be long-term issues, but others will be for the short term. We have already announced that dredging will take place this year to deal with this. The point about the barrier for the River Parrett is a good one. The barrier will allow better management for the Tone and the Parrett and that whole catchment. That work is under way.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) was passionate in her defence of her constituents. She was right to say that that current rail link is crucial. There is a huge population along the south coast of Devon, so it is important to maintain those rail links. However, I represent North Cornwall, which does not have a single railway station. I am sure that if resilience could bring rail travel closer to my constituents, they and I would welcome it. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon on several of those possible outcomes as part of a resilience solution and I look forward to seeing the work on that.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) for the way in which he gave up his time to take me around affected parts of his constituency. We visited the very pub—the Cove House inn—to which he referred. The points he made about fishing and coastal industries are important. I have had time to visit, with the Deputy Prime Minister, fishermen down at Porthleven in the St Ives constituency and also spent time last week at Padstow with fishermen from my part of the world, particularly those lobster and crab fishermen who have lost so much gear, as my hon. Friend described, or found that their gear, if recovered, is crushed and no longer useable.

The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), is looking at those issues to see what can be done to support such fishermen. In the meantime, the fisheries local action groups—FLAGs—have European fisheries fund money. I have talked to the project in Cornwall and there may be help under existing schemes.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. Friend agree that FLAGs operate under strict European rules? Replacement of fishing gear would not be included in that funding.

[Dan Rogerson]

I am being tempted into a quite local issue, but the discussions I have had suggest that help may be possible. I also draw attention to the fact that a number of banks have said that they will make interest-free loans to affected businesses. That may be part of the solution to allow people to get back up and running to trade again, not only in fishing, but across a variety of trades.

The Government have set out business recovery schemes, as well as schemes to help people make their homes more resilient. I am working closely with my colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government on how people access those funds and we will make further announcements. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is making available an action line that businesses can contact for help and advice on how they take things forward.

This has been a terrible period of weather events throughout the country, from the east coast in early December to, as we have heard today, the south-west. The Government remain committed to spending the money we need on flood defences for the future. We will continue to monitor our response to improve on that. I very much welcome the huge efforts that all the agencies, volunteers and communities made to respond to those events. I know that right hon. and hon. Members will continue to discuss those issues with me over the coming weeks.