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Summer Adjournment

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay). I thought that he was going to wind up a little earlier and I was thinking that I might follow your strictures, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and rush over and embrace him, but he took all his time so I will not, you will be glad to know. I want to raise two issues concerning my constituency. As I am a Gloucestershire Member, the House will not be surprised to hear that I shall be raising the issue of flooding. I shall also raise the issue of ambulance cover. I undertook a comprehensive tour of my constituency on Monday and Tuesday, and unfortunately I found that the flooding there was far more widespread than I had anticipated. I am keen to stress that, despite the high-profile news coverage of Tewkesbury and Gloucester, my constituency suffered quite considerably as well, to the tune of several hundred houses being flooded. Perhaps I might acquaint the House with some of what I discovered on Monday and Tuesday. I started my tour at a small village near Lechlade in the south-west of my constituency, and I drove through rather a deeper flood than I should perhaps have done. I donned my wellies, rushed into a house—the water immediately went over the top of my wellies—and found a poor person whose furniture and carpets had been ruined. I then went on to Fairford, and even more dismayingly I found a road of houses that were under 2 ft of a mixture of sewage and water. The main bridge in Fairford had fractured and the main road was closed. I went on to Bourton-on-the-Water—wryly called by one resident Bourton-under-the-water—and found, as many people may be able to picture Bourton-under-the-water, the picturesque village, the rivers, the bridges, the greens and the high street entirely under water, which had spilled over into many shops and houses. Perhaps the biggest shock was when I went on to Moreton-in-Marsh, where I found that 250 people had been evacuated last Friday night to the fire college, their homes having been rendered unfit for habitation. I discovered that more than half the shops had been flooded, many of the houses near the station had been flooded, and many of the hostelries will not be open for many months. I went on to the pretty town of Chipping Campden, where the Cambrook had burst its banks and many houses had been flooded. Likewise in Northleach the main culvert under the main high street had closed, and there a problem re-occurred that I had heard about in several other places. A road had been flooded and HGVs and cars trying to get through the flood, driving far too fast, were causing bow waves and causing even worse flooding into the houses—until a public-spirited local resident put his car across the road, effectively closing it. Even the main road into my own village was washed away. Repairing the infrastructure will be expensive and time-consuming, and because it is spread over a very large area of the Cotswolds it will be expensive. I therefore issue this plea to the county council: that we in the Cotswolds should get our fair share of funding. I know that the high-profile cases of Tewkesbury and Gloucester will cause vast strain on both the county council’s and the Government’s budgets, but we are going to need some resources in the Cotswolds, not only to restore the infrastructure but to pay for emergency things such as the simple provision of Portaloos, sandbags and pumping equipment. There will need to be a substantial clean-up. I pay great tribute to the Cotswold district council for immediately swinging into action and providing a free collection service for ruined furniture and carpets. That was hugely appreciated by people on the ground. Some of the flooding had been caused by the Environment Agency’s policy of clearing out watercourses only on a biennial basis, on the grounds that to do so encourages biodiversity. That will need to be looked at again rigorously, because if it causes any possibility of flooding homes it is totally wrong. I have mentioned the problem of sewer flooding. I had had a problem of sewer flooding in various places in the Cotswolds before this general flooding of water. Fortunately, I was able to persuade one of my two water companies, Thames Water, to advance a £5 million sewerage scheme in South Cerney, which did help this time, but there are many smaller instances of sewer flooding which will need attention. I call on the Deputy Leader of the House to bring the matter to the attention of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, because the regulatory regime needs looking at to ensure that water companies have sufficient ability to invest in the infrastructure from their profits. I should also like to bring to the attention of the House a matter about which I received another e-mail from a constituent this morning. The flooding of the Mythe waterworks, which was raised in Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, resulted in the cutting off of the fresh water supply to 340,000 people, which is being attended to by the provision of bowsers. It was widely advertised on BBC Radio Gloucester and on the website that a bowser would be available for the villagers of Birdlip in my constituency. There is, or was, no such bowser in that village. The villages have no fresh water and no bowser from which to get it. I urge Severn Trent Water urgently to attend to the matter. Like many other Members of the House, I cannot express high enough praise for the emergency services, particularly the fire service, that worked throughout Friday night to pump out a vast number of houses. The community spirit that I found when I was going round on Monday and Tuesday was absolutely tremendous, but the problem is that that community spirit will give way in some cases to depression when the true extent of the damage sinks in. I urge all the social services and other support services to be in place when that happens. The second issue that I would like to raise is the provision of ambulance cover in my constituency. The chief executive of the newly merged Great Western Ambulance Service NHS trust said to me in a letter of 4 July that"““rurally based resources have been pooled in to urban areas to cover higher density activity.””" Ambulances are being taken away from rural areas and are being put into towns. In fact, that has already caused the loss of one life. As it has been in the press, I would like to bring to the attention of the House the tragic case of a young lady, Rebecca Wedd. She was hit by a car just outside Cirencester, but the ambulance service took 45 minutes to attend to her. The incident was totally unacceptable and it occurred not in a rural village but near the Royal Agricultural college just outside Cirencester, which is the largest town in my constituency. I will run over the facts of this particular case. The only ambulance available in Cirencester was not available that evening, because the entire crew had reported sick. At the beginning of the evening, there were five crews in Staverton and, when the ambulance service knew that no ambulance was available in Cirencester, I would have thought that it would have immediately deployed one of those crews to cover Cirencester, particularly when an event with 700 people was taking place there. There had been a serious incident at Tetbury further south in my constituency and three ambulances attended that. The Wiltshire air ambulance was also deployed, but it was delayed and did not reach the scene on time. However, most tragically, an ambulance was available in Swindon, a mere 15 miles down the dual carriageway, and the most shocking fact of all is revealed in a letter from the chief executive of the trust. He wrote:"““Gloucestershire Emergency Medical Dispatch Centre did contact the Wiltshire Emergency Medical Dispatch Centre, and ask for assistance—but this was declined.””" A young lady tragically died because of that, and ongoing investigations are being carried out to discover what happened. Sadly, that is not the only case. On 23 January this year, Evan Bailey, a 12-year-old boy from Coates, a small village a mere 3 miles from Cirencester, had his first ever asthma attack. Let us all imagine the panic of that small boy and his parents, Christopher and Rosemary, as he underwent that new and frightening experience. Mrs. Bailey estimates that the ambulance was called at 10.15, but did not arrive until well over half an hour later at 10.50. He was subsequently moved to Gloucester hospital. I am aware of those two examples of response times failing to live up to targets, but how many other constituents have had their lives put at risk? Despite assurances from the chief executive of the trust, I am not convinced that trust targets are being met even in the most urban parts of my constituency, let alone in the many far-flung villages, hamlets and farms of the Cotswolds. I raised the issue of the merger of the Gloucestershire ambulance trusts in Westminster Hall, and I said:"““If someone is lying beside the road, dying from a motor accident…the one thing that that person wants is a quick ambulance response. The merger will inevitably slow down that response.””" I went on to say:"““If they do not have a proper ambulance service when they need it, they will die. There is no question about that. We must be sure that the merger will work; otherwise, we are putting people’s lives at risk.””—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 9 February 2005; Vol. 430, c. 442-44WH.]" I take no pleasure at all in saying that that prophecy sadly came true and I ask the ambulance trust to see what it can do to prevent it from ever happening again.