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Flood and Water Management Bill

This Bill, if a little late and perhaps a little rushed—certainly today—is an important and much needed piece of legislation, which we continue to support. In just a few minutes, flood water has the power to instil fear in people, damage property—almost beyond belief in some cases—and cause enormous costs for households and businesses. In mercifully few cases, it can also take lives. It is therefore right that Parliament should address this issue now, and Members on both sides of the House are doing their best to ensure that the Bill reaches the statute book and is not kyboshed by a general election. I return the thanks of the Secretary of State for his and his Department's work on the Bill, and commend to him the work of the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) and the Bill team. The Secretary of State was right when he said that his Minister has an open attitude. It has had a practical and positive result. A series of changes have been made during the various stages of the Bill in this place, many of which were instigated by the Opposition, including the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh), who has made valuable contributions. That is exactly how Parliament should work, and I wish in a way that more of our constituents could see Parliament at work in such a forum and with such collaboration, instead of just the more knockabout antics at Prime Minister's Question Time. I shall set out some of the positive changes. The Secretary of State mentioned the new provisions on building regulations and bad debt, but there were many others. I am pleased that the Minister paid attention to our request that the Bill clearly and beyond all possible ambiguity address all forms of flooding, specifically ground water, which has caused many problems in my constituency and many others. Other points were accepted in Committee, and if they are not in the Bill, they may be reflected in specific guidance—we had many useful undertakings from him on that. I am particularly keen to welcome those measures which the Minister accepted that reinforced how flood defence and water management should work with nature, and not against it. For instance, we made changes to, and he accepted points on, the reinstatement of woodland as an important method of flood and water management. In a sense, it represents a change in philosophy away from always relying on hard defence to working with the landscape and nature. That is not only a more environmentally friendly approach, but a more effective and perhaps even a cheaper approach. We also took an important step towards landscape scale planning, again reflecting the wider importance of the natural environment. In doing so, we allowed lead local authorities to collaborate explicitly over larger areas in the creation of their flood risk management strategies. That is important because obviously floods do not follow local authority boundaries, and actions in one area can have huge implications downhill or downstream in another area. That was an important set of changes. Thanks to the hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan), we actually won a vote against the Government in Committee. That is a rare and welcome event, and I pay tribute to him for his long record in prompting such votes—there have been too few successes, but we had one on that occasion, and it has given added importance to regional flood and coastal erosion committees in approving Environment Agency work in their regions. I think that it will be an entirely beneficial amendment. Then, of course, we had this enormous and important change on concessionary charging schemes or social tariffs—whatever we want to call them—which I am proud to say resulted from a Liberal Democrat amendment. Getting it on the statute book in good order and good time could have real benefits for thousands or even tens of thousands of our poorest and most vulnerable citizens, so it is an important step to have taken. As I said, I am proud that it resulted from a Liberal Democrat amendment. A few concerns remain, however. The continuing confusion of responsibilities at the local level has not been entirely resolved. As the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) pointed out, the Bill gives some drastic powers to bodies such as the EA, including in particular those in schedule 1, under which just about anything could be designated as an asset to flood risk management. After a designation, the owner—whether Network Rail, a farmer tending his crops or the owner of a private wall—would barely be able to touch their asset, let alone alter it, without seeking permission from the flood risk management authority. That power in the Bill is drastic and without qualification, although there is a right of appeal against designation. Nevertheless, our noble Friends might have to return to that in another place. There were two major issues that received rather less discussion than they deserved and on which it fell to the Liberal Democrats to propose real change. The first was planning permission. We were unable to press it to a vote today, although we did press it to one in Committee. I was rather disappointed not to receive Conservative support on that occasion, because it is crucial that urbanisation and its contribution to flooding should be addressed and that the current, inadequate response of PPS25 to managing flooding be sorted out. Our amendment sought to give local authorities the explicit power to refuse planning permission to new developments on the grounds of flood risk in high flood risk areas. I still think that it is an important amendment, on an issue that concerns many of our constituents, which should be returned to at a later stage. The other issue, which we have just about got time to discuss today, is insurance. I welcome the Minister's positive statement about how he will engage with the insurance industry on some of the issues. I would have preferred the Bill to have said that explicitly and to have included slightly firmer regulations. Again, I am disappointed that I did not receive Conservative support on that. Our noble Friends will have to—[Interruption.] There is a little chuntering from the Conservative Benches, but I remember widespread abstention only a matter of minutes ago on that very issue.