Waste Incineration: Regulation

Steve Brine Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[John Grogan]

My hon. Friend makes a point and in a moment I will briefly set out the case for a moratorium on new incinerators, which I think is definitely needed.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

At the moment, my constituents are very worried about proposals for a new incinerator the size of Battersea power station in the Hampshire downs countryside, which is a rural location, not an urban one. It would be in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), whom it is good to see in her place. Given that incineration is not recycling and the proposals would lead to countless lorry movements just to feed the machine, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would be good to hear from the Minister about where the Government see incineration in the hierarchy of waste management in England today?

Rural Payments Agency: Basic Payment Scheme

Steve Brine Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

Yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. We will be seeking to ensure that the claims are processed as quickly as possible and paid as speedily as we have demonstrated our ability to do in recent years.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

As the Minister knows, all that farmers in my constituency want is to get their application in on time and to get paid on time so that they can get on with running their business. Is he concerned about errors made this year and the ensuing penalties that we have heard about from other Members? Will farmers still be able to use the online system, or just agents, given that not all farmers have the use of agents?

[George Eustice]

We are giving some of the larger agents, representing just short of 20,000 farmers, access to the online system. We will not be able to give that access to all agents because of the training required and the time scale needed to enable them to use it. All farmers must still register online, and they will be able to download maps. Those who have simple claims will be able to sign a declaration to say that their land use has not changed and is still simple, such as permanent pasture. I take on board my hon. Friend’s point about errors. As I said, I have been pressing the RPA to take the most generous possible interpretation of the EU regulations. The regulations are clear that where an error is not the farmer’s fault, no penalty can be levelled against them.

Winter Flooding (Preparation)

Steve Brine Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to have you presiding over us, Mr Bone.

Last winter was nothing short of a nightmare for many people in our country, including in my constituency, who faced some of the worst flooding in living memory. The heaviest and most persistent rainfall in years created transport chaos, destroyed livelihoods and literally put people out of their homes. Even the most conservative estimates made the 2013-14 winter the wettest on record. More than 5,000 homes and businesses were flooded and many rivers in southern England reached their highest ever recorded levels.

I want to make it clear from the outset that although many of my constituents experienced huge inconvenience and some flooding as a result of last winter’s weather, we are not in the same ballpark as many areas of the country, nor do we pretend to be. Indeed, part of the reason why I secured this debate is to tell a good news story of how we learned the lessons of the past in Winchester and prevented flooding from taking place, and how I think that can serve us in the winter to come.

However, my main purpose today is to try to explain the wider socio-economic impact that flooding can have in a constituency such as mine and how some parts of our country can all too easily fall off the map when it comes to flood resilience works. In doing that, I intend to break Winchester’s story down into two parts: the historic city of Winchester and everywhere else. It will become clear why as I develop my argument.

Back in the year 2000, Winchester flooded—not just some of the villages that make up my constituency, but Winchester itself, as the River Itchen burst its banks. Locals remember ducks and swans happily swimming around the ancient city streets within sight of the famous statue of King Alfred, who keeps watch over the city from the Broadway. Many of my constituents use the year 2000 as their marker when judging floods thereafter.

This year, I am happy to say, Alfred kept his feet dry, and it was generally positive action from Hampshire county council, Winchester city council and the Environment Agency that ensured that he did. The River Itchen flows into my constituency through Alresford, into the Itchen valley and down into Winchester itself, passing along the appropriately named Water lane in an area known historically, although not so much these days, as “the Soak”. At its height, such was the volume of water flowing through Winchester that there was a real risk that dozens of homes and businesses in the lower part of the town would flood.

To put a figure on what I mean by volume, I should say that at one point, some 12,000 litres per second were flowing towards the city mill and, as it turned out, the incredibly sturdy and resilient Roman bridge that goes past the city mill. With the help of the Isle of Wight fire brigade, to whom we are incredibly grateful, people tried to bypass the mill to relieve some of the pressure on homes upstream, but even the heaviest pumping equipment known in the county and elsewhere, I am sure, was never going to be enough. That is where the lessons learned from the events of 2000 came into play: we tried something that other Members may be interested in copying in their areas.

Fourteen years ago, the sluices that control and protect Winchester and control the flow of the River Itchen through the city were not intelligently managed. Several downstream at William of Wykeham’s famous Winchester college, designed to let water out on to the ancient water meadows, were not fully open. The inevitable backing-up that occurred was sooner or later going to cause the Itchen to burst its banks. That was what flooded many homes and schools in that part of town.

In 2014, the lessons had been learned and the Environment Agency was fully in control of all the sluices in the city. It was a delicate balancing act. I went out with people from the Environment Agency many times and watched them work. The impact was obvious to those living alongside the Itchen and will serve as a reassuring factor as we approach the winter of 2014-15.

Further to that, there is an idea that I aired in the House back in February; I know the Minister is aware of it and I believe it could be useful to other parts of the country this year. We borrowed a bit of genius from Pakistan that really did save Winchester this year. The gentleman in question was a former army major in the Pakistani army. He settled in the UK, where he became part of the Environment Agency team in the south-east. He was aware that the sluice control in the centre of the city could only ever do so much, and, with water levels continuing to rise as the rain continued to fall, he imposed what we call a restriction many miles upstream, which deliberately flooded some farmland in the Itchen valley. That restriction literally drew heat out of the river. The Environment Agency lowered dozens of giant bags of granite and gravel into a river from a bridge on the busy A34 and M3 motorway; it was quite a sight.

As a result, River Itchen flows at the village of Easton reduced from a peak of 15 tonnes per second to about 13 tonnes per second. That might not sound like a lot, but I can assure you that it had an impact, Mr Bone. Estimates at the time reckoned that the action, together with all the other multi-agency work that went on, saved around 100 homes from certain flooding several miles downstream in the centre of Winchester. It was a first for our country, but it clearly worked. There was significant media interest at the time, and has been since, in the man and the method that saved Winchester. The gravel was even emptied out into the river when its job was done to help the fish spawn, so it was a true environmental success story.

I turn to the future. The Environment Agency is working in what it calls a partnership team—a wonderful term—with Winchester city council and Hampshire county council to implement contingency measures taken in last winter’s flood as permanent defences in the most strategic locations in the city. The areas identified include Water lane, where we are looking into the feasibility of a flood wall along the length of that road that will serve to protect the road and those properties from flooding in future, and north of Park avenue.

The Park avenue works will manage the flood flows from entering the city and give direct benefits to properties in Park avenue, to the Winchester school of art, run by the university of Southampton, and to St Bede’s primary school, by protecting flood walls. The partnership is aiming to deliver those improvements this financial year, which will be welcome news, especially for St Bede’s school. It had to be rebuilt and raised off the ground further after the floods of 2000. The team there, not to mention the parent body, which both coped brilliantly in extreme circumstances, were dismayed to find that the school was partially closed again this year, even after those works, as unprecedented water levels rendered the toilets in the school and parts of the building unusable.

Furthermore, the Environment Agency in our part of the world now stocks a flood barrier and has access to more nationally, if needed, that can be used to direct water away from high-risk areas, reducing the impact on property in my constituency. Those can be deployed quickly and the south-east team regularly train with the equipment to ensure that they are ready to respond at a moment’s notice. I have seen the training sessions in practice and the equipment really does the business.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate and I am following his speech with great interest. Would he acknowledge the contribution of the fire and rescue brigades? Perhaps he will come to that issue later in his speech. Certainly, a number of brigades from my region were in the south-east. Does he further recognise the value of having a statutory duty placed on fire and rescue authorities to prepare for flooding in such contingencies?

[Steve Brine]

I have already mentioned the Isle of Wight fire brigade, and generally speaking, the Hampshire fire and rescue service were incredible. I have heard from many colleagues around the country about the work they did. I had the mobile number of the chief fire officer and I was constantly talking to him. At one point, I remember being out in the village of Littleton in my constituency; I called them and within two hours, they came out and helped pump out some people who were in real trouble. So yes, they were incredible.

On the statutory duty, my honest answer is that I am not sure, but I am well aware of the debate. I am more than open to it, and fire officers have talked to me about the issue in my part of the world. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution.

The tale of central Winchester last winter is a winter’s tale with a happy ending. That was in no small part down to the effectiveness of Gold control, which is based in Netley in southern Hampshire, backed up by Silver control in Winchester at the Guildhall, under the leadership of Simon Eden, the chief executive, and Rob Humby, the leader of the city council. That is the sort of command and control system that I am sure Members will recognise from their areas, designed to co-ordinate cross-agency working. It was a recommendation of the Pitt review following the floods of 2007 and it is key now to our planning for next winter if needed. It worked, and to visit it, as I did on a number of occasions back in February, and see city officers working alongside the Army, county colleagues and fire and rescue colleagues was very reassuring indeed.

The most visible example of that was one very bleak afternoon in February in Winchester, when those of us who had been heaving sandbags for longer than we would care to remember were more than a little relieved when Silver control sent some incredible guys and girls from HMS Collingwood to help us. Something tells me that they had the shoulders for it more than I do, and they were very welcome.

I said at the outset that I wanted to explain the wider socio-economic impact that flooding can have in a constituency such as mine. That is why I shall focus on what happened in a number of the villages that I represent. In places such as Kings Worthy, Headbourne Worthy, Littleton, Hursley and Sutton Scotney, flooding from groundwater, not the river, is the main flood risk management issue. The impact of groundwater flooding on individual communities such as those is severe and long-lasting in terms of the duration of flooding and recovery. My constituents living in Lovedon lane and Springvale road in Kings Worthy, as well as Chris and Sharron Bruty, who, with Ross Brimfield, run the King Charles pub—they were incredibly helpful to me and many other residents—would recognise that problem, as it was in their lives, and almost in their pub, for a month or more.

Residents just up the road in Headbourne Worthy, whose parish council chairman in a meeting with me just last week described his village as the “plughole for the valley”—he meant it in the nicest possible way—had weeks of deep water creeping closer to their homes and the ancient St Swithun’s church. The road through the village was closed, at their request, because of the bow waves—that became a hashtag last winter—caused by inconsiderate drivers flying through the floodwaters.

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

I am very interested in what my hon. Friend has to say, and he is absolutely right to raise the issues that arise in villages. Does he agree that this is one of the challenges? The Environment Agency does a good job with the major schemes, and that is reasonably well funded. However, when we get to the smaller schemes, we find that the local authorities are simply not funded and therefore the prevention—there are many things that you can do in fields with help from farmers—is not done, because the money simply is not there. One protection and prevention measure this year could be to put the funding in those local authorities—particularly the rural authorities, which are so dreadfully underfunded.

[Steve Brine]

My hon. Friend is a visionary and a futurist. Bear with me—“bear with”, as someone recently said.

I was touching on Headbourne Worthy. The Good Life Farm Shop lost thousands of pounds of business because of the road closure. That is part of the wider socio-economic impact that I mentioned. My constituents in the village of Littleton, another place where my team and I shifted thousands of sandbags, took that to a whole new level, as one end of the village was the ungrateful recipient of thousands of tonnes of water flowing off groundwater-saturated farmland at the other. One thing that I have learned this year is that water is ruthless and will find its way, no matter what or who is in its way, to the lowest common point. I saw that happen to devastating effect.

Meanwhile, villagers at the other end of my constituency, in Hursley, saw rising groundwater levels fill cellars and infiltrate sewerage systems, with the resulting outpouring down the picture-postcard streets. The villagers do not look on that as their village’s finest hour and I would not want to see it again.

What do all these communities, including Sutton Scotney in the north of my constituency, where there are still constituents out of their homes, have in common? As I said, their flooding was the result of groundwater—levels just overspilled. The problem that they all share is that the cost-benefit ratio for flood alleviation schemes—this issue was alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris)—under the national funding formula does not favour them or, I am sure, many of the villages that colleagues represent, because of the low number of properties that are actually physically flooded.

The difficulty is being able easily to quantify impacts such as the road closures that I mentioned, disruption to local businesses, such as the Good Life Farm Shop and the King Charles pub, deliveries to those businesses and to homes, welfare services, social care, education—I mentioned St Bede’s school—and normal life in general. Our experience in Winchester points to the need for the cost-benefit analysis for flood alleviation schemes to be articulated in a very different way.

We know that the national funding formula, the so-called flood defence grant in aid programme, will never touch us, but we want to build something that is complementary to it, not in place of it, which properly recognises the value of multiple small-scale local measures to deliver community flood resilience.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on initiating the debate. Could he address a problem that constituents right across the United Kingdom face when flooding happens? I am referring to the difficulty that householders, including my constituents, encounter when they try to get insurance. They experience great difficulty in getting insurance at all or they face exorbitant rates. Surely the Government must do more on that with the insurance companies.

[Steve Brine]

Yes. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I could have gone into huge detail on insurance, but I know how many hon. Members want to speak in the debate. A huge insurer based in my constituency, Ageas, briefed me recently. There is a scheme that has come out as a result of the floods; there is a levy on policies that helps those in hard-to-insure or uninsurable properties. I urge the hon. Gentleman to look into that. Perhaps the Minister will refer to it.

I was talking about the national programme and the difficulties that communities such as mine, and those represented by many colleagues here, will have in accessing that. Fortunately, Hampshire county council, which Winchester clearly comes under, has a plan that is actively being discussed with officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—even the day before yesterday, they were discussing it again, I think. Following my introducing the idea to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Treasury officials are looking at it ahead of the autumn statement. Called the Pathfinder programme, it would look beyond property protection to measure the benefits of resilience in the wider area—for example, the benefit of maintaining strategic transport routes.

Better management of groundwater flood risk at local level, unconstrained by the current funding methodology, would mean that the communities that I represent could remain open for the duration of the flood, enabling local economies and businesses to function. By integrating existing programmes with a devolved funding pot for new measures, benefits of scale could be realised by incorporating simple flood risk measures alongside other maintenance programmes such as highway drainage or even the resurfacing of a road.

The Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs report, “Winter floods 2013-14”, rightly highlights the fact that each catchment area has different flood risk management needs. It argues that effective flood risk management should be informed by local knowledge and prioritised according to local circumstances. It calls on the Government to assess the possibility of a total expenditure for flood and coastal risk management in order to allow greater flexibility to target funding according to local priorities. I think that Government support for the Pathfinder programme in Hampshire would provide for exactly the type of flexibility envisaged in the Select Committee’s report.

Lest the Minister think that this is just another clever ruse from Hampshire, supported by its MPs—my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) is here today—to eke more money out of the Government for it to spend as it sees fit, I am pleased to be able to say that Pathfinder is underpinned by serious academic work by the university of Portsmouth, which is working to secure a sensible baseline for cost-benefit analysis of flood risk adaption and mitigation. Hampshire seeks £2 million for Pathfinder that DEFRA devolves for a three-year programme and it will stand behind that request with match funding from Hampshire council tax payers. If the Minister hears nothing else that I say this morning, I ask him, as a consequence of today’s debate, to press his officials on those proposals and to think creatively about what they can offer.

Finally, I come to the repair and renew grant, or RRG, which I have become incredibly familiar with in recent months. It had the best of intentions when it was set up, but it was, for a start, poorly named, as many of my constituents who were attempting to claim against it would find out. The original guidelines defined the RRG as being used only if

“habitable internal areas of the premises have been damaged by flooding”.

However, following sustained appeals from my constituents, through me, DEFRA Ministers, to their credit, noted the high impact on daily lives where people were unable to continue living in their home and, on 24 June, Ministers decided to extend the RRG beyond the use in relation to habitable areas. That means that under the revised scheme, money can now be paid to those people whose septic tanks were flooded—a problem that was very acute in my area and that I suspect others will recognise. As they put it to me in their letter of 25 June,

“this is due to the fact that people cannot reasonably be expected to live in a property that is not flooded but has no functioning sewerage system”.

Quite!

That was a victory for common sense, and Winchester city council has run with it. As of the end of last week, the chief executive tells me, the council had received 67 applications to the reformed RRG, with 44 approved and only two rejected. The value of grants paid out to date is in the region of £45,000.

I do, however, have one final ask on the RRG, on which I beg the Minister’s assistance; I gave him notice of this. As he knows, the scheme is due to close at the end of this financial year, by which time all schemes that receive grant approval need to be implemented and the money claimed back from the council. I do not think that that will be a problem for most individual claimants, but for larger-scale, collaborative schemes, that deadline certainly is a problem.

There is one such scheme in the village of Littleton, which I have already mentioned. A residents company has a programme, already agreed by the council in Winchester and by DEFRA, that is designed to deal with the surface water that inundated their private foul drainage system last winter, leaving many of my constituents without drainage for many weeks. There were Portaloos in the village for a long time.

I am concerned that because of the detailed design work that is required to do this properly—and it must be done properly—it may not be possible for my constituents to implement the scheme and claim back the costs by the end of March next year. I appeal to the Minister to look at the case once again and to demonstrate the kind of flexibility that the Department displayed earlier this year, which showed it in such a good light. I am happy to provide the details to the Minister outside the debate.

I place on the record my thanks, on behalf of my constituents and many others in Hampshire, for the £11.5 million that our county was awarded from the Government’s flood recovery fund to assist with repairs following the floods. That has been invaluable in repairing roads in my constituency, such as Springvale road in Kings Worthy and the B3047 through Itchen Abbas, which were ripped to shreds by floodwater. Hampshire spent £5 million of that £11.5 million on repairing the county’s roads. That was in addition to the £35 million that the county spends on highways as part of its annual maintenance budget. That is a word of thanks, which I know the Minister will appreciate.

As I have tried to set out, many things went well in my constituency last winter when we were faced with unprecedented levels of rainfall, and there are real success stories to tell. Some things, such as the RRG, have since improved. We need some further help, as I outlined, in preparation for winter 2014-15. In preparation for this winter, however, other nuts are not so easy to crack. I close by stressing the importance to me and to my constituents of the Pathfinder scheme, as put forward by Hampshire county council. I look forward to hearing what other Members have to say, and I look forward to the response from the Minister and the shadow Minister.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Flooding

Steve Brine Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin). There is a Team North Lincolnshire, which Team Hampshire on these Benches will do our best to follow.

I have to say that the situation on the ground in my constituency is improving, but the crisis is far from over. Everything we face there and everywhere I have been in the past few weeks has been described as and compared with the events of 2000, when we were last badly hit by flooding. People have been watching the water and river levels to see how these floods compare with those of that year.

I have not been on piste or on beach during the past few weeks; I have been in my constituency to help out where I could. The village of Kings Worthy has been hit particularly badly, with many road closures that have caused huge inconvenience to local people. In the village of Headbourne Worthy, huge groundwater issues have caused sewage problems and a huge loss of business for local pubs and the Good Life garden centre. In the village of Sutton Scotney, which I visited last weekend, several people have had to leave their homes, and will be looking for the help outlined earlier by the Secretary of State. The village of Hursley has suffered huge issues with rising groundwater and sewage levels; when I visited it, raw sewage was coming down the street. I have learned about the ruthlessness of water over the past few weeks. Water will find the quickest, most ruthless route to the bottom. It does not discriminate between the things that it goes through or across in getting to the bottom. I have seen the devastating impact of that in the village of Littleton over the past few weeks. I have also seen it in the centre of the great city of Winchester, which the River Itchen flows through.

Over the past few weeks in my constituency, I have seen an incredible example of what the Prime Minister would call the big society. Communities have come together and responded fantastically. I will name-check a few people because they deserve it. In the village of Twyford, a gentleman called David Sullivan gets up very early and does a water level reading, which he e-mails to me. He has done that every day for the past fortnight. David Sullivan, Angela Forder-Stent of the parish council and the rest of the team in Twyford have been phenomenal. Parish clerk Sue Hedges and Councillor Stephen Godfrey in Sutton Scotney have worked tirelessly. Harry Whorwood and Giles Vigor-Robertson in Headbourne Worthy have basically given up work over the past few weeks to protect their communities.

I am name-checking those people and talking about their community spirit because it shows how communities can respond to the devastation that flooding can bring, which many Members have described. The stoicism and pragmatism that I have seen have been remarkable. From the constituents I have met over recent days, I would say that the older they are, the greater their stoicism and pragmatism, because they have seen it all before.

The motion mentions the Pitt report, which I have of course read. It is true that some of the recommendations of the Pitt report have not been implemented. That is regrettable and we need to see to that. It stated in particular that multi-agency working must be better next time. In my constituency, the multi-agency approach has worked. The Environment Agency, Hampshire county council, Winchester city council, the parishes, Hampshire fire and rescue service and, of course, the Army have been involved. I was in Kings Worthy one morning during half term last week trying to move 1,000 sandbags, when 10 chaps from the Royal Signals at Bulford turned up to help. I can tell the House that, with my shoulders, they were very welcome.

The multi-agency working has been brilliant and responsive at all times. The Environment Agency has received a lot of criticism over the past few weeks. Some of it has been deserved in other parts of the country, but that is for other Members to touch on. In my area, the Environment Agency has more than risen to the challenge. Mike O’Neill deserves a mention. He even went door-to-door with me in parts of central Winchester to talk to and reassure residents. He deserves great credit for that. At one point, water was flowing down the appropriately named Water lane in Winchester, which the River Itchen runs past, at 12,000 litres per second—very fast—towards the ancient city mill. That was terrifying for residents. However, the multi-agency working and the good thinking of the Environment Agency prevented flooding in hundreds of homes. It deserves our thanks. The agencies have played a bad hand very well.

Upstream from Winchester, the Royal Engineers lowered several hundred 1-tonne bags of gravel into the River Itchen from the bridge of the M3 motorway to restrict its flow. That has not been done before. It slowed the Itchen and held it back. It flooded some farmland in the village of Easton in the Itchen valley, but farmers were happy to allow that to help save Winchester. It worked. That was a roll of the dice by the Environment Agency. When Chris Smith came to Winchester yesterday, he went to the River Itchen and saw the work that had been done. I know that he was impressed and I thank him and his team for their support in doing that work.

In closing, I am concerned about the bids that the Environment Agency has asked Hampshire county council, as the risk management authority in my area, to put together for the six-year plan for 2015-16 to 2020-21. It is good that a long-term plan is being put in place, but the process is incredibly rushed. The council is under incredible pressure to put it together. Just today, two parish councillors in my area have told me about meetings that they will have in the next few weeks to consider the response to the flooding crisis.

We need time to get this right. Of course we do not need to drag it out through the whole year until next winter comes around quickly and we are back in this situation again. However, my constituents want to know that proposals that miss the deadline because of proper consideration of what we need following the floods will not miss the boat, and that we will not be told that they have missed out as a result. I hope that the Minister—who is nodding—hears that point.

In conclusion, there is always more the Government can do, and of course if there were an endless pot of money we could do everything we want. However, the relief package that has been put in place and administered so efficiently by Councillor Humby and his colleagues at Winchester city council is welcome, and it will be made use of by me and my constituents.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

May I begin by joining my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in sending good wishes to the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) for a speedy recovery? We really do look forward to seeing him back in his place.

We have had an extremely important, well-informed and wide-ranging debate. I would like to express my condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in connection with the recent stormy weather. I also echo the thanks that have been expressed to all those who worked so hard during this extremely difficult time: the local communities, the farmers who supported one another, the council staff who delivered sandbags and provided rest centres where people go when they have to leave their homes, the police, the fire service—the fire service in particular has been praised by my hon. Friends the Members for Derby North (Chris Williamson) and for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes)—the armed forces, the utility companies and the transport companies, all of them, which rescued people and tried to restore power and keep people moving where that was possible, and of course the staff of the Environment Agency.

I know from my own experience just how committed and dedicated the agency’s staff are and how difficult it must have been for them, at the very moment when they were working all hours, to hear their efforts insultingly and unfairly criticised by some. I do hope they will have taken some comfort from the praise that we have heard from many parts of the House today for their efforts, including praise for individual Environment Agency staff by name, including from the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine). I do not know whether the great big bags were given a name, but the Itchen diversion would probably suffice. It was an example of imagination and innovation in the face of huge quantities of water.

[Steve Brine]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Hilary Benn]

Very briefly, as time is short.

[Steve Brine]

It was a restriction of the River Itchen which took the heat out of the river and flooded some farmland to save Winchester.

[Hilary Benn]

It shows what can happen when people take advice from the experts, as happened in that case.

We heard powerful testimony from many hon. Members about the effect that flooding has on the lives of the people whom we all represent, and on the communities and the families involved. That has been experienced not just in the past two months, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) in recounting what happened in the terrible summer of 2007. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) spoke about people’s homes. I remember visiting his constituency in 2007. There are few things worse than seeing one’s home invaded by dirty brown water full of sewage, seeing one’s possessions ruined, and in many cases having to flee one’s home with no idea when one will be able to return.

We live in an era in which, as human beings, we have come to think sometimes that whatever happens, whatever nature throws at us, somebody ought to be able to deal with it, and if it cannot be dealt with, someone must be to blame for what has happened. The truth is that we are confronting nature’s raw power and in the face of it, we human beings are small in comparison. It has enormous force. It can wreck a train line. It can, as the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) said, reshape the land itself. Of course that does not mean there is nothing we can do; on the contrary, there is a great deal we can do, and that action should be informed by the lessons that we learn.

I hope that in replying the Minister will tell the House what the process for learning lessons is going to be on this occasion. I commend the approach taken by Sir Michael Pitt in carrying out his review in 2007. It was a widely praised report. I thought it was exemplary. It was clear, practical and full of recommendations, including the proposal, for example, that the Met Office and the Environment Agency should come together to issue a single flood warning. In 2009 we established the Flood Forecasting Centre and everybody recognises that it has led to an improvement in the information that has been made available.

The other lesson is that whatever the recommendations and however good they are, they need to be followed through. I saw the Secretary of State nodding when the point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood in her opening speech. I hope the Government will produce some further implementation reports on the Pitt report and that that of 2012 will not be the last, because we know that there are some recommendations that have not yet been completed.

We also heard in the debate many examples mentioned by right hon. and hon. Members where the arrangements have worked on the ground—where there has been effective co-operation, the right leadership and all the agencies co-operating. However, we also know from the experience of the past two months that there have been some places—Muchelney is one, Wraysbury is another, and there are others—where residents felt that help was very slow to arrive.

I think that there is a very fair question to be asked about that. What was the plan locally? If help did not arrive to ensure that elderly people got the assistance they needed, to help folk move furniture and valuables upstairs to stop them being wrecked by the water, and to evacuate people in a timely way, why did it not arrive, especially in places where there had been flooding previously? The Government have a responsibility nationally, but local government and the local community also have a responsibility. We need plans that are not only good on paper, but can be implemented when the time comes.

Given the number of families who have been forced out of their homes, I am grateful for the swift response—Downing street took about 20 minutes to respond—to my call for families not to have to worry about paying council tax on a home they cannot live in. I would be grateful if the Minister could be absolutely clear that what the Prime Minister said when he was in Wales—that local authorities will be fully funded for the cost of offering a council tax rebate—will happen. The Secretary of State said that the Government have talked about there being enough funding for at least three months, but we know from evidence from the insurance industry, in particular, and the experience in 2007 that people can be out of their homes for a lot longer, perhaps for six or nine months, and sadly in some cases for more than a year.

Will the Minister also indicate whether the Government are proposing to look again at the rules? To answer the Secretary of State, of course councils should be able to charge more council tax when properties are left empty deliberately, but there was previously an automatic exemption in cases of flooding, for example if someone could not live in their home because it needed repair to make it habitable. That was taken away in the 2012 changes and instead made subject to the discretion of councils. To provide reassurance in the years ahead, I think that it should be automatic in cases of flooding.

On transport, we all want to see the railway line at Dawlish repaired as soon as possible, because it is an economic lifeline—a point reinforced in my conversation with the leader of Plymouth city council, Tudor Evans. As that and other storm damage reminds us, the complex ecosystem of modern life and infrastructure can be very vulnerable, which is why we need to take it into account not just in repairing but in building for the future.

We must also learn to adapt. We need crossovers on motorways so that when they are flooded cars can turn around and go back the other way. As we heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) and for Newport West (Paul Flynn), we need to plant trees near rivers and look at farming practice and land use helping the water soak away and slowing its rush. As the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) explained, we need to look at where dredging can and cannot help. We must ensure that when there are huge downpours in towns and cities, the water does not meet a wall of paving slabs, concrete and tarmac, because that is why Sheffield and Hull flooded in 2007. We also need to recognise that although sandbags can help in some cases, it is dedicated flood protection that makes the difference.

I hope that the Minister will agree to the cross-party talks referred to in the motion, because whoever is in government will have to continue to deal with this problem. There is no doubt that the world’s climate is changing and that humankind’s actions are causing it. The climate impact projections, based on the best science we have, suggest that in the years ahead we will see hotter and drier summers and wetter winters with more flooding.

Let us just reflect on the past decade. In 2003 a heat wave led to 2,000 excess deaths in this country, even though temperatures were just 2° higher than normal. In 2006 we had a severe drought. Around 8 million people in the south-east of Britain depend on rivers for their water supply. In 2007 we saw widespread flooding across the country, and Great Yarmouth came within 10 cm of being overcome. In 2009 the High street in Cockermouth turned into a raging torrent. This January was the wettest winter month for almost 250 years. The result—we have heard it powerfully expressed today—is that yet more communities in our country are coming face to face with the consequences of a changing climate, in this case as the waters invade their homes.

We know what happens when these events occur—the drama unfolds, the cameras arrive, the stories are told, the statements are made, and for a while the nation’s attention is focused on what we can see before our very eyes. But we also know that when the waters recede and the weeks and months pass, the long, slow, hard process of recovery continues away from the public gaze. We should come together for the families and communities so that we adapt to what we cannot change and protect what we can, and so that others people do not suffer what so many have experienced over the past two months.

Bee Health

Steve Brine Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

It is a great honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. This year’s Budget quite rightly supports those people who are working hard and contributing to our economy. Life is tough for many hard-working people, and we are doing all we can to support them. Particular focus has been directed at people investing in British businesses and employing more people. The national growth strategy has identified sectors of our economy that are strong, that are growing and that have the opportunity to generate increased wealth for our nation by making more things and exporting them overseas. In the next 10 minutes or so, I would like the Minister to think about another army of workers that needs our support right now—Britain’s bees.

Agribusinesses, farmers, and food and drinks manufacturers are quite rightly identified as significant contributors to our economy and to our future prosperity. In my constituency, this sector is helping to lead the way towards sustainable, export-driven growth. Food, drink and farming businesses employ nearly a third of working people across Cornwall. Local products include the iconic pasty, the native oyster, wine, cider, beer, soft fruit and vegetables, and even tea, which is grown at Tregothnan and exported to China.

Nationally, the agri-food and drink sector contributes £85 billion a year to the UK economy and provides employment for 3.5 million people. Without a strong work force of bees, we will not be able to realise the potential of this sector in the coming years. Nearly all the drinks and food that I have mentioned need bees as pollinators. Bees deliver that service better than anything else in our ecosystem. It is estimated that manual pollination, which is the only option if a catastrophic decline in bee numbers takes place, would cost British farmers up to £1.8 billion every year. Don’t get me wrong—like all wildlife, the bee population is important in its own right, and as part of a balanced ecosystem, which is vital for our health and well-being. However, as we are so rightly focused at the moment in Parliament on the economy, the focus of my speech is on the economic benefits of bee health.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has done much to try to understand why the bee population in Britain, the EU and the USA is declining. In the UK alone, the number of managed honey bee colonies fell by 53% between 1985 and 2005. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs understands that pollinators, including bees, are essential to the health of our natural environment and to the prosperity of our farming industry. DEFRA has estimated that pollination is worth several hundred million pounds every year. Also, bees are among our greatest allies in delivering DEFRA’s twin priorities of animal health and plant health. The Department is implementing the healthy bees plan, working with beekeepers to provide training and respond to pest and disease threats. Within that plan, DEFRA’s national bee unit provides inspection, diagnostic and training services to beekeepers. Before I entered Parliament, I was a trainee beekeeper, and I very much appreciated the helpful advice of those helping me to learn the craft, particularly inspectors.

Work under the “Biodiversity 2020” banner is delivering more and improved habitats for bees and other pollinators. A further bee-supporting project is the entry-level stewardship scheme for farmers, which promotes the growth of beneficial plants for bees and pollinators. Natural England is working hard with farmers to help them to identify areas of land to provide these habitats, and £10 million has been allocated to a range of research projects that will help bees and pollinators.

Taken as a whole, these measures represent a lot of different activities that are focused on trying to understand why bees are declining, and on taking action to reverse that trend. Most recently, DEFRA has been involved at the EU level in considering the restriction of some chemicals that are used mostly by our cereal crop farmers as pesticides. Just last week, the chief scientific adviser told the Select Committee on Science and Technology, of which I am a member, that he did not feel that there was sufficient evidence to ban the chemicals that are under consideration, but that we should keep the decision under review while awaiting more scientific evidence. He also said that we need to bear in mind the impact of withdrawing the chemicals in the pesticides, including the impact that would have on food prices, especially the prices of winter wheat and rape.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I will be brief. My constituent Hugh Sykes, who is the chairman of the Winchester and District Beekeepers Association, and whom I have met many times, has been in touch with me—along with hundreds of other constituents—on this subject, and he contacted me specifically about the recent vote on the issue in Europe. Does my hon. Friend know why our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs abstained on that vote? Also, although I appreciate what she is saying, does she not agree that until the science is proven on this particular pesticide—the Secretary of State said that he was a sceptic on the subject of this particular pesticide, as are many people—we should perhaps hold back from using it, given that there is clearly something greatly affecting the bee populations in our constituencies?

[Sarah Newton]

Like my hon. Friend, I have been contacted by many hundreds of constituents on this issue—I am sure that all MPs have—because many of our constituents take such a close interest in our environment and care for it, which is to be welcomed as it is a really good thing. There has been some excellent campaigning work done by, for example, Friends of the Earth.

As far as I understand from my correspondence with the Secretary of State, the reason for the abstention, which was backed up by the chief scientific adviser, is that the evidence is not clear as to how harmful some of these chemicals are. DEFRA operates on the precautionary principle when making decisions. It has agreed to ensure that the research in this area is kept open and continues, and it has also agreed that if any harmful impact is detected, it will, of course, act. I hope that my hon. Friend, when he has listened to more of what I have to say, will understand that I think we need a more holistic approach to how we are handling this problem. Much as I would love to think that there is one silver bullet, there probably is not, and we need to consider all the different contributing factors that have been leading, undeniably, to bee decline.

I return to the impact of reducing the use of these pesticides. Reducing their use would also reduce the quantity of crops, and that could have a detrimental effect on the bee population because it would reduce some of the bees’ foraging habitat, as well as reducing biodiversity.

Bees have been in decline for some time, as I am sure the beekeepers with whom my hon. Friend is in regular contact have been telling him. We have been hoping to discover a single reason, such as a disease that was causing the collapse of colonies and that could be cured, or one particular chemical that could be identified and banned. However, I think we have come to realise that there will not be a single solution, and that this is a complex problem.

Public Forest Estate (England)

Steve Brine Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

I am not giving way to the right hon. Gentleman because he has only just come into the Chamber.

The Forestry Commission will have its role altered over time, as this period transpires. We want it to concentrate on regulation, advice and research, and on promoting the wider planting of trees. Let us not forget that the under the last five years of the Labour Government, tree planting in this country fell by 60%.

A number of hon. Members referred to the Forest Stewardship Council. I can assure the House—I am happy to give this guarantee—that the council’s certification scheme will remain a condition if we transfer any forests that are currently subject to it, as they all are.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) understandably wanted assurances and called the issue of access “a deal-breaker”. I can assure him—I promise him—that access as it currently exists will be guaranteed. I cannot make it any clearer than that.

[Mr Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

Access is the key point in the hundreds of communications that I have received. Does the Minister agree that over the course of the consultation, the challenge for Ministers is to make the case on access to the hundreds and thousands of people who are e-mailing hon. Members?

[Mr Paice]

I cannot say it more clearly than I just did. We will guarantee existing rights of access on any land that is moved away from its current operation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham also rightly referred to jobs in his area—specifically to those at Egger—as did the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). I do not often agree with the latter politically, but I respect his passionate belief in the interests of the working people of this country. I can assure my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman that the Government care about those jobs too. The announcement of job losses today is extremely sad and distressing, and we understand and sympathise with those who might lose their jobs, but that was not the result of our consultation.