Flood and Water Management

It is a pleasure to participate in this debate and to follow speeches that are as excellent and thoughtful as those we have heard so far across the Chamber. I pay tribute in particular to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) and her Committee for the excellent report that has been produced. On 25 June 2007, this country suffered some of the worse flooding in modern history, and my constituents in Beverley and Holderness were some of the worst affected. All four towns in my constituency, Beverley, Hedon, Withernsea and Hornsea were affected, and at one stage Hornsea was cut off by the floods. Almost every hamlet and village was affected; thousands of my constituents had their homes flooded and were forced out. Although Hull attracted press attention as it too was devastated, the East Riding of Yorkshire was equally appallingly hit. Although we are discussing the technicalities of the floods, the human cost must never be forgotten. Let us consider from a historical point of view how we, the country and the media would view a catastrophe that saw thousands of people removed from their homes, for months if they were lucky, and years if they were not, and how seriously we would regard such an event if it were caused by something other than floods. In a way, the country and the media failed to recognise just how devastating were the floods in east Yorkshire in 2007 and elsewhere. The memory of people living with their marriages on the edge as they sat in a tiny caravan—I shall not name the place as that may identify the people involved, but I saw people who were absolutely haunted for months afterwards, with their lives wrecked by the flooding as they sat in a tiny caravan and stepped out into mud. They were involved in permanent disputes over their house with changing underwriters and people from the insurance companies. Notwithstanding the fact that insurance companies in general did a good job, that human picture stays in my mind and makes it important that we get things right. That is why I am keen to try to find a way of providing long-term solutions. The nature of politics, not least the pressures faced by the coalition Government, given the financial catastrophe that they inherited, mean that funding for long-term issues such as flooding tends to get reduced. It gets reduced even in good times. When the previous Government were spending like there was no tomorrow, after there had been no flood events for a few years, the spending got cut. In a tougher time, we can expect that pressure to be even greater. How do we create a situation with the guarantee of stable, solid and sensible investment to protect people? That is my central question. I have tried to think about the issue, bearing in mind the many people whom I met in my constituency in 2007. The answer I came up with is that what we have now is not suitable. It is not simply about getting new documents, unless that involves legislation and setting down a definitive standard that can be enforced in court. Unless we have something like that, we will see the same cycle again—the money will not be put in place, and when a one-in-50, one-in-75 or one-in-150-year event comes to an area, people will suffer in the same way they did in the area I represent. As the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee makes clear, when all costs are considered, it makes no sense from an economic point of view not to make such an investment. However, because of the silos of departmental budgets and the pressures in the political cycle, that money is not invested and we pay a higher price as a result. We therefore owe it to our constituents, not just from the human point of view, but from a basic, sensible economic management point of view, to create a structure that does not allow the money to be pulled away as soon as the spotlight moves on. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister may be able to discuss that today. I have not done detailed work on what the implications would be of a transfer to water companies. It just seems to me that water companies such as Yorkshire Water, which has plant, people and responsibilities all over my constituency and all over Yorkshire, are capable of raising money from the markets for long-term investment in order to deliver a standard that a regulator ensures is met and to do that in a way that does not impinge on public finances. They are in a better position to deliver that certainty for the lowest possible cost than other models that immediately present themselves. I urge the Minister to think about that, because notwithstanding the good work that went on under the previous Government, albeit that it was a little slow, and the good work that is going on under the present Government which, funnily enough, also seems to be rather slow, I am not convinced that my constituents will not be affected badly again in future. On the positive front, I would like to praise the Environment Agency. Craig McGarvey, whom I have dealt with a great deal in my local area, has been open. I certainly expressed a lot of criticism of the Environment Agency and the way in which it behaved, the way in which it treated people and the way in which it talked to them, as well as what it did from a practical point of view. However, people from the agency have worked hard to listen to people, to come out and be available. They have given up their evenings to talk and engage with people; and from Pasture terrace and Willow grove in Beverley to Burstwick, Hedon and a number of other places, serious improvements have been made to reduce flood risk. I pay tribute to East Riding of Yorkshire council, which did not rush to judgment but set up a flood review panel. It spent months doing the work; it thought about it deeply; and it has encouraged parishes to come up with their own emergency plans and to think deeply about how they can minimise risk. Much good work has happened in Beverley and Holderness, and I am delighted that that is the case. [Mrs Anne Main in the Chair] I also pay tribute to the fire service. Again, I had been extremely critical. The floods happened on 25 June. Fire officers were doing 12 or 14 hours in floodwater, rescuing people. That happened to be in June. It happened to be the case, when they went in with fire kit on, which was completely unsuitable for flood work, that they did not freeze. If it had happened in February, they would not have been able to stay in the water as they did so heroically, doing 12-hour stints, looking after people. They would have had to come out, possibly after 40 or 45 minutes. People would have died simply because they did not have the kit to go in the water. I was ferocious in my criticism of how we got ourselves in that situation then, and the service listened and has invested and trained up its staff and they have the kit. We can be assured that if such an event happens again, we will have trained firefighters, with the right equipment, who can go in, effect rescues and protect people's lives. If the floods had happened in February instead of June, people would have died as a result. That will not be the case in future. Many positive things have occurred. If we do not look at a transfer to the water companies, I would like the Minister to reflect on the situation in the Netherlands, which has larger regional boards as opposed to our internal drainage boards. I visited the country once with the all-party coastal and marine group. People there have tax-raising powers, as I recall, but they have to deliver statutory protection standards. When we visited, we found that their rural areas had a higher guaranteed standard than central London. They looked for one-in-1,250-year flood protection for their rural areas and one-in-10,000-year protection for their urban areas. Of course, they have a completely different history and culture around flooding, given that the whole country is pretty much at risk of flooding and they carved it out of the sea in the first place. However, if we want people to be given proper protection, we perhaps need to implement such flood protection standards. They might need to be different in different places, but people should know that if they build behind a certain line or they have a house there, they will have protection that is maintained over time, whoever provides it. I hope that that will happen. I know that, as Opposition Members have said, the Minister has spent a lot of time considering and understanding this issue. Across the Chamber, we have enormous confidence in him. We not only hope but expect that he will introduce a long-term settlement that means that the people who suffered so much in 2007 and in years before and after that will not suffer in that way again. That will be because of the Benyon settlement. Whatever the cynicism of people about the motives of those of us who come into public life, we do so in the hope that we can make a significant positive difference that affects the lives of thousands of people for the better. What better monument to the career of my hon. Friend than that he should provide the long-term Benyon settlement on flood protection and prevent the misery that blighted the lives of my constituents in 2007 from happening again in the future where it can be avoided?