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Flood and Water Management Bill

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping). I should like to start by thanking the Secretary of State—I suppose belatedly, although I am sure that I said the same thing at the time—for all the help he gave to and interest he took in Tewkesbury at the time of the floods. He was extremely helpful. He readily came over to visit and was always available on the phone. That help was much appreciated by my constituents, and again I thank him for it. I am not taking it personally that I am the first speaker on the Conservative Benches to have his time curtailed; I think that it is probably because I spoke in the Queen's Speech debate on this issue. However, I make no apology for returning to it today because it is so very important. I want to run through a few aspects that are lacking from the Bill or that I would like strengthened. Of course, as has been said from the Front Bench, Conservative Members support the Bill. We welcome its early introduction after the Queen's Speech in the hope that we can get it through before Parliament is dissolved for a general election. However, if we are to take advantage of its introduction, there are changes that should be made; I am sure that those decisions will be made in Committee. We have heard a little about house building. I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), who said that we should not build houses in the wrong places. He also mentioned the way in which houses are built. The famous and iconic picture of Tewkesbury abbey surrounded by water was seen everywhere; people remember it in countries that I have been to all over the world. It is important to point out that although the abbey was surrounded by water, it did not flood. The Normans started to build the abbey at the end of the 11th century. People knew where to build and how to build in those days; it seems that we have forgotten about those skills. We must try to build houses that are not only flood resistant but do not displace water and cause problems for other houses. I am not sure whether it is entirely possible to do that, although I know that new drainage systems are being discussed; sumps have been mentioned tonight. We must also start to build houses to take account of the power that they will require in the light of climate change. I know that that is a different subject, but we have talked a lot about it, so it is relevant. Above all, we have to ask ourselves why my Tewkesbury constituency suffered so badly. The regional spatial strategy proposes to build 14,500 extra houses in what is clearly a flood risk area. Those figures are based on what the south-west regional assembly is suggesting and on the Government's projection that we need 3 million more houses by 2026, but there is no scientific basis for making those estimates. When this Government came to power, they said, correctly, that they were going to end the "predict and provide" approach to housing, but they have not only reinforced that approach but regionalised it, thereby taking the decisions away from local people. That is much to be regretted. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), who kindly mentioned several places in my constituency, including Warden Hill, Leckhampton and Wheatpieces, was absolutely right to suggest that those new build figures should be revisited. I believe that they should be scrapped and we should think again about where we are going to build houses. In that respect, I am not satisfied with the Bill because I do not think it will stop the building of houses on flood risk areas. Another important issue became evident during the fight to save the area—I do not think that it is too dramatic to describe it as such given that some people lost up to three weeks' water supply, we almost lost the county's entire electricity supply and, tragically, we lost three lives. It became obvious to me that it was extremely difficult to pinpoint which organisation was responsible for maintaining a waterway or water feature, whether it be a culvert, a stream, a brook, or whatever we want to call it. As a result, there was a delay in clearing or repairing that waterway, which created great difficulty. One of the reasons why people did not want to accept responsibility for a given waterway was that they would then have the responsibility for fixing it, which costs money. I am glad that several hon. Members have made that point. When we set out to give responsibility to different organisations, as we should, we must ensure that we identify who is responsible for which waterway and that they are sufficiently funded to carry out the work that we require them to do. I am not sure that the Bill goes far enough to satisfy me in that respect. As has been noted, it is not enough to act only in emergencies. Welcome as that aid is at the time, it is too late by then. We need to ensure that all the waterways are maintained throughout the year. As I said in the Queen's Speech debate, if we drive cars, we should, if we are sensible, have them serviced regularly and not let them break down before we do anything with them. It is the same with waterways: we must ensure that they are cleared and maintained. We must also ensure—this was not happening before the flooding—that riparian owners of certain waterways carry out their maintenance. As far as I can see, local authorities have not been doing that. As I said, we lost the water supply and almost lost the electricity supply; some people lost electricity for a while. We need to provide alternative sources of utilities. People in my constituency and, I am sure, in other constituencies, had an extremely difficult time in going without water for so long. The heroic efforts of the armed forces, the emergency services and ordinary volunteers, including children, to get water supplies to houses warmed the heart; nevertheless, we do not want to have to go through that again. I hope that alternative supplies of water and electricity can be set up; at least, we should ensure that places such as Mythe waterworks and Walham electricity substation are properly protected. There are many other issues that I could raise, but alas I am running out of time and cannot do so in any great detail. On insurance, of course, as I said in an earlier intervention, we must appreciate that insurance companies are businesses that must make profits; we require them to exist, so they have to be financially solvent. However, in some cases they have been unduly harsh on many of their customers by increasing excesses to as much as £10,000 or £15,000—even £20,000 in a case that I have heard of—at the same time as increasing premiums. If somebody has an excess of £10,000 or £15,000 for water damage, they are effectively not insured against that, so why do they have to pay an increased premium? That is most unfair. Although it is welcome that flood defences are undertaken in so many places—several schemes have been completed in my own area—that can sometimes make things worse as regards getting insurance. One or two companies may say, "Oh, that is a flood risk area. Those people are in danger—we won't insure them or we're going to put the excesses up." That is very unfair. I know that the Government have expressed concern about that practice, and I hope that they will carry on talking to insurance companies about it.