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Flood and Water Management Bill

My Lords, I have in this group Amendment 43 as an amendment to Amendment 42, although clearly it could apply equally to Amendment 43A. Before speaking to the amendment, I congratulate the noble Lord on his remarkably eloquent presentation of his case. He has considerable experience and knowledge of these matters over many years, as a Member of Parliament for a part of the Lake District and, indeed, as a former parliamentary candidate in the Pennines in east Lancashire many years ago. In particular, we all appreciate and applaud his interest and involvement in the aftermath of the recent flooding in Cumbria. The Liberal Democrats strongly support his proposals and we congratulate him on bringing them forward. My amendment is more limited but draws attention, yet again, to a cause which the noble Lord has raised previously—that is, the voluntary mountain rescue services, the moor land services, the fell services and the cave rescue services. These organisations and enterprises are run voluntarily and the people who take part in them are volunteers. They, too, have great expertise, which is not only of huge value in rescuing people from rock faces or hauling them out of the ground when they get stuck, but also in emergencies such as the recent flooding. The mountain rescue services in Cumbria, in particular, received a great deal of publicity for the superb work they did alongside the police, the fire services and so on in the recent floods, and in other parts of the country, such as Derbyshire and the Pennines, where they were equally involved in helping people. More recently they have assisted in the snow—which is obviously not about flooding, although it could be solid flooding, I suppose—which brought to the Pennines conditions that were unprecedented for 20 or 25 years. The mountain rescue services could reach people who were snowed-up in the more remote areas and take them to hospital or get services to them. The problem is that, as voluntary services, they are at a financial disadvantage when compared with the other parts of the rescue services. They are not funded by the Government or directly by local authorities; they rely on voluntary income. The mountain rescue services are not eligible for VAT relief in the same way as the RNLI, or in the way that local authorities can reclaim VAT, and, because they are not local authorities, they have not been eligible for money from the Bellman scheme following the floods. This clearly does not address those particular problems, because it is a specific thing in relation to the excellent amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. If the fire and rescue services are going to have this co-ordinating role and have a duty to make the provision as set out in the noble Lord’s amendments, there should be a provision to include and incorporate the voluntary services, which do so much good, and for providing them with adequate recompense for the costs of taking part in these activities, which otherwise have to fall back on voluntary subscriptions.