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Flood and Water Management Bill

I congratulate all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew). I congratulate the Secretary of State on his staying power. The one missing element in the debate was the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies); we wish him very well in his negotiations on fisheries. I look forward to working with him constructively in the forthcoming Committee proceedings. I echo the warm reception that the Bill has received across the House, although all those who contributed took a cautious approach, and I think that there is room for improvement. The Secretary of State set the tone by relaying the events of the summer 2007 floods. I echo his tributes, and those of all hon. Members, to the emergency services—the police, fire and ambulance services, as well as the Environment Agency, local authorities and the armed forces, and in Cumbria, most recently, the mountain and fell rescue service. In the visits that I have made, I have been struck by the importance of the visibility of those who walk the streets, particularly those from the Environment Agency; they wear a uniform with a badge. It is also important that we recognise the resilience of local communities, most recently in Workington, Cockermouth and Keswick in Cumbria, as well as parts of the Copeland constituency. The Vale of York is distinctive in that it is about 65 per cent. flood plain; sadly, we are all too experienced with serious flooding. I should like to declare an interest in that I hope that the Secretary of State will soon allow our modest little scheme for Thirsk to go ahead through the Environment Agency. I would like to hold him to account for a comment that he made about the additional funds that were given in 2007 and, most recently, for the Cumbrian floods. Following the summer 2007 floods, our exercise proved that £50 million in out-of-pocket expenses was incurred by local authorities. I have questioned the Secretary of State and his hon. Friends about that. I hope that Cumbria and other communities that may well suffer in future will not be left with such high expenses. I should like to draw together some of the strands of the debate. My right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), who spoke very eloquently, referred to the definition of risk and the continuing role of adaptation. I would like to add to the list that he and others gave. We need a review not only of bridges and other critical infrastructure, which I understand has not yet been completed, but of all main roads and trunk roads. The M1 came very close to closing as a result of the summer 2007 floods. In a visit to the constituency of the hon. Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham), I was shocked to see the damage to one small road in Cockermouth, before a full audit was done. I think that everyone welcomes the strategic overview and role that the Environment Agency will be given, but it is very prescriptive. The fact that there is no appeals mechanism in relation to some of its prescriptive roles and powers is worthy of exploration in Committee. We must also consider how the draft strategy that the agency is to publish will link in with other elements. My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) talked about the need for a more integrated approach between the county and unitary authorities, and said that the district councils must not be excluded because they were the planning authorities. I am a particular fan of the internal drainage boards. I must declare that I am a vice-president of the Association of Drainage Authorities, an appointment of which I am particularly proud. Those boards have the necessary local expertise and skills, and, recently, the funds. We need to explore ways in which the internal drainage boards, the Environment Agency and the water companies can work more closely together. The Secretary of State may think that I am playing devil's advocate here, but while my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State set out clearly our role and that of local communities, I believe that there are certain matters on which the water companies have a further role to play. One is sustainable urban drainage systems, and I hope that the Secretary of State is minded to agree to our proposal to adopt the Scottish law definition of SUDS. I do not see any reason for having one definition north of the border and another south of the border, given that it is comprehensive. It is important that we identify where SUDS are, who currently owns them and who maintains them. That has not yet been achieved in the Bill, and we need an audit. From a cursory first reading of the Bill, I believe that the water companies have a prominent role to play in taking the lead responsibility for SUDS once we have established those facts. They have the skills and resources to do that in a way that local authorities may not. I entirely endorse what the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) said about sewers, which we cannot talk about often enough. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) for his work on sewers when he was a Minister. We need a definite plan and proposal for the adoption of private drains and sewers, and again, we need an audit so that we know where they are and who owns them. It comes as a bolt from the blue when householders find out that their drains are private. They often find out only because their drains are flooded. We need a deadline for that, and I hope that the Secretary of State will oblige. It is right that the water companies should adopt private drains and sewers and be made responsible for them, but regrettably the Secretary of State and the Department are completely wrong in their sums. I do not believe that the savings that they have estimated are accurate or that local authorities are currently paying out anything like the sums that they believe. We need to be grown-up and revisit that, and water companies need to be prepared and know exactly what they are in for. Pitt was extremely clear about the ending of the automatic right to connect. The regulations under planning policy statement 25, which a number of hon. Members have mentioned, cover building on flood plains. I believe that water companies should have the badge of statutory consultees, but also that their advice, like that of the Environment Agency, should be acted upon. There should be some comeback when a planning authority proceeds to ignore that advice, if water companies are adopted as statutory consultees under the Bill. To recap, I believe that water companies have a key role to play in sustainable urban drainage systems, planning changes to end the automatic right to connect and the adoption of private drains and sewers. I welcome the opening up of the tendering process to bodies other than water companies in clause 36, but I do not understand the logic of excluding water companies. I hope that the Secretary of State will review that. There have been a number of contributions about sustainable development, natural alleviation schemes of water retention and working with nature. I pay tribute to the pilot scheme that has been authorised in Pickering. I have aspirations to represent Pickering in a future Parliament, so it is particularly close to my heart. Other pilots have also been rolled out, including by the right hon. Member for Scunthorpe in his previous ministerial capacity. If the Pickering scheme is deemed to work, with mini-dams along the railway line, trees upstream and bottlenecks removed downstream, it will be a great way forward and other parts of the country will benefit. I have great sympathy with those who have said that river catchment area management needs to be examined more closely, and there is work that we can do on that. As regards the crucial role of the fire and rescue service and statutory responsibility, which the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and others mentioned, Pitt recommendation 39 was very clear that the Government should urgently put in place a fully funded national capability for flood rescue, with fire and rescue authorities playing a leading role, underpinned as necessary by a statutory duty. We are not quite there yet, and I hope that the Secretary of State sets out exactly where we are when he responds. The Bill's provisions for information sharing should be more specific. There should be much more access to the various mappings. I understand that the Secretary of State is prepared to open Ordnance Survey mappings, but what about those of the Met Office, the insurance industry, district councils and water companies? However, there should be a provision setting out confidentiality criteria—the confidentiality of anything that is commercially sensitive should be respected. Resource, funding and skills are causing great alarm—witness the contributions made this evening. We need to look again at what the balance between local government, local authorities, the Environment Agency and water companies should be. The Secretary of State is aware that I do not believe that either the Environment Agency or the local authorities can find the necessary resources from their existing funds. That matter is causing great concern, and I hope that he addresses it this evening. On resilience and the British Standards Institution's issuing of the kitemark, if a product is proved to be fit for purpose, will a householder or business property owner be able to sue the BSI or the product maker when a product allows water in? What comeback is there and how can we ensure that home owners and property owners in general have the confidence to increase their resilience? What happens if a product is demonstrated to be unfit for purpose? A great consensus is building on amending building regulations to increase resilience to future floods. It is not acceptable that home owners are returning to properties that still have electrical sockets at ground level. When a property is prone to future floods, that simply stores up more problems. The Government need to be much clearer what priorities there are between the arbitrary house building policy of one Department and DEFRA's guidance not to build in inappropriate places. The Secretary of State needs to be much clearer on the relationship between the Environment Agency's strategic overview and the regional spatial plans—my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) and others showed what future flooding problems there could be in their constituencies. On insurance, my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) said in setting out the Conservative position at the beginning of the debate that there was a discrepancy between the £1 billion that the Government would be paying next year and the £1.5 billion for which the insurance industry is still calling. The Government need to address that, the need for accessible insurance for all, which the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) and others addressed, and the fact that premiums and excesses are going up. In my constituency, excesses are well in excess of £10,000. They need to be affordable; otherwise, the taxpayer is left with the cost of picking up uninsurable losses. I should like the Secretary of State to go further and to write a duty into the Bill—we have prepared a little amendment to help him in this regard—for the Environment Agency to come forward with an annual programme for maintenance, which will be reported to both Houses and debated, to ensure that it is at all times maintaining and dredging the main water courses, so that as long as internal drainage boards are doing their bit, the water does not back up. I should like to take credit for one measure. My hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs threatened to amend the so-called rain tax, but the Government have done so in clause 42. That was included only after the official Opposition persisted in saying that we would act if the Government failed to do so—[Interruption.] I am delighted that the House supports us. We still need a full audit of critical infrastructure. I deplore the fact that the flood risk regulations have gone through without proper scrutiny and, I understand, without proper consultation. With the reservation that several issues that have been raised by hon. Members on both sides of the House this evening are worthy of further debate in Committee, we wish the Bill a fair wind and we hope that it will be even better than it is now once it leaves Committee.