Climate Change Bill [HL]

I am grateful for the remarks that have just been made from the Conservative Front Bench by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor. I will speak in favour of the amendment proposed by my noble friend and I will call in evidence the flooding that took place in Hull in east Yorkshire last summer and the independent review body’s interim and final reports on that flooding, which have now been published. When the flooding in Hull was taking place, I was, fortunately, a long way away in the Pyrenees, but some of the people whom we were with there were from the Hull area and we got a fairly first-hand account of the horrific circumstances there. We now know that some 8,600 homes and 1,300 businesses were affected by the flooding. Some 6,300 people were forced to live in temporary accommodation and many other people camped out upstairs or lived in caravans and so on. I was fortunate to be able to go to Hull later that summer—I think that it was in September—to meet the leader of the city council, Councillor Carl Minns. He gave a presentation on exactly what had happened and what the council and other bodies in Hull were doing about it. I came away extremely impressed by the way in which everyone in the city had mucked in and worked together, including local community groups, the council and its employees, the other statutory bodies, the police and everyone else. It really was very impressive. The residents whom I met had done the cleaning up and were in the process of seeing the repairs to their homes taking place, waiting for the repairs to start, or otherwise coping with the horrific situation that they had been put in. To meet some of them in their homes was a very encouraging experience, because of the resilience of the community in the face of what was absolutely horrific—when the water just rose and there was nothing that anyone could do about it because there was nowhere for it to go. Hull is built on a classic flood plain; the whole of Hull is just above sea level, just below sea level or at sea level. One of the things that the city council did was to set up the independent review body quickly, under the chairmanship of Professor Tom Coulthard, the professor of physical geography at the University of Hull. I had the opportunity to read both the interim report, which was ready when I went to Hull, and the more recent final report. The reports are an absolute model of readability and clarity in their presentation; that has to be commended. The reason for commenting on those reports this evening is that some of the fundamental points that they make are in support of this amendment. They clearly point out that no single agency was in charge of flooding in Hull. This was singular, unusual flooding because it was pluvial—that is to say, rainwater flooding—rather than an overflow of rivers or the breaching of coastal defences. It was almost entirely because there was simply too much rain falling on that very flat place for the drains to cope. There was no problem with the maintenance of the gullies or the drains; it was simply that the system could not cope with the huge volume of water that fell. I shall read three of the recommendations from the interim report. The first one is: "““No single agency (e.g. Yorkshire Water, Environment Agency, Hull City Council) accepts responsibility for any elements outside their own terms of reference nor have they historically allowed others to influence their own obligations. This is a recurring theme—one of inadequate consultation, co-operation and unity between the agencies””—" not after the event but beforehand, in order to have a system in place that could cope better. Here is a further recommendation: "““The flooding in Hull has revealed the difficulties of having multiple agencies responsible for different areas of the drainage system. We feel it is vital that the Environment Agency, local authority and water company closely co-operate on operation, investment and design””." The review body’s solution, looking at the problem from the local point of view of Hull, is this: "““We recommend that an independent Drainage Board for Hull is set up””." The final report, which confirms the findings of the interim report, includes a related recommendation: "““Formal and accountable cross-agency co-operation and co-ordination must be implemented””." Interestingly, the report adds: "““Emergency planning for pluvial flooding””—" that is, rainwater flooding— "““should be undertaken by all regional and local authorities””." The report is excellent. The people who produced it are to be congratulated on it, as is the city council on commissioning it. I hope that all the agencies concerned—they will, no doubt, have copies—will take it very seriously. My basic point is in support of my noble friend’s amendment: there has to be a much more unified, co-ordinated approach to flood control, particularly in places that are built on coastal flood plains, such as Hull.