Flood and Water Management

Thank you, Mr Walker, for inviting me to speak in this timely and important debate. It is important because my constituents are dealing with the issues created by the Severn estuary and because of the work that the Select Committee has accomplished, which we are considering. I want to look at the situation in my constituency from two directions: the Severn estuary and the Slad valley. The Severn estuary is the most important, because it has raised a number of key issues, which my constituents are concerned about. The first is the solutions being imposed from afar when localism and more community involvement would be much preferred. In that respect, we are talking about a long-running process, which has been under way ever since local people around the Severn estuary in my constituency first discussed a strategy after the Environment Agency's produced its proposals. The second issue is the use of farm land adjacent to the estuary. The concerns are therefore largely about land use and the lack of consultation, and I will touch on both. We have had an interesting discussion about insurance, and I will touch on that before I go on to the meat of my remarks, because that issue, too, has been raised by constituents. The flooding map would suggest that the whole village of Frampton On Severn is vulnerable to flooding, which it is not, and large parts have not been flooded for long periods or, indeed, ever. Why should the map be so misleading? It is largely because the map shows what would happen if there were no flood defences. However, there are flood defences, and that needs to be made clear. Insurance firms and the insurance industry in general need to be aware of the fact that flood maps show what the situation would be without defences. However, there are defences, which operate perfectly well in Frampton, so the village has no worries about being flooded. It would be a great step towards allaying residents' fears if we could give more meaning to these maps and bring insurers' attention to the reality of the situation. To return to the Severn estuary, it is obvious that there are flood risks, because flood defences are already in place; some are in need of repair, some need adjustment and some need to be completely reshaped. There is no dispute that flooding is a risk. What we are disputing is how the strategy will unfold over the next 10 to 50 years. Essentially, three sequential tests will be applied to the strategy, and they all raise key issues, which we should consider. The first test is economic and is all about the value of the territory being defended—whether it is farm land or land for housing and development. There are concerns about planning, but we are talking about the situation that exists now. Some areas of land along the Severn estuary in my constituency have an agricultural value but no developed value. That needs to be carefully considered, because it is necessary to ensure that public money is spent wisely. Huge sums would not necessarily be invested in defending just agricultural land. That raises the issue of production. No planning system considers what would happen to land or to a factory if it were flooded or not flooded, but a lot of people in my constituency are rightly concerned about quality farming land being removed from production. That needs to be carefully considered by all concerned. If the economic test is failed, there is the ““make do and mend”” approach, which my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) referred to indirectly, if not directly, when she noted that some farmers protect their own land. The existence of that option needs to be set out more explicitly as one of the range of options that are available. The second test is the legal test and has something to do with habitat. At the end of the day, we have a commitment to ensure that new habitats exist after flooding. Where areas that are flooded hosted wildlife and so forth, we have to retrench and find new habitats. That raises two critical questions: what kind of territory are we really thinking about and how far do we consider the entire basket of options? That raises the question of where the habitat should be and how much should be provided.