I certainly agree and the hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, which I will cover in the next few minutes. We have heard from other Members today examples of great excesses being charged. Some, but
not many, of my constituents are being refused insurance on any terms at all. However, the ones who do get insurance are reporting high premiums and high excesses; some excesses are so high that they are effectively insured only for an Armageddon situation. I therefore urge the Minister not just to concentrate on the availability of insurance but to make the premium levels and excess levels stick with the industry.
I was interested to hear the speech of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), who made some very good points about houses completed since 2009. I hope the Minister will define what he means by houses built on a flood plain. What will happen to houses not deemed to have been so built, but which have nevertheless been flooded recently, like some in my constituency? What will happen to houses built since 2009 that have yet to be flooded but will flood in future? Will the insurance industry take the opportunity to withdraw insurance? The planning systems need looking at. Building regulations would help a lot in dealing with water consumption, and a lot more attention needs to be paid in the planning system to the issue of building on flood plains.
Some of the measures in the Bill are undoubtedly designed essentially to deal with water shortages, particularly in the south-east. This is yet another capacity issue for the south-east, to add to those of housing, schools, transport and many others. Water is plentiful in the north-east and, I understand, in the north-west too. I therefore hope that DEFRA Ministers will lend their full weight to the Government’s efforts to rebalance the economy away from the south-east.
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