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Flooding

My Lords, I intervene as a former chairman of the National Rivers Authority, the predecessor body to the Environment Agency. As there are photographs of Tewkesbury in practically every newspaper today, I might add that I was married in Tewkesbury Abbey to a Tewkesbury girl. I join those who have expressed sympathy for everyone who has suffered the appalling disaster of having their homes flooded. But in my view, it is very unwise, even for—perhaps especially for—Members of Parliament rushing to score brownie points with their constituents to criticise public bodies such as the Environment Agency without knowing all the facts. Having had to deal with situations during my time, although not quite as bad as this, I offer my congratulations to the Environment Agency on the sometimes heroic work that it has carried out and the conscientious way in which it has done so. While we may, when we examine its record, find that some mistakes were made, I think its overall performance has been entirely to its credit. My noble friend Lady Byford spoke about the condition of assets and asked what pressure had been put on the Environment Agency to put its house in order. I am afraid that I would put the question rather differently: what pressure has been put on the Government to put their house in order in funding the Environment Agency, not on the capital budget, to which the noble Lord referred in some detail, but on the maintenance budget? My understanding is that the Environment Agency pressed hard for additional funding for the maintenance of existing facilities. When people look at the performance of the Environment Agency, they are understandably unaware of the many areas where flooding has been avoided because of the work that has been carried out in constructing schemes. I cite, for example, the Thames, where flooding would have been much worse but for the construction of the project there. Probably the most important single lesson to come out of this is that you must build neither housing nor infrastructure in the flood plain. That is primarily what we suffering from; we will have more flooding of this kind until that lesson is learnt. As I am being urged to sit down at this point, I may rise to press that point again when we come to the housing Statement that will follow.