Flood and Water Management

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members' Financial Interests that I am secretary to the Fire Brigades Union. I will focus on the statutory responsibility for flood preparation and flood response, although I almost feel that I should apologise for raising the matter so consistently in recent years. After the 2007 floods, the Pitt review was undertaken; its early recommendations were fairly straightforward, despite what the Committee calls some vagueness. The report recommended that"““The Government should urgently put in place a fully funded national capability for flood rescue with Fire and Rescue Authorities playing a leading role, underpinned as necessary by a statutory duty.””" That recommendation was fairly clear, but, referring to what the report had to say about preparation and rescue, Pitt added that"““the Review strongly believes that a statutory duty is the best means to achieve these outcomes.””" He continued:"““Whilst it is conceivable that non-statutory approaches, such as those proposed by the CFRA””—" chief fire and rescue adviser, Ken Knight—"““might work, such approaches do not provide the certainty the public expect and the Review believes is needed.””" All the evidence demonstrates that the original Pitt recommendations were correct. Despite some additional moneys being invested in equipment and in some elements of training, the evidence that the Committee received from the FBU was that things had gone backwards rather than forwards. Not enough was being invested in training exercises or in the necessary equipment. It should be blindingly obvious to those who have served in local government that if a statutory duty is not placed upon a particular local government role or function, it is no longer a priority at budget time. Statutory duties always gain priority when it comes to the allocation of resources. I am pleased that the Committee heard more evidence on the subject, and recommendation 3 reinforces what Pitt had said. The Committee said at paragraph 26:"““We are concerned that the lack of a statutory duty for Fire and Rescue Authorities could jeopardise their flood preparation and response work, given pressures on them to direct their limited funding towards fulfilling nondiscretionary duties.””" We had hoped that the Labour Government would legislate on the matter, but what legislation we had did not deal with the question of statutory responsibility.