Flooding (West Cumbria)

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 publically, 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, it is 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.