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Flooding (Gloucestershire)

It is extremely appropriate that we have this Adjournment debate in the first week of the return of Parliament. The last Adjournment debate before the summer recess was on flooding. I was grateful to Mr. Speaker for the opportunity to reply to that debate. I want to put a few, I hope, serious points on the record. I congratulate the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) and I want to thank him, because my experience throughout the summer, during the many meetings, telephone conference calls and visits, and in reading letters and other correspondence, was that he acted with due diligence on behalf of his constituents. He criticised the Government or the authorities when it was helpful to his constituents and not when it was only helpful to him. He asked for what we could give him but did not ask for things that we could not give him. He behaved as an entirely responsible Member. If I were his constituent, I would be very proud of him. I would not say that I would vote for him, because that would bring party politics into it, but the serious point is that I would like to put that on the record. It says in Dod's Parliamentary Companion that the hon. Gentleman has run six marathons. He must be a Lancastrian to have such stamina. I seriously congratulate him on the role that he played. I said in the Adjournment debate in Westminster Hall that, if ever there was proof of the case for single Member constituency Members of Parliament, it was the flooding events recently. Members of Parliament for constituencies across the political spectrum throughout our country were able to solve problems on behalf of their constituents. I hope that Ministers were able to play their part, too. The Minister for Local Government was appointed as the Minister with responsibility for flood recovery in circumstances that would have made the late Lord Howell proud. He has done a sterling job. He has ensured that the flood recovery effort has carried on. Indeed, I think that we have had seven ministerial meetings, the latest of which was yesterday. Officials and Ministers from across the Whitehall Departments met, long after the national media, although not the local media, had lost interest. I thank also the flood recovery officials group, or FROG—a horrible acronym. It has been working very hard throughout the period; it is still working hard now. I pay tribute also to the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper). May I, perhaps unusually, answer his points first, because that will form the unscripted bit of my reply? I hope that the hon. Member for Tewkesbury and indeed my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Claire Ward), the Whip, will allow me to do that, because we have a bit more time than we would otherwise have had. The hon. Member for Forest of Dean makes the point about gold command, and he is right. Built into the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 is the philosophy of lessons learned. Part of the approach of the professionals is always to ask for criticism, in order that they can learn from individual circumstances. It has been the endeavour of the Government that support for the civil contingencies procedure should be all-party, which is why we involve Opposition spokespersons in the briefings and so on. It does not work without public resilience and therefore requires an all-party approach. The gold command structure is, on the whole, working. The experience from the floods in June and July was that we were a lot better off with that structure than we would have been without it. That is not to say that we cannot learn lessons, as the hon. Member for Forest of Dean says. I hope that we will be able to persuade him of the virtue of the regional fire control centres. As he knows, 999 is regional already and the idea of the regional centres is to make improvements. The co-ordination of kit and equipment—in this instance, in the floods and at other incidents such as Buncefield—has been made better by the regional control centres. I hope that he will be persuaded over the months of the benefits of that. The hon. Gentleman was gracious enough to thank Ministers for their involvement, and I thank him for that. On the question of money, he again graciously acknowledged the allocation so far. The Minister for Local Government has been incredibly diligent in his approach and is leading the UK request to the EU solidarity fund. We also have the Bellwin scheme—created, I think, by Lord Bellwin. He is the only Minister to have anything complimentary named after him. The hon. Gentleman made an interesting point about the Valuation Office Agency. That matter came up in one of the conferences with MPs and I shall take it up. If someone is living in a caravan in their own grounds and being charged when they would not be if they were living in a caravan not on their own grounds, that suggests that the hon. Gentleman—I am anxious not to make commitments that I cannot fulfil—has a point. The loss of water supply—we discussed that yesterday—is an ongoing issue. The Minister for Local Government, the Secretary of State and other Ministers including myself visited many areas across the country during the unprecedented flooding and saw for ourselves how destructive, distressing and, on many occasions, frightening the flooding has been. The debate gives me the opportunity to echo the words of the hon. Member for Forest of Dean in praising the magnificent response of those affected. No civil resilience planning works without public resilience, which means that having confidence in the authorities is essential. There are many stories and they will be documented over the years, but I want to put our appreciation on the record. I include in that the utility companies, which have been criticised but whose individual employees went the extra mile, as has been acknowledged. We know that the recovery from the impact of flooding is long and arduous and continues long after the media news reports have finished. I would like to thank BBC local radio—I know that the Secretary of State has done so on record with the BBC—as well as commercial radio, which played an important role. Their compilation of reports was hugely important in giving information, not just in reporting news. The good news is that the comprehensive funding package of up to £57 million to assist flood-affected regions and to help those in greatest need, including funding for schools, transport and businesses, has been put in place. Over £2.5 million of flood recovery money has been provided to Gloucestershire and we have given local authorities the flexibility to decide what to do with that money based on local circumstances. That is almost as important as the amount of money given. In addition, Gloucestershire will be given at least £10 million for highways works and more than £1 million for schools and children's services affected by the floods. The South West of England Regional Development Agency also has a business recovery scheme. Grants of up to £2,500 are available to small and medium-sized enterprises, and, to date, almost £1m in grants has been allocated to businesses. The generosity of the public and businesses must also be acknowledged; I understand that they have so far donated almost £800,000 to the Gloucestershire flood relief fund, which will help those who have suffered hardship as a result of flooding. My hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government is leading a co-ordinated effort across Government to ensure that we do as much as we can to assist those in the flooded areas. Our message is that they are not forgotten. A meeting yesterday to look in detail at the problems was attended by officials of more than 25 Departments and agencies, and we continue that work. Let me repeat the point about the exceptional weather. Rainfall in the constituency of the hon. Member for Tewkesbury was the highest since records began in 1766. The flood warning I received in my ministerial box the evening before warned of severe floods in central and southern England, but it is simply not possible to give warnings of conditions of the severity that his constituency suffered—which created dangerous circumstances and, tragically, resulted in loss of life. Measures are required to respond to and manage sudden increases in water flow: putting in place defences and better drainage; warning of flooding before it happens so people can prepare; and reacting quickly and effectively when it does occur, as it inevitably will from time to time, and our water management infrastructure is overwhelmed beyond its design capacity. We must also have procedures in place to minimise distress, to avoid injury and loss of life, to provide immediate rescue services and help for those whose homes have been made uninhabitable, and to maintain essential services. We witnessed in Gloucestershire the enormous effort people made to operate those procedures successfully. In the longer term, we must look at how we can avoid making the problem worse, especially given the impact climate change will have in terms of rainfall levels and increasing the frequency and intensity of downpours. It is not possible to say that there was a direct causal link between climate change and the events in July in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, but it is highly likely that there was a connection, and the case for climate change is proven—as, incidentally, the judge in the recent Al Gore film case recognised. Physical defences will continue to be the most important mechanism that we have for protecting lives and property from the risks of flooding and erosion, but we recognise that building bigger and ever higher is not sustainable. Our cross-Government ““Making Space for Water”” strategy development programme is looking not only at how we optimise flood management spend, but at other ways in which we can take an in-the-round and sustainable approach to the management of risk from all forms of flooding—from rivers, the sea, groundwater, surface run-off and sewers. We are looking at, and delivering, a broad range of management measures. We are aiming to improve management of the risk nationally by giving the Environment Agency a strategic overview of all forms of flooding in close partnership with local authorities, the water companies and other bodies. The hon. Gentleman made a point about co-ordination. The point is to have co-ordination, rather than the idea—I am not saying that he suggested this—that we give all control and ownership of the problem to one authority. We think better co-ordination is needed. We shall look at the review that is being carried out by Sir Michael Pitt. Although I was not involved in his appointment, I could not have chosen a better person to carry out that review for us, and I am sure that co-ordination is one of the things that he is examining.