Flooding (Cumbria)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his words of sympathy and eloquent appreciation of the efforts that the community is making; obviously, he has been at the heart of those in the past few days. I want to echo the point that he made about the local media. At times such as these, local radio in particular, but also local television, are tried and trusted sources of information about what is happening and where people can go to get assistance. I turn to the warnings. Obviously, a flood warning was issued to Kendal. However, much depends on the nature of the flooding; there is no warning for surface water flooding, by definition, because unless we know exactly where the rain is going to land, it is hard to indicate where surface water flooding may arise. That is why one of the measures in the Flood and Water Management Bill is to give the local authority, the upper tier or unitary authority lead responsibility for bringing together all the people with responsibility for bits of the drainage infrastructure—they could be the private owners of culverts, the Highways Agency, the council and others—to do precisely what the hon. Gentleman has suggested needs to be done to deal with the problem. I should add that we are also dealing with the legacy of 150 years of paving, tarmacking and concreting over all the land in our towns and cities. If that is done and huge amounts of rain fall out of the sky, where will the water go? That legacy has to be dealt with. Local authorities do have the powers in respect of building on flood plains. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, we strengthened the planning guidance; the Environment Agency must now be consulted on planning applications. I am happy to report that in the vast majority of cases the decision goes in line with what the Environment Agency has to say about whether it is safe to build on a flood plain. It all depends on whether homes can be adequately defended. I very much echo the hon. Gentleman's final point. I hope that people continue to visit Cumbria and support businesses there. As one shop owner in Cockermouth said to me on Saturday, once things are up and running again, the most important thing is that people come and use the shops, to help businesses to get back on their feet.