---

Flooding

My Lords, I am grateful for the supportive comments from noble colleagues for the work of the emergency services and others; they are reflected by everyone. I shall do my best to answer the questions but let us get this clear: it is said in the Statement that the situation will get worse today and tomorrow as the rivers rise; anything I say could be overturned within an hour and so it is not possible to be specific. There are thousands of people out there working their socks off trying to protect the power stations, the transmission stations, and trying to pump out and get the water treatment plant working as soon as possible. Obviously that is vital. But, at the same time, the weather forecast is not good, the surge has not completely diminished and there are severe flood warnings on the Thames. So things can change dramatically. But I will give a commitment that Parliament will be updated. This is an awkward week, as it is the last one before Recess, but we will do our best to update. So far as the request for troops is concerned, the noble Baroness must appreciate that the Gold Command structure was set up long ago, and it was at Gold Command’s request that the troops were called in. One has to leave it to the police, who are in overall charge of emergency services. The military liaison officers were present in Gold Command from the beginning, and obviously reacted when a request was made. I cannot be specific about the discussions that took place before that because I do not know, but that system is tried and tested and it works. I have to knock on the head again the allegations about the Environment Agency budget. The £14 million, out of the roughly £500 million budget, was nothing to do with defence work. That was last year’s budget, and it was replaced in this year’s budget with even more money. That was not a capital programme. No flood defence work was stopped for it. The capital programme—£600 million, from memory—is more than what it was eight or nine years ago, when it was £200 million or so. We have said we will put it up to £800 million. The noble Baroness put that in with the Bellwin rules, but it is nothing to do with those figures; it is the capital flood defence programme that we have already announced for Environment Agency work. The Bellwin rules were that 85 per cent of the extra expenditure necessary for local authorities is provided. That has been changed to 100 per cent, as the Prime Minister said over the weekend. I cannot be specific about the money that local authorities will get, but clearly we have to review their funding, as was said following the floods in the north when extra money, over and above Bellwin, was made available. The reduction in the Environment Agency budget was for some repair work, but I emphasise that it was £14 million. It would not have made the slightest difference to the current situation, and it was not part of the capital programme for flood defences, which was not cut; indeed, it has been increased over the period of this Government. Last week, on a visit, the Secretary of State said that he would relax the cross-compliance rules for farmers on request for those who needed to use, for example, set-aside land. We will be actively looking at considering that in relation to the whole of England and will consider how the regulations work and whether there should be any other necessary relaxations to assist farmers. One cannot tell at present what is needed. We know what crops were in the fields and it is true that many will be devastated, some more than others. We will do our best to help farmers, who are very practical people in any event. I was asked about the co-ordination of flood emergencies. They are co-ordinated, as are other emergencies, by Gold and Silver commands, led by the police. That system works well. The Government have set out a strategic overview role for the Environment Agency. We have the stated procedures, which we will be reviewing. There is no doubt that there are lessons to be learnt from the past there days, as from three weeks ago. I regret that I cannot say anything about families and insurance. It is far too early for me to say anything about what has happened in the past three days in that respect. I understand that, in the area that has been flooded in central England, fewer properties have been affected than in the north a few weeks ago and that there is a greater propensity for properties to be insured in that part of the world. I do not have specific figures. I saw some graphs and charts early this morning, but it is too early to say at present. The floods in central England are, by current calculations, worse than those in 1947. What is more, in 1947 they came in winter when one expects flooding, with the rain and the snow off the hills. Here we are in the middle of summer, when one cannot reasonably expect all this. This was not rain coming off the Welsh hills down into the Severn; it was six and a half inches of rain dropping across central England. London got a taste of it on Friday, but that was nothing like what fell on the rest of the country. As for warnings, I fully accept what the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, said, but I can remember standing at this Dispatch Box a few months ago, giving a report about the fact that we had had no rain in April. I was assuring the House that the reservoirs and aquifers were full and that we did not foresee having standpipes. I was got at in the Corridor outside by noble Lords saying, ““You’ve really put your head on the block there, sonny. Are you really sure we’ll have enough water?””. Some of the forecasts were of a long, dry, hot summer. With no rain in April, we were thinking there would be serious trouble—and then we end up with the wettest June on record. I fully admit that all kinds of warnings have been given, but with what happened on Friday, no warnings and no amount of work following them would have assisted. I understand that the barrier at Upton upon Severn could not get there; if it had been there, it would have been overwhelmed this time, unlike the last time it was used. I appreciate that that is no comfort to the people in Upton upon Severn. I mentioned Lincolnshire in the list of counties and we accept that it has been affected. It would be unfair if a county was caught twice and missed out twice; we will take that factor into account. I am not in a position to go into detail about the National Audit Office report. It was a follow up to the one in 2001; it was checking, and the Public Accounts Committee took advice from the noble Baroness and others. I think that it has yet to report. The key aspects of the emergency are supplies of clean water and electricity. Your house being flooded is one thing, but no water—in the taps, for the toilets, to wash with—and no electricity is serious. This is of the utmost importance. In the mean time, the companies are supplying water to locations which everyone will know. I reinforce what was said in the Statement. People should first contact the Environment Agency’s Floodline and, above all, they should listen to their local radio station. National radio stations are no use for local information. I was caught on Friday, like a lot of others, and Radio Oxford and Radio Gloucestershire gave me, and all the thousands I was stuck with, massive amounts of good, practical information. That is used by the police to feed information to people so that they can react. People should look in on neighbours they may not have seen, help out with the water situation and give comfort. If the electricity is off, they should make sure that before it is switched on again, things are safe. There is an emergency out there as I speak, and I regret that I cannot be more informative.