Shoreline Management Plans

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and James Paice

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Paice]

I am very grateful for that. I think that my hon. Friend will find that I was chairman of Essex Young Farmers, rather than the National Farmers Union. In those days, believe it or not, I was young. My hon. Friend also referred to the 1953 floods and the memories of them. I am probably one of the few people in the House who remembers them—just. I was a very small child at the time, living just outside Felixstowe. The flood came close to where I was living and it was horrendous. That sort of memory lives on. People will always be frightened if they have been through that awful experience.

My hon. Friend referred to the importance of agricultural land. As a Minister with responsibility for agriculture, and coming from such a background, too, I am very concerned about it. However, I accept that against someone’s home, it comes second; we must all realise that. I hope that the point I will come to in a minute about other Government proposals will reassure colleagues that it is something that we are trying to address, albeit in a different way. I take his point about the involvement of local landowners in shoreline management plans and I am very much aware of the work of Andrew St Joseph in trying to drive that forward and in generating dialogue.

My hon. Friend and one or two other hon. Members referred to the role of Natural England. Although it has a vital role to play, it is important that it adopts a more enabling and supportive role and that it recognises that other issues are involved. We are making some substantial changes to the way in which Natural England is organised and run, which I hope will make it more responsive to local needs and understanding, and I am happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance.

My hon. Friend the Member for Maldon also referred to the difficulty of landowners in doing maintenance work. I am not sure whether that happens just in his constituency, but an Essex farmer, who had better remain nameless, told me that he was given permission by the Environment Agency to do some maintenance work on the sea wall, which involved several hundred tonnes of stone. Natural England then came along and told him that the stone had to go in by helicopter, which stopped the process in its tracks.

Mobile homes, to which a number of hon. Friends referred, are included in the cost benefit analysis, although at a lower rate than a fixed building because they can be moved. My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) referred to the issue of consultation and to the apparent priority of the habitats directive, which allows projects to go ahead, even where damage to protected sites is foreseen as a consequence. Projects that damage European protected sites can still go ahead if there are imperative reasons for overriding that public interest or if there are no alternative solutions and if necessary compensatory measures are in place.

The issue of how cost benefits are calculated, to which my hon. Friend also referred, are addressed on the DEFRA website. I will write to him with more detail, because I fully appreciate that people have a right to know. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) referred to the solidarity fund promoted by the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb). I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury, is, in principle, supportive of that, but it is a matter for local people to take forward. Although the comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) cover a devolved issue, I appreciate his point about the liability aspect.

As the hon. Member for Leicester South said, no two places on the coast are the same, which is one reason why greater local involvement is necessary if we are to get this job right. The powers of consent for work rest with the local authority, except where there are certain European obligations to achieve, and then the powers rest with the Secretary of State. The House is aware that the coalition Government are determined to be the greenest Government ever, and that includes protecting and enhancing the natural environment. None the less, we need to be more creative in the way in which we serve those interests as well as meeting our international obligations and protecting agricultural land wherever possible.

Greater local involvement is at the heart of the Government’s proposed “payment for outcomes” funding approach, which we launched for public consultation last Wednesday, alongside the joint consultation with the Environment Agency of the national flood and coastal erosion risk management strategy. The consultation suggests changes to the way in which Government funding is allocated to flood and coastal defence projects. That follows recommendations by Sir Michael Pitt in his review of the 2007 flooding. The reforms aim to provide improved transparency and greater certainty over potential funding levels from the general taxpayer for every flood and coastal defence project. They will also allow local areas to have a bigger say in what is done to protect them. Over time, local ambitions on protection no longer need be constrained by what national budgets can afford, and the reforms will encourage innovative, cost-effective solutions in which civil society can play a greater role. This is about saying what the Government think the cost-benefit analysis is and, therefore, what funding might be available from Government. If that is not enough to do the work, the local community has the option to find funding to enable it to happen.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

One of the criticisms that sometimes comes out is about over-engineering and, therefore, the high costs of work. That is a constant refrain from landowners who believe that they could do a lot of the work at a much lower cost.

[Mr Paice]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend; she makes a point that has been made many times. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury is conscious of that issue and is working with the Environment Agency to see how we can alter the situation, which I do not think necessarily means reducing the specification of what is done. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the matter.

The proposals to which I have just referred are subject to consultation and final decisions will be made in the spring after the consultation closes on 16 February 2011. I hope that this will mark a significant step forward in how we go about things. I think I have referred to most of the issues that hon. Members raised; if I have not or if I have answered their concerns inadequately, perhaps Members could let me know.