West Cumberland Hospital

Debate between Tony Cunningham and Jamie Reed

Monday 20th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

I would like to thank your office, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the office of Mr Speaker, for the advice with which they have provided me in the lead-up to today’s debate. That a Member of Parliament could have been prevented from speaking on an issue that relates directly to his constituency and constituents owing to the decision of an individual Minister, is too absurd to contemplate. That would have made a mockery of our democratic process at a time when there is a growing dislocation between the public and Parliament. This Chamber exists precisely for the purpose of holding power to account and if any Minister in any Government believes they can be exempted from that then they are badly wrong. That said, I am exceptionally grateful to the Minister for granting me permission to speak. I would also like to extend my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Sir Tony Cunningham) for securing this debate and congratulate him on his richly deserved knighthood over 12 months ago now—this is the first chance I have had to do so in public.

My hon. Friend and I have campaigned consistently on behalf of West Cumberland hospital in a fight that will continue for as long as it is necessary. The Government must not try to shut down the debate, especially given that patients, the public and medical professionals across west Cumbria require clear and open discussion and genuine public engagement regarding the future of our hospital—the first new hospital built after the establishment of the national health service.

We need the support of the Government in ensuring that such engagement takes place. The Government’s health reforms, of which I am a long-standing critic, were billed as devolving decisions about local health services to the communities relying on them, but in Cumbria, which the previous Health Secretary said should be the template for the whole of the country—consider that for a minute—engagement could not be any worse. In my constituency and that of my hon. Friend, the Minister will find tens of thousands of people willing to engage with the Government—and with the trust, for that matter—on the future of their services, but their voices are being deliberately ignored.

Before I continue, I must declare my interest in this topic. I was born at West Cumberland hospital; my four children were born there; my wife was born there; and over the past few years, it has saved my life not once, but twice—which I appreciate sounds careless. I am indebted to its staff for all they have done for me and countless others from my part of the world. The hospital has been one of the main focuses of my efforts since I was elected to this place, and it will remain so for as long as I am here.

I do not wish to repeat what my hon. Friend said, but I want to echo my support for the We Need West Cumberland Hospital campaign group. These are local people exercised by what is happening to their national health service. They have created a group with passion and purpose, and it is time for decision makers to sit up and take notice of them—that means the Government as well as the trusts in question. The group exists only because the local health economy is in turmoil and because its members, like everyone else, are being purposely shut out of decisions relating to their hospital, as service decisions are made and increasingly removed by stealth.

As my hon. Friend pointed out, just a few weeks ago this group of concerned people organised a public meeting to discuss the future of services at West Cumberland hospital. About 4,000 people attended on a dark Monday evening at the recreation ground in Whitehaven. Had we held it on a summer weekend, only a few weeks earlier, more than 10,000 people—easily—would have attended.

My constituents are deeply concerned. The lack of engagement from the North Cumbria trust and other decision makers has fostered a feeling of toxic distrust. This simply is not conducive to establishing faith or trust, or to building the local services my constituents, the people of west Cumbria and the whole of the Cumbrian health economy need. I implore the Minister to intervene to stop this behaviour and ensure that an effective framework of meaningful public engagement is put in place before it is too late. I hope he can write to the North Cumbria trust to ensure this takes place.

Consultation is one thing, but meaningful engagement is another thing altogether. Rather than simply being consulted on a plan designed by the trust behind closed doors, it would be much more beneficial to have public involvement in what the plan should look like before it is consulted on. Surely that would make for a much easier, expedited consultation and a much easier, effective implementation. We did that locally prior to 2010 and we should do so again. I hope the Minister will address that point directly.

I want to address the concerns expressed about the services provided by West Cumberland hospital. The vacuum left by the lack of engagement from the trust means that local people are understandably worried about what their services will look like in the coming years, and the ability of the trust to engage with local people has been clearly and demonstrably worsened by the recent reorganisation of the NHS. However, the acquisition of North Cumbria by the Northumbria trust is also proving to be a significant problem. I hope the Minister will pay careful attention to this point. The acquisition cannot proceed unless both Monitor and the Care Quality Commission are satisfied that the trust is both financially and clinically sustainable.

The acquisition was meant to provide certainty and stability, yet years later the process has provided neither. In fact, the uncertainty is only worsening matters. There are justifiable fears that financial sustainability will be achieved by reducing, and only by reducing, the amount of services provided at the West Cumberland hospital, under the guise of “clinical sustainability”. Will the Minister agree today to stop any further progress of the acquisition of North Cumbria by Northumbria unless a comprehensive public consultation on the future of services provided by the West Cumberland hospital is undertaken prior to an acquisition? The people of west and north Cumbria need the Government’s help with that, which is the least the Government could do.

We have already seen some services move from the West Cumberland hospital to the Cumberland infirmary at Carlisle, itself a hospital in serious difficulty. People are worried that more services will follow and they are especially worried about consultant-led maternity services being transferred from West Cumberland to Carlisle.

[Sir Tony Cunningham]

The journey between West Cumberland and Carlisle is 40 miles, but some people have to go to Newcastle—for example, for chemotherapy. Just think of the anguish when children have to have chemotherapy as far away as Newcastle, which is almost 100 miles away.

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend makes an absolutely pivotal point. This is about not just the effectiveness and efficacy of the clinical solutions provided by the NHS; it is about the patient experience and the best outcomes for patients, and not just those 40 miles from Carlisle and further afield. The 40-mile point is Whitehaven, but it is actually much further south than that: it is Egremont, Cleator Moor, Seascale, Wasdale, Eskdale and so on. It is the people there who, perhaps more than others, are disadvantaged by these moves.

Childbirth is one of the biggest moments in any parent’s life, but the elation and happiness that surrounds a new family at this time can all too often turn to stress, worry and fear. Any complications can have a catastrophic effect—I have seen this recently with close friends. If there are complications during a labour, it is just not feasible for an expectant mother—particularly one in difficulty—to be transferred 40 miles from Whitehaven and further afield south, on a journey that, as my hon. Friend said, takes well over an hour at the best of times and considerably longer in heavy traffic. On occasion, the roads will become impassable in bad weather. In fact, only this year, after a visit to my constituency, a Minister wrote to one of his colleagues, a Minister in the Department for Transport, pointing out the inadequacy of the A595, bemoaning the state of the road infrastructure. If the roads are not good enough for visiting Ministers, they are certainly not good enough to be transporting patients at the time of their greatest need.

The truth is that a one-hour journey for a mother in labour means more than 90 minutes, bed to bed. That is indefensible. Also, studies have shown that an increase in straight-line ambulance journey distances is associated with an increased risk of death and that an increase of 10 km in straight-line distance is associated with an absolute increase of around 1% in mortality. Consider that for a moment. The centralisation of some services from the West Cumberland hospital in Whitehaven to Carlisle will increase the mortality risk for west Cumbrians much further afield than Whitehaven.

Between 2007 and 2008, the local primary care trust, as it then was, undertook a consultation on local services, to which it received 140,000 responses. As a result, the people of west Cumbria were told that they would receive a new hospital, built on the site of the West Cumberland hospital. The new hospital would retain services, including consultant-led maternity services, and also develop specialisms not catered for at Carlisle. The deal struck was also set to provide newly built cottage hospitals in Millom, Keswick and Maryport, to complement the existing new one built in my hon. Friend’s constituency in Workington.

When the Government took office in 2010, they scrapped the funding for the new hospital, as they did for all other existing new build hospital projects. It is only through perseverance, hard work and a lot of lobbying by me, my hon. Friend and others that the Prime Minister acquiesced and returned some of the money, for which we are very grateful indeed. However, the full funding was not returned and funds had to be found elsewhere. The Minister will know that to this day I am still consistently making the case—through the trust development authority, NHS England and other bodies—for extra funding. Now that the new hospital site is almost completed, it is only right that the other promises that were made are honoured.

Consultant-led maternity services cannot be removed from the West Cumberland hospital, and the Government must surely intervene to ensure that this does not happen. Before the election, the then Leader of the Opposition and now Prime Minister promised a “bare-knuckle fight” to stop maternity services moving, yet that fight has never appeared. Around the country, people wonder whether it will ever appear. However, can the Minister confirm that there is set to be a nationwide maternity services review? Will he explain when that will begin and end?

I believe that the local CCG in Cumbria wants to commission the consultant-led maternity services at the West Cumberland hospital, but that the North Cumbria trust does not wish to do so. I have submitted a series of freedom of information requests to the trust, seeking its internal proposals for removing consultant-led services; to date, I have received no response. Can the Minister help in that regard? Can he impress on the trust the urgency of the matter and the need for full candour? I hope he will be able to do so in writing.

Report after report by Sir Bruce Keogh and by the Care Quality Commission has shown that there are real issues, as my hon. Friend said, that need to be addressed not only in north Cumbria, but right across the Cumbrian health economy. Staff shortages are having a major impact on the services—not just the type but the quality—that can be delivered. Will the Minister commit himself today to investigate the recruitment practices of the North Cumbria trust? Will he commit himself to assist with recruitment, with financial incentives for potential new staff? This is critical. I am inundated with complaints from staff about the poor quality of recruitment advertising, cancelled interviews for applicants and much more. As a result, we have one of the highest locum spends in the whole country. The Minister will be only too aware of the effect on the trust’s ability to provide, in some cases, even the most basic front-line services.

In the people of west Cumbria, this Government—any Government—the trust and the regulators will find a willing partner for constructive discussions about what services should and could look like. They have been through these issues year after year; they are well versed in them and up to speed with the realities of modern clinical practice—and commissioning decision making, too.

More than that, however, with the brand new hospital being built, we should be able to develop a new model of health care for health economies such as Cumbria’s that is exciting, attractive and sustainable. We should be able to attract top-class medical professionals to our hospitals, and we should be able to support them. As Bruce Keogh points out, there is excellence at the North Cumbria trust. These issues are genuinely—we can say this without exaggeration—matters of life and death.

I have asked the Minister a series of questions. There will doubtless be many more, and if he cannot answer them today—I again express my gratitude for being allowed to speak in this debate—I hope he will answer them in writing. In addition, I hope he will agree to meet a delegation of hospital campaigners—from my constituency and that of my hon. Friend—in the Department of Health as soon as possible. Most of all, I hope he will listen to the clear voice of the people of west Cumbria. We need the West Cumberland hospital and the services it provides, and we will fight to the finish to secure the hospital services we deserve and the hospital we were promised. Future generations of west Cumbrians deserve nothing less.

Classroom Teaching Assistants (Cumbria)

Debate between Tony Cunningham and Jamie Reed

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tony Cunningham (Workington) (Lab)]

It is nice to see so many Cumbrian MPs in the Chamber, because it demonstrates just how important this issue is. I will begin by being extremely blunt. What Cumbria county council is doing through the single status process is wrong and unfair. Classroom teaching assistants are angry, disillusioned and demoralised. I have had more than 70 teaching assistants come to my surgery recently. They feel hurt, upset and desperately worried about their future. The situation has brought some of the most caring and professional people I know out on to the streets of Cumbria. That is how important this matter is to them. Regardless of the levels and bandings they fit into, they see what is happening as grossly unfair. This is really about reducing people’s salary by a third. It applies to staff in care homes, some of whom came to see me recently, and I am told by a lady called Sarah Field that adult education teachers are in the same position, but this debate is about teaching assistants.

I recently spoke to a head teacher in west Cumbria who told me that back in 1997 the only additional resources she had had were packs of felt-tip pens. Her school had since had new classrooms, new computers, whiteboards and all sorts of modern innovations, but she said, “I’ll tell you something: the most important resource we have in schools is classroom assistants.” That is how strongly she felt about the situation.

Teaching assistants work as an integral part of the team. It is not strange or even a coincidence that Cumbrian primary schools are in the top 10% in the country; I think it is very much to do with the support staff, who are working with teaching staff and improving standards in teaching and learning. Support staff enrich the experience of pupils. Teaching assistants cannot be lumped together as their jobs vary enormously. They do a fantastic job, and some work with children with complex needs.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

I wish to point out the expertise that my hon. Friend brings to this debate: he was formerly a teacher in west Cumbria. Does he agree with me and with Ofsted that the introduction of teaching assistants has made an absolutely fundamental difference to attainment levels in primary and secondary schools, not just in west Cumbria but across the country, and that the abolition of the national pay and conditions framework, the effects of which we are now seeing, will lead to a race to the bottom when it comes to pay?

[Tony Cunningham]

I wholeheartedly agree; I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. Let me read out what an assistant teacher in a special needs school has said:

“Children with complex needs have to be changed because of incontinence, and then physiotherapy is needed and leg splints applied, then hoisted onto the standers. After one hour they need taking out of their standers, tubes put in place and connected for feeding, after feeding medication is given. Children need this every day, plus hydrotherapy once a week. Children with challenging behaviour need assistance with Makaton (This uses signs, symbols and speech to help people with learning and communication difficulties to communicate.)…Children with learning difficulties need a lot of time, encouragement and resources like Makaton to enable them to achieve objectives and enjoy their lessons.

These are only a few of the duties I do with our children. I love my job, but a reduction in my wage will make it very difficult to carry on working in this school. Our children are the only reason we love to go to work”.

Is anyone going to tell me that that classroom assistant deserves the loss of a third of her salary?

If one asks the teachers and school governors what they think, they will say that the assistants do a great job and thoroughly deserve the pay that they get. They do not earn a lot; a full-time teaching assistant earns around £14,700 for a 32.5 hour week. The cuts will reduce their salary to £11,140. The council justifies the pay cuts by arguing that teaching assistants have a shorter working week and longer holidays than other staff. The council claims that teaching assistants get paid for 37 hours a week and receive 14 weeks’ paid holiday.

Flooding (West Cumbria)

Debate between Tony Cunningham and Jamie Reed

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Tony Cunningham]

I thank hon. Members. The families and friends of those who lost their lives and the entire community of west Cumbria will have greatly appreciated that.

My memories of the floods are almost surreal. I had already spoken with the Environment Agency when river levels were rising, but when I walked into my local in Workington, the Green Dragon, everyone gathered there was, unusually, glued to the television screen, watching with incredulity. They could not believe what they were seeing: lifeboats on the main street of a small market town, and floods that, at their height, were eight or nine feet high. At one stage, the lifeboats could not be launched because of the speed of the river. I rang the then Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who had just got back from Brazil. He agreed to come up, and the following morning I was standing with him on the market place in Cockermouth, just off the main street, and the water around us was still very high. All we could hear were helicopters, and there was a bright yellow RAF helicopter winching someone to safety.

The phrase I used in my first television interview after the floods was not mine. While my right hon. Friend was being interviewed, I turned to someone from the town and said, “This is just unbelievable.” He replied, “Yeah, Tony, it’s like something out of the Bible.” The Sky television interviewer then asked me how I would describe the floods, and I immediately said that they were of biblical proportions. That was copied and echoed by many newspapers and so on, and people said that I was clever to think of it, but the words were those of a constituent who just happened to be standing next to me.

On that first day, we got in touch with Cumbria Community Foundation and launched an appeal. The nuclear industry in particular was extremely generous, giving tens of thousands of pounds to start it off. Cockermouth, Workington and Keswick are relatively small towns, but we raised about £2.5 million in that appeal, which says everything about the generosity of west Cumbrians, of Cumbrians and of the rest of the country. In fact, donations came in from other parts of the world.

The real heroes in the early days were the emergency services. What I am about to say I say not in anger, but in sadness. The police were absolutely superb in those early days, and yet today they are facing 20% cuts. The police community support officers who did such a fantastic job are now threatened with redundancy, and I understand that the number of local neighbourhood policing teams is to be cut from 21 to 10.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point about our local police. Like me, he spends a lot of time speaking with members of the police force, including PCSOs. After the year they have been through, how do they feel they are being treated at the moment?

[Tony Cunningham]

They feel let down, is the honest answer. I recently received a letter from a PCSO in one of the towns I represent—I will not mention which one—who made just that point. She said, “When the community needed us, we were there. We now need the state, the county council or whatever to help and support us. I hope they will be there for us.”

Turning to the ambulance service, there was recently a vote of no confidence by nurses in both the West Cumberland hospital and Carlisle hospital in the local trust because of cuts, changes to working patterns and so on. They did an incredible job, and not only during the floods. My hon. Friend the Member for Copeland was there for the people he represents after the shootings in his constituency, and we can only imagine what it must have been like for those nurses having to deal with that. In such small communities, the victims were often people they knew, and gunshot wounds, as we know, are particularly horrific. Yet this is where they are now.

With regard to the fire brigade, I would like to ask the Minister to respond to a quote from the Pitt report, which states:

“The Government should urgently put in place a fully funded national capability for flood rescue, with Fire and Rescue Authorities playing a leading role, underpinned”

as a necessity

“by a statutory duty.”

That recommendation was published in 2007, and I wonder where we are now. I talked with my local fire officers just a couple of hours ago. The centre where gold command worked during the floods was in Cockermouth, in the fire and rescue service headquarters. That is now going. The service has been offered either a relocation to Penrith, with a reduced number of staff, or outsourcing, which means they would all go. They co-ordinated the entire rescue, with the police, the coastguard and everything else, but that is what they tell me is happening to them.

[Tony Cunningham]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments and congratulate him—or perhaps offer my commiserations—on becoming president of his party. It is a great honour for him and for the county, so well done.

The hon. Gentleman can have a look at my speech notes, if he wants, but the next two words on the page are “mountain rescue”. Cockermouth mountain rescue team, in particular, gave immense help. It is unusual for people in my position to apologise, but I will, because we should have done as he suggests and exempted mountain rescue teams from VAT. I fed that into the Government whenever I could, but it was always resisted. I am happy to apologise for the fact that my Government—the Labour Government—did not do that. I fully support what he, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) and others are trying to achieve, because it is important. There is a symbolism associated with it. It would say to the mountain rescue teams that they are recognised, and they should be rewarded and congratulated. As a little aside, in 2001, my very first question at Prime Minister’s Question Time was on mountain rescue teams. I have a great affinity with them, and I am happy to support what the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) proposes.

Something else that is close to my heart is the lifeboat service, and during the floods the Maryport inshore rescue lifeboat in particular did incredible work. Just before the regional development agencies were disbanded, we had agreed a sum of about £1 million to build a new lifeboat station. That service now has a brand-new lifeboat, but nowhere to put it. It had planned to put it into a brand-new lifeboat station in Maryport, but there is no RDA funding.

I could go on discussing the emergency services. The RAF, too, did an incredible job, as did the coastguard and an organisation that many of us did not really expect to see: the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. That sounds strange, but the RSPCA was involved. I can remember being at a barrier set up to keep people away from the danger, and an elderly couple came up to me whose only concern—whose greatest concern—was their pet, which had been left in their flooded house. I got in touch with the RSPCA, which got a basket and rescued it. We should not forget its contribution.

The Environment Agency, in particular Glyn Vaughan and his team, did and are still doing a tremendous amount of work. In all the discussions and debates that the Minister will have on budgets, he should ensure that the Environment Agency is protected as much as possible.

[Mr Reed]

Before my hon. Friend moves on too much further, we do not yet know the cost of the Cumbria floods. I believe that the insurance adjustments are about £200 million so far—I repeat, so far. The RSPCA undertook a fundamental role in protecting livestock. Has he spoken to any farmers—I know that he has spent a great deal of time with them over the past year—who need feed for their herds and cattle about the role of the RSPCA and how much money it may have saved them?

[Jim Sheridan (in the Chair)]

Order. Could I ask Members who make contributions to speak into the microphone, so that the Hansard reporters can pick up what they say?

[Tony Cunningham]

Thank you, Mr Sheridan. I very much concur with my hon. Friend’s comments, and farmers are saying that. Let us not forget that hundreds, if not more, of cattle, sheep and other livestock ended up out in the Solway Firth, having come down the Cocker or Derwent rivers and been swept away. The livestock were hugely important, but the fields are still covered by boulders and debris and there is still a huge amount of work to be done.

I also pay tribute to volunteers, of whom there were hundreds during that extremely difficult time. I am not sure how many of us would put up complete strangers. I am not sure how many of us would say to someone we had just met on the street, who had only the clothes that they were wearing, “Come and share my house with me,” yet that is what people did. They offered their own homes and bedrooms; they fed others and looked after them.

Another group I pay tribute to—I know that the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale will agree with me—is the churches. We forget at our peril the spiritual side of all of this. When people are going through trauma and difficulties, having lost their home and possessions, it is important to be able to talk things through with others. The churches were on the streets, not just offering tea, coffee, sandwiches and so on, but listening and talking to people, and being there for them. The churches together played a huge role, particularly in Cockermouth.

I also pay tribute to the local authorities, who did a tremendous job, in particular Jill Stannard, the chief executive of Cumbria county council. Other Members here will have known Jim Buchanan, a good, honest and decent man who passed away quite recently. I pay a personal tribute to him. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I also thank Harry Dyke and Jill Elliott from Allerdale borough council.

While I am thanking people, I should thank the media—I do not do that very often—both national and local. The Sky coverage was excellent, as was that of Border Television, BBC Radio Cumbria, and in particular my local newspaper, The West Cumberland Times and Star, and Nicole Regan and her staff. Their conduct was fantastic.

[Mr Reed]

I am speaking into the microphone this time, Mr Sheridan.

My hon. Friend mentions the role of the media in the floods last year, and the crucial public service that they performed in informing people about water levels, weather forecasts and the emergency responses that were in place. Was he as saddened as I was to see such a stark contrast between how the media undertook and performed such a fundamental good this time last year, and how they acted in June?

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[Tony Cunningham]

I offer my sympathies to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents. As well as Hall Park View, the village of Barepot was completely devastated, but because it was on the other side of the river, people tended to forget about it. In Camerton, people could not bury their dead because the churchyard was flooded. Wives could not be buried next to their husbands and so on—it was horrendous.

On the second part of the hon. Gentleman’s question, there has to be co-ordination by a range of organisations, but the money has to be in place. I shall deal with local models a little later, but we could learn a great deal from the flood action groups—Sue Cashmore’s group in Cockermouth and Cecil Thompson’s group in Workington. Sue’s group, working with Brian Watson, actually has a structure. It has a chair and sub-committees, including ones dealing with the media and the Environment Agency. It is a very professional organisation, from which we could learn a great deal.

We have said that Cockermouth flooded, Workington flooded, houses flooded and so on, but that was only part of the story. The hon. Gentleman mentions Eamont bridge. The bridges going down in west Cumbria was absolutely devastating. Not only did it result in loss of life, but we lost Harbour bridge; we lost Northside bridge, where PC Barker lost his life; and we lost Navvies bridge. Workington, or Calva, bridge is still not open. On the Saturday, the Papcastle bridge was closed as well, and I talked to a taxi driver the following day. He had already agreed the fare—£5 or £6—to go from Workington to Seaton, which is a journey of about a mile. Someone standing in Workington can see Seaton. That day, the taxi driver did a 180-mile round trip: he drove from Workington to Penrith, Penrith to Carlisle, Carlisle to Maryport, and Maryport to Seaton. He then dropped his passenger off—for a fiver—and drove all the way back. That gives hon. Members some idea of the difficulties that we faced. On top of that, even when Papcastle bridge was repaired, people were still doing 20 or 30-mile round trips, when a mile would normally have done. The forbearance and patience of people in Seaton, Siddick, Northside, Barepot and further afield who were having to travel such huge distances, was absolutely incredible.

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend is giving a moving, telling and detailed description of the events of last year. He has talked about the travel chaos and the absolute devastation that was caused to businesses and to people’s ordinary lives, but would he, as a former teacher, care to talk about the effect on the schooling of children in our part of the world—not just the effect on academic achievement and attainment, but the impact of the disruption to their lives, including their psychological well-being?

[Tony Cunningham]

I am very happy to do that. I spoke to the then Secretary of State and the Schools Minister, and made the point that it might have to be borne in mind that, because of the disruption, some of the students would not do as well in their exams as they could have. They were having to get up two hours earlier and were then stuck in traffic, going round and round. Those who had been flooded out might have been living in a caravan, rented accommodation or a bed and breakfast, and might not have had a computer or been able to do their homework. All that had a massive effect. I was delighted that the Government gave additional funding for extra buses, but having to travel 30 miles to get to school, perhaps arriving late, and then leaving early and missing lessons so as to get back, also had a massive effect.

The big change came within a week of the floods, when we managed to get a footbridge up and running. People said to me, “Why did it take a week?” and I was thinking, “Hang on. We’ve done very well to get it done in a week.” I want to pay tribute to the Army, who did a fantastic job. I think that the footbridge came from Bedford. Getting a footbridge from there to Workington and getting 200 soldiers up there to pile both sides of the river and get a bridge across in a week was a phenomenal achievement, and it said an enormous amount about the armed forces. The local people took them to their hearts and kept going down with pizzas, cakes and sandwiches. After a few days, I spoke to the Army officer in charge and he said, “What is marvellous is that we have to do lots of drills and practices, and it’s nice to do something for real that makes a huge difference to the lives of people here.”

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[Tony Cunningham]

I agree. Picking up on the hon. Gentleman’s point about co-ordination, I actually began having meetings with Cockermouth flood action group before the floods, and I have had meetings with Barepot-Workington flood action group as well. One of the things I always insist on is inviting Natural England, the Environment Agency, the Lake District National Park Authority, the Highways Agency, the local council and so on. Doing so avoids the issues that the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale raised. If we are all sat round the same table with the residents from the action group, it is difficult to pass the buck and say, “Well, it’s not us, it’s the county council”, or, “It’s not us, it’s Natural England”.

[Mr Reed]

The hon. Members for Penrith and The Border and for Westmorland and Lonsdale are right: more can be done that does not necessarily require additional hundreds of millions of pounds of expenditure. However, as my hon. Friend said regarding Carlisle, not only did the expenditure there save up to 3,000 homes on the night of the 2009 floods; it saved 1,200 jobs at McVitie’s biscuit factory. The cost saving there alone was well worth the £35 million that went into the flood defences.

Does my hon. Friend agree that we need hard defences as well as the soft defences further on in the environment? Parton, a village in my constituency, that has suffered in the past from flooding now has its own flood action group. People take shifts at 2, 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning when the rain falls, alert each other, put down the sandbags and put in the flood barrier defences. We had council workers working in their spare time—unsalaried—and local businesses, such as drainage firms such as Mayson Bros, providing investment out of their own pocket. They were not contractors; they were doing it because they wanted to do it. That is the definition of something that has existed for 200 or 300 years—the big society. That same building company, if it is on the bones of its backside because the contracts are not coming in, and that same council worker, if he is still in a job, probably will not be inclined to put in that extra effort now—

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[Tony Cunningham]

I very much agree, and I want to touch on tourism a little later. There are ongoing problems; there are businesses still not back in operation and people still out of their homes. I want to highlight one particular case that I have been trying to deal with: that of Mrs Michelle Lockett, who is still not back in her home due to disputes between loss adjusters and the insurance company.

I am sure this is only a coincidence and has nothing at all to do with the debate, but, strangely enough, I got an e-mail this morning—we should remember that this situation has been going on for 12 months. In it, a guy from the National Insurance and Guarantee Corporation—the insurance company—says:

“The current position with this claim is that the majority of the Buildings element of the claim has been settled…With regards to the Contents element of the claim we have agreed to accept this part of the claim subject to the normal terms and conditions”.

I want to send a clear message to NIG and Crawford that I will be watching this case very closely.

Having said that, I am not going to have a go at all insurance companies and loss adjusters. When I meet them, they say that 70 or 80% of people are happy with what went on. There are examples of good practice among such companies. Some people in Cockermouth were back in their homes within a couple of months. I am not, therefore, having a go, but there is still a lot of work to do.

[Mr Reed]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the insurance industry, of course, also includes practitioners of whom we would not want to see too many? However, the insurance industry and the insurance companies were a pivotal component of the community’s response in getting back on its feet after the floods.

[Tony Cunningham]

Yes, absolutely. I pay tribute to the insurance companies and the good loss adjusters, but I want to remind people that things are not perfect. If people are still out of their homes after this length of time, something has obviously gone wrong.

I have a few ideas for the Minister from constituents—people such as Sue Cashmore and Michelle—about how insurance can be developed. I will not go through those ideas now, but leave them with the Minister. I ask him to take serious cognisance of them, because local people often have some very good ideas. I also had a visit from the CBI recently. It had concerns about climate change and small businesses, and perhaps I can pass on its comments and questions to the Minister.

In passing, I want to mention the consultation and the idea of a flood tax, which the Minister will no doubt comment on. There is an idea that, on top of having to pay additional—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham) for securing the debate. He has been after it for some time, and I am glad that, as usual, he has succeeded. He gave me my start in politics—for good or ill—when I was briefly his researcher in the European Parliament and it is a pleasure to work alongside him now. I speak in this debate as the shadow Minister with responsibility for this policy area, but also as a constituency MP directly affected by these issues.

I wish to point to the tireless work that my hon. Friend undertook this time last year, not only for his own constituents, but for the whole of west Cumbria, including my constituents. When the floods hit, my hon. Friend was a Government Whip, so he was unable to take part in any debates. However, his constituents know what he did on the Thursday night, as the rain kept coming down. They also know about the work he threw himself into on the Friday morning, when the devastation became apparent, and about the work that he has continued doing to this very day.

It is often said that the man who is his own advocate has a fool for a client, so I feel duty-bound to say these things on my hon. Friend’s behalf. Frankly, he hides his light under a bushel. I am proud to have him as my neighbour and to work alongside him on so many issues. I am also grateful that many of my friends and family members, who live in his constituency, have him as their MP.

My hon. Friend and I were in constant contact as the disaster unfolded, and I know what he did in the midst of the chaos—no one could have done more. He ensured that skips were made available for people emptying their homes. He went to buy nappies for the child of a young mother who was in desperate need and who did not know where else to turn. In addition—and he has not mentioned this—he was pivotal in establishing the local relief fund and in prising open the Treasury’s coffers, with the help of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), who is no longer in his place, for funding for bridges, temporary train services and much more. I passionately believe that he provided a definition of a first-class Member of Parliament, and of leadership. He did what he did because he believes passionately in west Cumbria’s people and potential.

The belief, optimism and hope that pervaded not just west Cumbria but Barrow and other parts of the county in November 2009 are harder to find now, as they are throughout much of the country, because in addition to the floods and the community-wide psychological effects—the trauma and devastation—caused by them, our area, as has been said, has suffered significant further trauma since then. Earlier this year, two school pupils from Keswick school were killed when their bus was involved in a road traffic accident. Such a senseless loss of life caused widespread grief throughout my constituency, throughout my hon. Friend’s constituency of Workington, in Allerdale and further afield. Soon after, as the community was still reeling from that disaster, 12 people were murdered in that quiet corner of England. The community is still dealing with that event and processing its long-term response. My heart goes out to all those who were affected, and I am grateful to all right hon. and hon. Members present today for the recognition and respect that they gave to them at the beginning of the proceedings.

I mention those events because they are relevant. They are issues to which the community must respond and challenges that we must meet. The pattern is clearly one of challenge after challenge. None of us can directly understand the pain caused to those families who were affected by the events, but as a community our response has been typically resilient. However, I must be entirely honest—as my hon. Friend has been and as I am sure other hon. Members will be—and say that that resilience is not helped when the community sees reductions in the number of police officers and hospital services; money for rebuilding its schools taken away; widespread redundancies at the publicly funded Sellafield nuclear facility, which is the cornerstone of our local economy; and now cuts to the national flood defence budget. Our community shows stoicism in the face of tragedy beyond our control, but anger in the face of ideologically driven political choices inflicted by a remote Government with a dubious democratic mandate. I shall move on to those issues later.

I wish to pay tribute again to PC Bill Barker, who lost his life in the floods on 20 November last year. PC Barker was a constituent of mine and few, if any, of us can know what the Barker family are going through now. As the anniversary of his death approaches, it must be particularly difficult. It is a difficult subject to talk about. However, following his ultimate sacrifice, I know that he still occupies the thoughts of our entire community. He is incredibly well thought of and is held in almost unimaginable affection in the town of Workington.

[Tony Cunningham]

I know that I have just spoken, but I want to pay tribute to Bill Barker’s wife, Hazel, who is a wonderful woman. She lost her husband and has four children. When I meet her or talk to other people about her the one thing that comes through is the incredible dignity of the woman. I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees.

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend puts it better than I ever could. Mrs Barker has displayed remarkable integrity and incredible dignity and is a superb mother to her children. I am sure that her husband would have been very proud.

PC Barker gave his life serving others and did it instinctively. Many of us either would not or could not do that. His sacrifice provides a definition of heroism for us all. His heroism was commended by the then Prime Minister and the heir to the throne, but the tributes from his wife, children and colleagues dominate all the others, in my memory. He was a devoted father and husband, an extraordinary friend and a supremely committed police officer. He elicited a rare combination of love and respect from those who knew him. He gave all he had for the people he served and will for ever be remembered by the people of west Cumbria.

Last year, the towns of Workington, Keswick and Cockermouth, and the areas around them, were the places most seriously affected by the floods that hit Cumbria. In Workington and Cockermouth there was devastation that is uncommon in west Cumbria. Streets were swept away, homes were ruined, businesses were badly affected and lives were put on hold. As Alan Irving of the Whitehaven News remarked at the time, the whole community of west Cumbria came together in the wake of the floods. Rivalries were abandoned—my hon. Friend the Member for Workington and I need not talk about rivalry, as there is certainly none between us, but our towns have long been the best of enemies, in a friendly way—and the principles of community were reaffirmed across the whole of our county, with people in Whitehaven, Egremont and elsewhere showing incredible solidarity with their flooded neighbours.

On the Friday night after the floods hit, I stood in the Cockermouth sheep and wool centre in my hon. Friend’s constituency, helping as best I could, as the then deputy Regional Minister for the North West. I was overwhelmed to see my constituents fetching what food, clothing, toiletries, blankets and, in some instances, toys they could to help the people of Cockermouth and Workington who were stationed there. Those constituents of mine, who had travelled 20 or 30 miles to do so, saw it as their job and duty, and it is typical of them and of the constituents of my hon. Friend that they should have done so.

There are many thank yous and stories from the days when the floods hit, and we will tell them for a long time, but we must first understand what happened. Credit must go to the Met Office for the ability it now has to predict extremes of weather with such precision. In the days prior to the floods we knew that they were likely. Heavy rain and gales affected Cumbria from 18 to 20 November, and the associated high river flows and flooding problems were made worse by ground that had already been saturated. By 18 November, Cumbria had already received close to the average rainfall for the whole month. The floods affected more than 1,300 homes and left many more without power and water. Of all the towns and villages involved, Cockermouth, as I have said, was the worst affected. Water levels there reached 2.5 metres. The village of Seathwaite set an unenviable record of receiving 314.4 mm of rain in 24 hours—a new UK record for the wettest November day in a single location.

As the forecast heavy rain arrived, gold command, as my hon. Friend mentioned, was promptly established. I had the opportunity to visit gold command at Carlton hall in Penrith, with the then Prime Minister and the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). The work that was undertaken there was remarkable. I have worked in the nuclear industry and am used to planning for emergency events, including evacuations, the co-ordination of local authorities and emergency services. To see the command in action was, in a strange way, reassuring. From the point of view of someone who lives in west Cumbria, having been born and raised there-—and as a council tax payer there—it was incredibly reassuring to see that the system worked, and worked well. If there are lessons to be learned from that and rolled out across the country, I would urge the Minister, who I know is sincere in his desire to improve things, to understand those lessons as well as he can.

The forecast heavy rain arrived and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Workington said, people were evacuated from Cockermouth by helicopter. It was a surreal experience to see on television Sea Kings hovering just above the Cockermouth main street—something we thought that we would never see and hope never to see again—irrespective of the extraordinary times that we have lived through in west Cumbria in the past 12 months. My hon. Friend was the pairing Whip at the time, and he had not let me off. Therefore fortunately—or unfortunately—I was stranded in London. My hon. Friend let himself off the Whip so he was not stranded, but that has not affected our relationship and I bear no grudges.

The rapid attendance and full attention of the then Prime Minister and the then Secretary of State for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs was incredibly important. It gave everybody in the area a sense of solidarity and genuine togetherness. To know that politicians from all parties, but especially the country’s leading politician and the relevant Secretary of State, were with us in a time of crisis, was important. It was unprompted and genuine.

[Tony Cunningham]

Perhaps I can lighten things a little. I was in the sheep and wool centre with the Prime Minister. When he came in, he held the hand of a blind lady in a wheelchair. Somebody said, “It’s Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister”, and she said, “Y’all right, lad?” It must have been many years since the Prime Minister had been referred to as a lad, but that is typical of west Cumbria.

[Mr Reed]

I was not there, but I think I saw that on television. By that time, I was safe, warm and dry, and matters were well in hand. I recall that the Prime Minister visited on more than one occasion during those two days. He was exceptionally busy.

I was incredibly pleased at the time to learn that the Government had implemented the Bellwin scheme, and that rather than meeting 85% of costs, which I believe is typical in such incidents, the scheme was introduced in such a way as to allow 100% of costs to local authorities to be met. That was an incredibly wise move. The Government confirmed that 100% of costs would be met, rather than the standard 85% and, as my hon. Friend mentioned, it was made clear that the costs of building the temporary bridge in Workington—the Barker crossing—would be met by the Department for Transport. The Department also contributed other short-term resources to help the county implement its highways recovery plan, and ensure that all affected areas were back in working order as soon as possible.

I pay tribute to all those involved in the logistics of establishing the train service and to those who helped to establish the brand new Tesco overnight, which was adjacent to the train service. It is a tribute to the feats that people can achieve in times of crisis. I pay tribute to Cumbria police, under the fantastic leadership of chief constable Craig Mackey, and to the county council, under the leadership of Jill Stannard, who I believe had been made chief executive that very day. I thank Cumbria fire and rescue service, the local NHS, the Environment Agency and all the welfare charities that have been mentioned. I also mention British Telecom and other utility companies, our magnificent armed forces and reservists, and many others who acted in superb concert as the floods hit.

The media have been mentioned briefly. Radio Cumbria was absolutely indispensible at the time. It became an irreplaceable service which, in my opinion, immediately demonstrated the value and strength of public service broadcasting—something that no other organisation could have provided. Border Television from the independent sector was also incredibly impressive.

As I went around the flooded areas, it became clear from several conversations I had just how vital the mountain rescue teams had been, especially in Keswick. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) is no longer in his place, but he is right. For many years he has been a stalwart advocate of the need for mountain rescue teams to have their VAT refunded. When the Labour party was in government, I joined him in that view, both privately and publicly, and my hon. Friend the Member for Workington also joined in the debate, privately and often stridently. I certainly agree with the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale and I know that the Minister will take note of that point. It is a difficult issue because in our part of the world, and in many other places like Cumbria such as the Pennines, mountain rescue is a vital emergency service.

A number of organisations acted in remarkable concert. After speaking to people in Keswick about the mountain rescue service I was left in no doubt as to what the service provided. The case for financial help from the state is irrefutable. I mention the big society but not in a pejorative sense. Quite simply, if one seeks a definition for the kinds of things that underpin that centuries-old concept, the mountain rescue teams provide one such example. They offer services that no one else can, or will, provide.

Away from the heavily hit areas, many other towns and villages in west Cumbria were affected by the flooding. In some quarters, they were referred to as “the forgotten flooded”—places such as Parton, Cleator, Holmrook, Bootle, Egremont, Lorton and elsewhere. Thankfully, those areas did not witness the same devastation as Workington and Cockermouth, but they endured real suffering that was equally deserving of Government resources and support. At the time, I made the case in the Chamber that such support should have been forthcoming. I saw the effects of the flooding on those communities, and I pointed out that no community should be left behind. As a country, we need to take forward that principle and enshrine it in our flood defence policies.

Ultimately, the costs of recovery in Cumbria are not yet fully known. If we look at the insurance claims that have been made and paid so far, they are in excess of £200 million. However, we do not know what the effect has been on the economy or the tourism industry, and we do not yet know the long-term effects on agriculture and other sectors, so the final figure will be significantly in excess of £200 million.

My hon. Friend the Member for Workington paid tribute to a number of ordinary people who were involved in the response to the floods when they hit. I wish to take the opportunity to pay tribute again to a special Copeland borough councillor, Councillor David Banks. When the banks of the River Ehen burst and houses along the banks of that river were flooded, he went to the aid of some elderly people who lived in his patch. With his bare hands, in the deluge and the pouring rain, he tried to rebuild the river bank with stones and baskets as the rain kept coming. That is the kind of people we are. Whenever my hon. Friend and I have taken part in debates such as this over the past 12 months, such statements have almost become a cliché, but it is no less true. That is the kind of people we are in west Cumbria and people such as Councillor Banks are the kind of public servants that we need.

As the people in the village of Parton taught me five years ago, it takes only a little bit of water to cause immense damage and for a flood to have a huge impact on the life of a family and its memories. Just one foot of water can ruin a home and destroy treasured and irreplaceable possessions such as invaluable photographs and mementos of children and other loved ones. Floods take away so much that can never be replaced.

The Environment Agency is among those organisations that have been pivotal in achieving recovery from the floods, not just at the time but since then. In the six months following the flooding, it extended the free flood warning service to an additional 3,000 Cumbrian homes and businesses. It began work with 30 flood action groups and commissioned a £100,000 study to look at the current standards of flood protection and possible options to reduce future flood risk in Cockermouth. In Keswick, it invested more than £700,000 in flood defence walls in the High Hill area, and in Ulverston it repaired existing flood defences and improved other flood defences to certain properties.

Before the floods last year, Carlisle had received significant investment in defences—between £30 million and £35 million—following the floods of 2005. Cockermouth, Keswick and Ulverston had all benefited from some flood defence investment under the last Government, and much more was planned. For example, in Keswick, which is now in my constituency following the boundary change before the last election, the Environment Agency had done a study to justify improvement works and had allocated funding to design works in 2010-11 for construction at an estimated cost of £5 million. I ask the Minister in all sincerity and with genuine respect to ensure that those works proceed. I certainly hope that they do. I have written to the Secretary of State regarding that issue, and I hope that the Minister can today give my constituents in Keswick the assurances that they seek about the flood works that they expect to take place there.

In Ulverston, funding had been allocated for 2010-11 to develop a scheme for Dragley beck, which is programmed for construction in 2011-12 at a cost of £2 million. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Workington will want it to be taken forward as well. The project at Dragley beck would raise the existing once-in-20-years standard of flood protection to once in 70 years. For Cockermouth, indicative funding is in place to begin studying a potential scheme in 2012-13.

The Environment Agency brought forward other schemes for Cumbria under the previous Government. In the light of the cuts, can the Minister notify Cumbrian local authorities about which flood defence schemes will be continued and which will be scrapped? The people of Cumbria have a right to know that as a matter of urgency. Heavy rainfall has raised the spectre of flooding again in the past few days. Flooding has been a real possibility in Keswick and elsewhere, and we need to know where we stand.

Flooding is one of the most difficult issues facing the nation. It is likely to happen more, not less. Carlisle flooded in 2005, before the horrendous floods in 2007 and the Cumbrian floods in 2009. We need to be able to meet the practical and policy challenges that flooding poses. The nature of that policy challenge for every community at risk of flooding means that it must be properly resourced by Government. The previous Labour Government more than doubled spending on the management of flood risk. That is beyond doubt: it is irrefutable. We are talking about west Cumbria today, but none of us should forget the other communities that have been affected by flooding devastation. I think that the costs of the floods in 2007 were in excess of £3 billion. Thirteen lives were lost. None of us should forget that.

Between 2007 and 2009, the Environment Agency completed 106 flood defence schemes. Will the Minister tell us how many flood defence schemes will be undertaken by the agency under its newly cut budget, year by year for the life of this Parliament? Further to that, will he tell us where those schemes will be? Communities such as those in Leeds and elsewhere need to know what is happening to their flood defence capability.

I genuinely look forward to working with the Government and with the Minister on issues on which we agree. Flooding should not be a party political issue. It should be an issue of national interest, on which we all work in concert to achieve the best results. However, an air of chaos is creeping into flood defence policy and planning in DEFRA. The £170 million cut in flood defence budgets just is not necessary. Indeed, it is fundamentally wrong. We all want to see greater efficiency in how public money is spent. I support the Minister on that, but I cannot support a £110 million cut in capital spending and a cut in excess of £60 million in flood and coastal erosion defence maintenance budgets.

The Association of British Insurers has expressed its disappointment. The insurance company Liverpool Victoria believes that reducing current flood defence maintenance budgets means that

“thousands of homes still at risk of flooding may lose home insurance cover.”

The Institution of Civil Engineers has also expressed concerns about the cuts in flood defence budgets. Now, the people of this country who live in areas of flood risk are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Workington mentioned, haunted by the spectre of a flood tax. A Conservative Member said earlier from a sedentary position that that was a myth. I hope so and I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to explain why that is the case when he makes his remarks.

We know that the statement of principle between insurers and Government expires in 2013, which is only a few years away. Negotiation on that issue will be complex, so can the Minister tell hon. Members about the plan? Where are we going on this issue? Will he now publish the road map that was mentioned following the insurance summit in September?

We are used to the English language being assaulted by the present Government. The Prime Minister achieves nothing in Europe, but calls that a “spectacular success”. The Secretary of State for Health claims to match Labour’s spending, yet Conservative MPs from up and down the country tell me that hospital wards are being closed by stealth. Instead of being freed of red tape, police officers are actually being freed of their jobs. The Chancellor of the Exchequer claims to be protecting more homes from flooding by cutting the flood defence budget, and the self-proclaimed “greenest Government ever” will struggle to be the greenest Government of 2010. Welcome to the world of DEFRA-nomics, where we are meant to believe that those most affected by the cuts being imposed are, perversely, the most happy at the prospect. That will not wash.

Tragically—and there is an air of tragedy around this, as I have said—DEFRA Ministers currently occupy one of two positions. Either they actively want the Government to abandon their responsibilities or, as they used to refer to it, “get out of the way” and therefore are happy for these ideological cuts to affect flood defences in an exceptionally damaging way, or they really have no understanding of how the cuts will affect homes, businesses and communities up and down the country. The former is almost worse, because it would suggest that the likely effects of the cuts are understood, but are being disregarded. Which is it? Surely the cuts cannot have been made in ignorance. Surely they cannot have been planned in ignorance and will not be prosecuted in ignorance.

Will the Minister tell us today which flood defence schemes in which areas will be cut and which will proceed? Will he take the opportunity to tell us what discussions he has had with which local authorities about how they should pick up the flood defence burden, particularly in the light of cuts in their own budgets? Will he tell us how many flood defence schemes will go ahead for each year of this Parliament and where those schemes will be located? I hope that if he cannot tell me or other hon. Members that today, he will undertake to write to me or place a paper in the Library detailing where cuts in flood defence projects will be made.

Flood damage costs in England alone are more than £1 billion a year. According to Environment Agency calculations, one in six homes in England is at risk from flooding. More than 2.4 million properties are at risk of flooding from rivers or the sea in England, and half of those are at significant risk. The Minister is aware of the figures. A further 2.8 million properties are vulnerable to surface water flooding. The Environment Agency calculates that in the worst-case scenario, annual flood damage costs could exceed £27 billion across the UK by 2080. Clearly, that is some way off, but it is a rate of increase that none of us would want.

This is no time to be playing fast and loose with our flood defences, no time for DEFRA-nomics and no time for cutting flood defence budgets. If the Government will not change their mind in the face of overwhelming evidence, independent advice and the experiences of very real human suffering that we know flooding causes, they must at least be honest about where their axe will fall and which communities they will abandon. We need transparency and honesty, but most of all, we need the Government to think again.