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Flood and Water Management Bill

I am delighted to speak to new clause 20 and amendments 24 to 27. I heard what the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) said, and I shall try to assuage her concerns and explain why we do not think that the amendments go too far. More than anything, however, I hope that the Minister will listen to my remarks, and that if my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) can catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he might set out how we can do what we want to do, and put some recognition of the role of the fire and rescue service into the Bill. I heard what the hon. Lady said about the need to consider how that might fit with other pieces of legislation, but references to the fire and rescue service pepper the final Pitt review. In an emergency, when people are facing floods, the service to which they are most likely to turn is the fire and rescue service. It seems bizarre, therefore, that none of the welcome changes that we are making contain a statutory duty for the fire and rescue service to be at a flooding incident. Of course, that does not mean that its members will not be there, because they are such good people that they will almost certainly want to be there. I have been talking to the Fire Brigades Union, which wants clarification not just about fire and rescue services wanting to be there, but about the repercussions, as it were, of how they get there—and when they do, what they have to do and how they have to do it.