Energy and Climate Change and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) in what may be quite an important moment—his castigation and denunciation of the Soviet Union probably means that old Labour is now dead, and we should probably take a moment to think about that. However, he made some good points. As the remaining months of this Parliament go by, I am sure that with my Front-Bench hat on I will have time to engage with Ministers and other Front Benchers on issues in the Queen's Speech, but today I shall restrict my remarks to my constituency, particularly at this time when it has suffered from unprecedented flooding, like much of the rest of Cumbria. When I listened to the Gracious Speech last week, I paid particular attention—because of my brief and other interests—to the reference to the Flood and Water Management Bill, but I did not realise, whatever the forecast might have said, how personally involved I would become with that issue within 24 hours. Less than 24 hours after Her Majesty had spoken, I was waist deep in water in Kendal with my constituents. As I said in my question to the Secretary of State during the statement yesterday—it is important to repeat it—PC Barker lost his life protecting the lives and safety of civilians. At times of difficulty like this, we always praise the emergency services, and we are right to do so. We should not forget what risks they run at such times, and PC Barker's tragic death underlines that. On behalf of the whole House, I wish to express my immense sympathy and gratitude to his family, and indeed to the whole constabulary. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson), who is no longer in his place, remarked that people do not really understand the issues of flooding until they have seen them for themselves. That is a strong point, because I saw both sides of the issue last week. On Thursday morning I was in Kendal as the River Kent was bursting its banks. On the Aynam road side of the river, one of the warehouses had been lent by its owners to Operation Christmas Child, which—as other hon. Members will be aware—is a project in which the community, especially local schools, works to put together shoeboxes of Christmas presents for orphans in eastern Europe. That warehouse was right next to the river and was likely to flood within half an hour. I joined some 25 to 30 people who were busily emptying about 10,000 of those boxes into the back of a lorry so that they could be driven to safety. We succeeded, which was wonderful. I then walked down the road with a family who had been helping, and we were full of the spirit of camaraderie that difficult times engender. We reached their house, which had just flooded, and the mood changed instantly. They went from feeling that community spirit—which undoubtedly exists at such times, so much so that it could almost be bottled, no pun intended—to abject misery through being affected personally. It is important to pay tribute to that community spirit. When I was on the other side of the river, earlier in the day, at Edgecombe court—a block of sheltered flats—I was helping to move some of the residents to higher floors. I expressed sympathy to them as we helped to move their stuff upstairs, but I was mostly slapped down, because as they said, they had lived through a war and this was nothing. That spirit is prevalent throughout the county and we need to pay tribute to it. The Flood and Water Management Bill is late. We could have had it a year or two ago, but it will be welcomed throughout my constituency. After I had been in Kendal on Thursday morning, I went up to Burneside. Many people will have seen the torrent there when the Kent burst its banks and rushed through people's living rooms. Further up the road in Staveley, where the Gowan burst its banks and rising water levels affected people living on Main street, the problems could have been dealt with by some of the measures in the Bill. Many parts of my constituency remain under water and they are what we might call the tourist honeypots—Bowness, Ambleside and other areas in central and southern Lake district. As I left home yesterday morning, Lake Windermere was significantly bigger than usual. It is the biggest lake in England, but it has a tiny drain into the Leven to the south and it is taking longer to empty. Many of the businesses in Bowness and Ambleside are still under water and they will need specific support as they seek to recover. The impact is also high in places such as Backbarrow, where a bridge was lost, causing great inconvenience. The loss of so many bridges has not only been tragic, in the case of PC Barker, and inconvenient, causing communication difficulties, but has meant the loss of important parts of our heritage, which have been literally washed away. Earlier in the debate, we heard about people who expressed scepticism about climate change. I just ask them to look around. Very few people in Cumbria this evening will need much convincing that climate change is both real and the result of human activity. The good news is that if we caused it, we can solve it. As we look to mitigate and deal with climate change, we must keep in mind that common endeavour—that wartime spirit evoked by the residents of Edgecombe court—but we must also adapt. The Flood and Water Management Bill is part of that. While we have suffered immensely in south Lakeland, we feel tremendous solidarity with our fellow Cumbrians in Cockermouth, Keswick, Workington and other parts of the north and west of the county who have suffered even more in many cases. Like us, they refuse to be cowed by this devastation and are determined to rebuild their communities, including residential properties, the communications network and businesses.