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Flooding (Northumberland)

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. He rightly points out that a number of communities in Northumberland were affected by severe flooding, one of which was the village of Hepscot, just outside Morpeth. It was not affected to the same extent as Morpeth, but one of the main reasons why it flooded was that the drains were overwhelmed. Does he agree that although simple maintenance—the cleaning of drains, and their upgrading, where necessary—would perhaps not have prevented the worst damage, it would have alleviated many of the problems that were faced?