Flooding

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question, and that is an interesting idea. We will progress the review by examining the cases in which we think things have gone well, and as I touched on in answer to the previous question, I think that there were only a few cases that showed a need to see how we can co-ordinate better. The co-ordination is the key point.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Over Christmas, it was clear that households and businesses in Snape, Eyke and Southwold were still suffering from the floods earlier in December. Can the Secretary of State assure me that the role of internal drainage boards will continue to be enhanced, and will he consider with the Department of Energy and Climate Change and others a sensitive scheme of felling trees in sensitive areas to prevent trees from bringing down power lines?

[Mr Paterson]

IDBs certainly have a great role to play, and I am a strong supporter of them. It is all part of our long-term proposal to push responsibility for low-risk waterways down to as local a level as possible. That is how we can help to free up a lot of those waterways, which have been blocked because work on them was stopped under the previous Government. I am happy to discuss my hon. Friend’s other question with her directly.