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Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. Although I have been fortunate enough to secure the debate, the interests of other Members in the Chamber are at least as great as mine, so I will be as brief as I can. I will try to limit my contribution on this important matter to 15 minutes.
On 5 December last year, news around the world was dominated by the death of Nelson Mandela. The death of the greatest statesman in modern history rightly dominated all news coverage, as his achievements and legacy were celebrated. An unfortunate side effect of that was that it almost totally eclipsed one of the most serious tidal flooding events to hit the United Kingdom for more than half a century.
The tidal surge that hit the east coast of England that night was devastating. The floodwater overtopped more than 40 km of flood defences, and the Hull tidal barrier was inches away from being defeated. Had that happened, a significant part of the city would have been flooded, and thousands upon thousands of homes would have been rendered uninhabitable, causing misery for tens of thousands of people. In the event, although that did not happen, more than 1,100 properties in the area were flooded, which was still a miserable consequence for the families and businesses involved. The event was devastating, with the highest water levels ever recorded in the Humber, and we were fortunate that no one was seriously hurt or killed. When there was a similar but lesser tidal surge in 1953, more than 300 people in the east of England died.
For the people most closely affected, the flood has been a living nightmare. Warnings were not given in time, and in some cases alarms sounded only after the floodwater had inundated people’s homes. Across the Humber, most warnings were received only an hour before the waters rose. Those who were affected had no time to prepare and were forced to abandon their homes and their dearest possessions to the elements. They subsequently faced a living hell of temporary accommodation, not knowing when they would be able to move back into their own homes.
In the East Riding alone, 200 homes and nearly 50 business properties were flooded, and 15 miles of roads were submerged, which led to communities in my constituency being completely cut off. Blacktoft, Yokefleet, Saltmarsh and Faxfleet became virtual islands, and residents unsurprisingly felt abandoned and isolated. People in those remote villages were either evacuated while there was time or forced to abandon the ground floor of their own houses. They gathered what they could upstairs, but they were powerless to prevent the torrent of floodwater and debris from entering. For much of the time they were in complete darkness, because the power went as well. Some of them are pensioners, who moved to the area for a quiet and happy retirement only to see everything that they have worked for destroyed.
One respondent to a survey conducted by the local council had been informed that “Blacktoft never floods”, because of the defences, but in this case the defences simply were not good enough. Of course, defences that were perfectly adequate 25 years ago are not necessarily adequate today. In 2012, I asked the then Minister responsible, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), how many homes in my constituency were at risk of flooding, and he replied that from 2008 to 2012 the number of properties at risk had increased by 1,000. That illustrates the fact that with sea levels rising, if defences are not improved, that figure is certain to grow.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
My right hon. Friend rightly paints a picture of the devastation that occurred in December last year. Does he recognise that if the timing had been different by a couple of hours and if the wind direction had been different, the devastating event that we are talking about could have been catastrophic and caused major loss of human life?
Mr Davis
I think my hon. Friend has read the next page of my speech, as happens so often. He is absolutely right, and there were a number of coincidences that could be described as fortunate, although it may seem odd to describe the events of December last year as such. Had the tidal surge coincided with the astronomical tide—he is right to say that the difference was two hours—the event would have been much bigger. Had there been the levels of rainfall that we saw in 2007, the Aire, Calder, Ouse, Derwent and Trent rivers, which all feed the Humber, would have been fuller. The Humber would have started from a higher level, and I suspect that the Hull tidal defences would have been overtopped and defeated. If that had happened, we would have seen a similar picture to that in the Somerset levels, where the land was flooded for weeks, if not months afterwards. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that had we not been fortunate with the other events besides the tidal surge, we would have faced a much bigger catastrophe, and the events of 5 December could have included fatal incidents. The situation would have been at least as bad as it was in the Somerset levels, but with the difference that there would have been three international ports and a city of 256,000 people in the middle of it all.
The danger is real. As all hon. Members present know, we have had serious flooding in the region twice in less than a decade—in 2007 and 2013—with other serious localised flooding in 2011. The Humber represents the second highest flood risk in the country, behind only the Thames estuary. The national risk register considers tidal flood, which is what we face, to be second in severity only to an influenza pandemic. That is the scale of the threat facing the region.
The economic case for action is clear, given the strategic importance of the region to the rest of the country. Local authorities have worked incredibly well together on the matter, completely ignoring party, regional or geographic differences. Using the Treasury guidelines for such calculations, they have identified £32 billion of potential damage, which includes straightforward damage, lost productivity, increased insurance costs and deterred investment.
The economic value that is at risk includes several industries of significant strategic importance. The Humber is vital to the UK power industry, and the pressure put on the UK power network by a major flood event of the type that is predicted to occur in the next 50 years would be colossal. In addition, 28% of the UK’s oil refining capacity is situated in the Humber floodplain, and the loss of such capacity could not be made up by shifting demand to other plants. That is an important point, because it underpins one of the criteria that the Treasury uses to assess such things. It is often assumed that if an industry is at risk, it can go somewhere else, but that is not the case in the Humber.
Oil and gas terminals in the region process 30% of the country’s gas demands. More than 30% of the UK’s coal and an increasing amount of biomass fuel lands at Humber ports and is transferred to power stations such as Drax, Eggborough and Ferrybridge on road and rail routes that are also at risk from flooding. The chemicals industry in the region is enormous, amounting to more than £6 billion. Altogether, more than 20,000 businesses in the Humber are at risk from flooding, and the area contributes some £15 billion to the nation’s economy.
That all makes the Humber a national strategic asset, and rising sea levels mean that the next flood risk to that asset is not merely some distant probability. It is not something that just might happen. In the next 50 years, if we do not enhance our defences, there will be a costly and probably fatal catastrophe. Given the region’s vulnerability and the number of people under threat, it is past time for action to be taken to deal with the flood risk. By comparison, London, where the Thames floodplain has the highest flood risk in the country, is protected from events on a one-in-1,000-year basis. To achieve that, the Thames flood barrier was built between 1974 and 1982 at a cost of about £534 million, with an additional £100 million of investment around it to make it work. It is hard to assess accurately, but in today’s money that would be equivalent to more than £3 billion.
What we are discussing today would cost a lot of money. For the Humber, we are talking about £888 million, but that would still be significantly less than a third—perhaps less than a quarter—of the spend on the Thames barrier, which I do not think anyone disputes was an absolute necessity and an act of serious foresight by the Government of the day. With those figures in mind, the people of the East Riding, north Lincolnshire and Hull will rightly ask questions if the Government do not take action to improve the region’s defences.
Once it is understood that the Humber represents a national strategic asset, it becomes clear that any system of flood defences must address all risk across the entire estuary. On both banks of the river, the floodplain is very flat, and some of it is even reclaimed land—using for the first time in Britain what were then innovative Dutch techniques, Vermuyden drained Hatfield Chase, which is now in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). Because the land is so flat and low-lying, it is impossible to separate any part of the defences from another. We cannot ring-fence the major population centres of Hull, Grimsby or Scunthorpe; we must deal with the problem as a single entity.
As Vermuyden’s involvement demonstrates, our area is in many ways as close to Holland as it gets in England. The Dutch do not do flood defences by halves, and neither should we. Perhaps we should reapply the lessons we learned from Vermuyden some centuries ago. To that end, the Environment Agency prepared the Humber flood risk management strategy in 2008 with the aim of improving the defences in the Humber, most of which dated back to the 1950s following the previous flood surge. The surge of last winter showed that the defences were inadequate and gave the agency new information that it is using to inform a comprehensive update to the strategy, with the aim of bringing defences up to such a standard that they could survive not a one-in-1,000-year event, like London, but a one-in-200-year event—that is the colloquialism, but it really means an event the probability of which occurring is 0.5% per annum.
The scheme is ambitious and will require co-operation across local and national Government, across party lines and across the north and south banks of the Humber. Much of that consensus has already been achieved: the agencies, local government, the local enterprise partnership and Members of Parliament have all acted completely without attention to narrow self-interest and with serious concern about the overall interest.
In the next 50 years it is highly likely that we will see a tidal surge event similar in magnitude to the one we experienced last winter, but worse in consequence. Factoring in the possibility of even less favourable conditions and rising sea levels, it is clear that the next major flood event could be devastating. There could be a serious threat to life and more than £32 billion of economic impact. It is not a doomsday event with an outside chance of happening; it is likely to happen at some point in the next half century. We were lucky to escape that outcome last year. If we do not act by implementing the Humber flood risk strategy, there is a serious risk of such a catastrophe being repeated.
Governments of all colours—Tory, Labour, coalition or whatever—find it difficult to take more than a five-year view, for obvious reasons; when it comes to flood defences, it is necessary to take at least a 50-year view, if not a multi-century one. We must start work on a programme that will take at least 10 years to complete. Yes, the numbers are enormous and run into billions of pounds, but the cost of doing nothing would be far greater in the long run. On 5 December 2013 we were given a timely warning—one might say God-given—of the consequences of inaction. We would do well to pay attention to it.
I will not be shocked if the Minister has not turned up with £900 million for us in his back pocket—I will be disappointed, but not shocked. Nevertheless, we must recognise that we are faced with a conjunction of several things: a major risk that we know is going to get worse; a historic demonstration of the harm of that risk if it is ever realised; and a clear strategic asset that is at risk in terms of industry, economy, links to the outside world and, most importantly, the hundreds of thousands of people of the area. Because it will take so long to carry out the necessary improvements and enhancements to the defences, it is vital that the Government take a strategic view in both direction and money.
Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your distinguished chairmanship, Sir Roger, and a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis).
Floods do not recognise constituency boundaries. We Members of Parliament from across Hull, the East Riding and north and north-east Lincolnshire have come together because we are united with the local authorities, the local enterprise partnership and the Environment Agency in our diagnosis of the problem and our analysis of the solution.
The floods of 5 December 2013 were not unfamiliar to Hull. We were hit by devastating rainfall, along with the whole of the East Riding, in June 2007, when the problem came from the sky, not the sea. All the flood defences held and no rivers overflowed. A month’s rainfall fell in a couple of days, affecting 8,600 properties, 20,000 people and 1,300 businesses. What unites the two events? Various figures are thrown about as to whether the probability is one in 100, one in 200 or one in 1,000, but let us take a conservative view. The two events are united by the fact that in both 2007 and 2013 we were told that the chance was one in 100, so in Hull we had two one-in-100 events in seven years. That leads the population, as well as their political representatives, to question the whole basis of what constitutes sufficient flood defences. In 2007, one man died in Hessle in my constituency: he was trapped in a drain while trying to clear a blockage. Thankfully, such a tragedy did not happen again in 2013.
The term “above ordnance datum” is new to me—I hope that I pronounced it correctly—but one thing we discovered in December 2013 was that the defence at Albert dock was for a surge of 5.04 metres above ordnance datum, but it was hit by a surge of 5.8 metres above ordnance datum. The first issue on which I would welcome the Minister’s reassurance is the need to raise the Albert dock defence. None of us disagrees on that. It will be an absolute priority by the end of the year, and it would be good to hear the Minister’s reassurance because it is the most important issue in my constituency.
The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden is right: the Environment Agency says that it got it wrong on 5 December 2013, in terms of the scale and the timing. It was amazing to see what happened. In my constituency, in the industrial area of Hull, Porter street went from completely dry to absolute deluge in four minutes. The severity of the flood was frightening. It hit a diverse range of businesses. It hit Smith & Nephew, a big, global, international company, which, incidentally, could base its manufacturing sites in other places, including China, if it believes that its business will be affected more regularly. The Indian restaurant on Hessle road was also affected and never reopened. The floods affected all those businesses across the centre of town.
The right hon. Gentleman emphasised this point, and I need to emphasise it, too: the floods were a warning. As the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) pointed out, if the wind direction had been different, or if the floods had come two hours later at high tide, it would have been a devastating event because that was the highest water level ever seen in Hull—higher than 1953.
The Government publish the national risk register every year, and the last time—the only time since the war—a national emergency was declared in this country was the water surge in 1953. The surge on 5 December 2013 was bigger. The national risk register is of course updated every year, and the 2013 register makes coastal flooding the second biggest risk after a pandemic, which I will address in a second. The register states that 1953 was the only time that a national emergency has been declared anywhere in the UK, and it then states:
“A less serious storm surge of this nature happened in November 2007 without causing damage on the scale of the 1953 emergency.”
We now need to update the register, because a much bigger surge occurred on 5 December 2013. Thankfully, the surge did not cause the death and devastation that was caused in 1953, but it was a close-run thing.
I was Secretary of State for Health when a pandemic hit in 2009, which is not a comfortable place to be because the No. 1 risk on the risk register is—this is a horrendous thought for Government—people being confined to their homes and children being affected in schools. We thought that H1N1 was going to be such a pandemic. As things turned out, it was not, and now we look at that event as a dry run. We know things about Tamiflu and other issues that we did not know before. My message to the Government is that they have to view the tidal surge of 5 December 2013 in a similar way—as a dry run for what could happen if we do not address this issue effectively.
If we are to address the issue effectively, as the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden said, we need to consider the whole area, which is very diverse. Investment is coming into Hull from various quarters, including from Siemens, and Hull will be the city of culture in 2017. Incidentally, Hull is the biggest urban area in Yorkshire—it is the biggest city in Yorkshire if we just take the urban area of 311,000 people—but as I am sure the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) will point out, we have places such as the Isle of Axholme, which has 20,000 people living on 21,000 hectares. The Isle of Axholme is one of the most under-populated areas, but in a sense the scale of the threat is like having something that could affect the Somerset levels and Bristol at the same time.
The document we are preparing to put to the Government is headed “Flood defences cost money, no flood defences cost more.” I hope that today’s debate, together with the meeting we are due to have with the Prime Minister next week, will record that the scale of the problem has been shown to be far greater than the defences allow. I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) on the Opposition Front Bench, because this is not just a Government issue; it is a long-term issue that affects any party that is likely to be in government. All three parties are represented here, and the issue has to be considered on that basis.
The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden cited a figure of £888 million, which is of course £88 million a year over 10 years. He rightly said that Hull is closer to Rotterdam than to London—Hull may well have been a suburb of Rotterdam a couple of million years ago—so we look to the kinds of defences that we see across in Holland, and we believe that we are nowhere near having defences on such a scale. We are not throwing in requests for billions of pounds, and £88 million a year to bring us up to a one-in-200 defence, given the circumstances, given the national risk register and given what happened on 5 December 2013, must surely be a prudent amount of money for any responsible Government to spend.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) on securing this debate on a subject that, to different extents, touches all of us in the Chamber today. I do not intend to repeat the arguments that he adduced to the Chamber. He made an excellent speech and made the case very well, but I will reiterate a number of points.
Included in the area at risk of flooding in the Humber and east Yorkshire area are 30,280 hectares of agricultural land and the UK’s largest storm water pumping station. Those problems need to be addressed. One of my biggest concerns about the present situation is the flood defence grant in aid system, which determines who receives help. The system largely favours urban areas because it dictates that residential properties have the highest risk ratings. That means that rural areas have little weighting, meaning they have less chance of securing funding, which could have a serious negative effect on food production and the sustainability of agribusinesses in this country. With a significant proportion of the UK’s high-grade agricultural land in low-lying areas such as east Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, there is likely to be a danger to the UK’s food security and independence unless something is done.
Furthermore, smaller residential settlements in rural areas find it difficult to attract flood defence grant in aid funding because of the formula, which means that if flood risk cannot be addressed or mitigated, there is a danger that rural communities will not only remain at risk but may become less viable over the longer term. As east Yorkshire is comparatively remote, there are significant co-dependencies between work forces and businesses in rural areas and the East Riding urban areas. That should be taken into account in any adjustment of the formula by the Government.
One of my constituents contacted me a few days ago and said, “We have a climate change levy in this country. When assessing what to do with the money raised by that levy, surely there cannot be anything more important, in expenditure terms, than flood prevention. Why is the climate change levy revenue, among other measures, not being ring-fenced for flood defences?” Perhaps the Minister will give us his thoughts on that.
I hope the Minister will agree to look again at the formula and agree that we need not only a properly funded flood defence system across the country but an integrated approach to flood risk management, which the current level of expenditure and the current formula do not deliver.
The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) mentioned the devastation across the whole eastern part of the country in 1953, and indeed there was widespread flooding and devastation then. After that disaster a fireman, Andy Devine, who was called on to help, said:
“Where we had to pump out, there was the sea one side and water the other side…we might just as well have tried to pump the sea dry.”
Such a hopeless situation must never be allowed to happen again. Being invaded by floodwater, from whatever source, is just as devastating to a thatched cottage as to a terraced house. I hope the Minister will now deliver effective action that will help east Yorkshire to face future flood risks with more confidence.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) on securing the debate, which is vital to all of us here and to the whole Humberside region.
It seems to have been forgotten—as my right hon. Friend pointed out, it was certainly forgotten by the national media at the time—that the tidal surge in December was larger than the one in 1953. Thankfully, as has also been said, it was not as disastrous in terms of loss of life. Clearly, investment in flood defences has been effective, but, due to the weather conditions, we came within a whisker of a major catastrophe, so obviously more needs to be done.
The recent surge did a great deal of damage to the Immingham and Grimsby port complex, which is the largest in the UK: about a quarter of all rail freight moved here starts or ends in Immingham. Much of that freight—coal for power stations, oil and other essential products—is strategically vital. To be precise, the port handles about 55 million tonnes per annum, and approaching 20 million tonnes of oil and 10 million tonnes of coal. The country’s strategic supply of road salt is also stored in Immingham.
Members here are in danger of repeating the same statistics, because we all have the excellent document produced by our local authorities, which lists the seriousness of what could have been. The port director, John Fitzgerald, said that we might have faced major power cuts and food rationing. I invite the Minister to contemplate what the consequences would have been if action had not been taken. The cost to the national economy would have been immense. John Fitzgerald was referring to the fact that although the port was up and running again in just two days, a third, fourth or fifth day could have been extremely serious.
The impact on essential infrastructure, the supplies that pass through the port and the national and local economy could have been major. The port was left without electricity and extensive areas were flooded. The Environment Secretary visited Immingham on the afternoon of Saturday 7 December. With him, we heard at first hand from Associated British Ports and Environment Agency staff about the incidence of flooding, not just in Immingham and Grimsby, but in the villages of Barrow Haven, Goxhill and New Holland. We heard from the dockmaster for Immingham and Grimsby, and it is clear that he made exactly the right decision in opening the Grimsby lock gates at exactly the right moment, which prevented a large area of Grimsby and the north end of Cleethorpes, where thousands of terraced houses are situated, from being overcome.
The Humber flood risk management strategy identifies up to 400,000 people at risk from flooding, and just short of 200,000 of them live in the most deprived 20% of areas in the UK, according to the Government’s own statistics. It is also important to point out, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight), that agriculture is a significant industry in the area: there are more than 500,000 hectares of productive land in the Humber estuary, 97% of which is high-grade land. I reiterate the view that I expressed in my Adjournment debate in January, which has been repeated by many others: the experience of the farming community, including the work that they do on local drainage boards and the like, is invaluable in matters of flooding. Although a forum exists for farmers, there is a feeling in the agricultural community that their expertise is not used to best advantage. I urge the Minister to do all he can to put that collective knowledge to the best possible use.
It is not just existing industrial facilities that need protection; the estuary has been described by Ministers as having enormous potential, particularly for the renewables sector. The Government have supported that potential and we have had the investment from Siemens, the creation of the pan-Humber enterprise zone and the reduction of Humber bridge tolls. Only yesterday in Parliament, a special Committee began considering the final stages of the proposed development by Able UK on the south bank, which could bring a further 4,000 jobs to the area.
After the visit by my right hon. Friend the Environment Secretary, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), and the Prime Minister’s flood envoy for the region, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), also visited the area. The Government certainly have plenty of information and expertise available from the local authority and the Environment Agency. It is clear that the whole estuary needs greater protection.
If we are to provide greater protection, as we must, the Environment Agency must be allowed to consider how best to improve the protection given to strategically important facilities such as the port, as well as to residential properties. In sparsely populated areas, the cost-benefit ratio will always be low, but if one’s house is flooded, that is no comfort whatever. If the Environment Agency or the Government constantly reel out the statistics, it can sound callous and uncaring to people whose homes have been flooded.
The focus of my short contribution has been industry, but my colleagues and I have all had the rather miserable experience of visiting people whose homes have been flooded. It is not just about the immediate impact; many months of misery are involved, and many people forced out of their homes in Barrow Haven and other areas, such as South Ferriby in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), will remain in temporary accommodation until next year, and perhaps even beyond. That is simply not satisfactory.
Alan Johnson
On that point, the hon. Gentleman might like to know that some of the people affected in Hull in 2007 have only recently moved back into their houses. Flooding was followed by secondary flooding. I am sure that that also applies to people on Hessle foreshore in my constituency and in areas all around the patch. Such misery is almost unimaginable.
Martin Vickers
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. It is frightening to consider that people are still suffering in that way after six or seven years. As he also pointed out in his speech, floodwaters do not follow constituency boundaries.
We have been united in our approach to the issue. My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden spoke about the united approach taken by local authorities. As those of us who live locally know well, the Humber can often divide communities, particularly political communities, but on this occasion we are absolutely united. The Government are putting together longer-term plans, and the figures—between £800 million and £900 million—have been quoted during the debate. I recognise that the Minister is not going to write us a cheque later today—
Martin Vickers
As my hon. Friend points out, that is extremely disappointing, but our constituents deserve nothing less than a serious plan, in the very near future, that will guarantee them the security and safety they need in their homes. If industry in northern Lincolnshire and the Humberside area is to go forward as we all want it to, it needs, as the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) pointed out, to know that the Government are behind it and that the Environment Agency and every Government agency involved will produce a long-term plan that provides the necessary security.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger, and to follow the excellent speeches made by Members across the Chamber, which have given the Minister and the rest of the Front-Bench team a clear message about the unity of feeling around the Humber. As has been said—it is worth reiterating—that goes across party lines and includes local authorities working together under the industrial leadership of the local enterprise partnership. We are all united in this, alongside the technical input and understanding of the Environment Agency and other agencies.
I take the Minister back to December, when I visited residents of Kilnsea in my constituency, just above Spurn point, and met the chairman of the parish council there in his house, which had recently been refurbished. I saw his devastation and that of his wife, as their brand-new kitchen and recently installed facilities had been wrecked by the overtopping of the nearby bank. To his credit, he was not primarily concerned with his own interests, but was going out to meet other residents. He took me to meet them and their homes had similarly been devastated. Some of those people were less resilient than that couple, because of their age or infirmity. As the Minister will know, the personal impact on people whose homes have been flooded is utterly devastating.
The recent flooding comes just a few years after the 2007 floods. Last Wednesday—25 June—was the anniversary of those floods. They devastated Hull and the East Riding, led to Hornsea in my constituency being cut off, and led to flooding in every area of my constituency and in Hull, with many people being driven out of their homes—not just for months, but in some cases for years. Flooding is personally devastating, and that will always be at the forefront of my mind when I consider this issue.
If I may, I shall echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) around opportunity. We have a fantastic and phenomenal positive opportunity around the Humber. I pay tribute to Lord Haskins, the chairman of the LEP, and others, who are working together to take the area forward. We have lower than average incomes in Yorkshire and the Humber—in fact, they are among the lowest average incomes in England—so we start from a position of having great deprivation and some history of economic failure, relatively speaking, yet a massive opportunity is opening up. We are working on taking that opportunity, cross-party and across authorities.
The Government should take enormous credit for the steps they have taken to help. The halving of the Humber bridge tolls has meant that instead of that bridge acting as a barrier between the two banks of the river—stopping them working together for the economic betterment of the whole area—it is a catalyst. Cross-party, we made representations to the Secretary of State for Transport. He has agreed to the electrification of the line to Hull, which will make a significant difference. Of course, the previous Culture Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller), announced that Hull had been made city of culture 2017, and that announcement, too, is having a galvanising effect. From the Prime Minister down and throughout Government, efforts were made to encourage Siemens to sign up to come to Hull and for the supply chain to come to Paull in my constituency, which is immediately east of Hull. That work was also successful.
It was my great pleasure to lead the members of the Education Committee to Hull last Monday and Tuesday, for them to visit schools there and see a real sense of renewal, energy and drive to raise standards. There is a massive opportunity for the area and it is waiting to be grasped.
If I look at clouds on the horizon, I see remarkably few. However, what I do see is the prospect of the chilling impact of the risk of flooding. If manufacturers such as Smith & Nephew, which the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) mentioned, see that their investment is at risk from a failure to provide suitable protection, they can so easily take that investment elsewhere. That is true of so many of the companies that we have made such an effort to attract to the Humber area, reinforcing the presence of industry there. We have that enormous opportunity and we cannot afford to have it chilled by a failure to take the long-term view of the need for flood protection.
The Government rightly recognise the challenges of climate change. Anyone involved with climate change will know that the risks around it are twofold, or in two areas: the need to mitigate and the need to adapt. It is not enough simply to mitigate; we also need to adapt. I have in front of me the excellent latest science briefing from the Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences. It shows the sea level rise record since the beginning of the 20th century, including the acceleration of sea level rise in the last few decades, which is expected to carry on accelerating to the end of this century. Given that, how can we allow the short-term political time frames in which we operate—four or five years to a general election, or between local government elections—to inform our attitude to this subject? The danger is that we will and that we will not take the long-term view, which is so important if we are to get this right.
My message to the Minister is to look at how Government can create the frameworks to ensure that the resource that is required is invested in time to meet the long-term threat, because we recognise that the dynamics of the politics in which we operate on a daily basis are not very good for dealing with long-term threats. Therefore, we need to look hard at how we get a framework in place to ensure that there is an incentive to deal with those long-term threats, and that we deal with them, because although we will strongly make the case today, as we are doing, for the Humber area, the truth is that, nationally, we need to take the risk of flood damage more seriously. That fits entirely with the analysis that the Government have themselves made of the risks around climate change and rising sea levels, yet we do not see a co-ordinated, well thought through, long-term plan to ensure that the correct protections are put in place.
I want to make sure that the Minister is aware that, separately from the Humber efforts, the River Hull advisory board is studying the factors that contribute to flooding in the River Hull valley, which will have a strategic impact on the Humber, too. Across the piece, we are all working as hard as we can to ensure that we have a joined-up approach.
One criticism of the 2008 strategy was that, perhaps because of its funding and the brief it was given, it failed to understand the interconnectedness of city and rural areas, including how rural areas often act as a sponge for the urban areas. As I think my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said in his opening speech, we cannot view areas of the Humber in isolation. There is no way to ring-fence them, have just a limited spend here or there and somehow protect a particular place. We have to view the area as one joined-up whole.
To return to the issue affecting Kilnsea, the replacement of the bank that was overtopped in December will cost £450,000. The Environment Agency has promised £300,000 and £50,000 has been raised locally, but that leaves the project £100,000 short. The bank is important to defend the residential and business properties of the village, such as that fine purveyor of great ales, the Crown and Anchor pub, and it also plays a vital role in defending the road to Spurn point, which is a popular tourist destination of national significance. Spurn point also plays a phenomenally important role in protecting the Hull ports area. It provides a natural barrier that deflects the longshore drift away from the estuary, thus allowing the estuary to self-clean to an extent.
I must pay tribute to the local internal drainage boards, which do such an excellent job of maintaining inland watercourses. However, I have a point to make about them, which I hope the Minister might take up with the Marine Management Organisation, if he has not done so already: that new, fresh quango no sooner came into being than it slapped a £10,000 bill on my local IDB for carrying out work that, had it been carried out by the Environment Agency, with the same contractors, would have attracted no such bill, which represented more than 10% of the project cost. If we are to have local areas taking responsibility, investing money and making things happen, we need to ensure that large quangos do not come along to give an initial estimate of £3,000, which I think is outrageous, before finally charging £10,000, which truly is outrageous.
One final local point is the Welwick realignment scheme, which is ongoing, although delays are causing increased flood risk. The bank involved needs to be restored, but investment is being held back until the overall realignment scheme is confirmed. Decisions need to be made more quickly and action must be taken so that we have ongoing, sustained and sensible protection from the risk of flood for industry and for residential properties.
Minister, those of us here today will maintain our joint efforts in this regard—not only when we meet the Prime Minister next week, but thereafter. I will finish by referring to an issue that I touched on earlier, which is trying to get a framework in place that means that the MPs for a particular area do not have to make a united effort to get people to see the long-term risk when the technical evidence for that risk already exists. With rising sea levels and the risks of climate change, we need a strategic overview by Government of the risks around flooding. Without that, we are putting our constituents at risk of devastating flooding of their homes, and we are also risking investment in and commercial success for this country. Having made that plea, I shall sit down.
Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)
I intend to start to call the Front Benchers at about 10.35 am. Two hon. Members are waiting to speak, so I would be grateful if they would bear that in mind.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I did not intend to contribute to the debate, because the contributions that we have heard already have been of a high standard and have made the case well. I hope that the Minister will respond to the points that have been raised. However, I want to highlight one issue.
There is a knock-on effect from the investment that needs to go into the Humber area, and that relates to flood insurance. The Minister and I have had long debates about that issue in the past, but I want to highlight how important it is for the insurance industry to know that investment is going into the Humber area. That will mean that there is access to affordable flood insurance for domestic residential and business properties. I know that the Government have introduced the Flood Re scheme, which I think is to come into operation quite soon, for properties built before 2010, but I have raised with the Minister before the issue of properties built after 2010.
In my constituency, there is a large development called Kingswood, where houses are being built now. The Minister may also like to know that one of the most successful Help to Buy schemes in the country is operating on that estate. However, those properties will not be covered by the Flood Re scheme, so owner-occupiers there will be looking to the open market to get flood insurance in the future. Schemes to protect the Humber area are important in ensuring that they will be able to access affordable flood insurance.
My other point is about businesses. They will not be covered by the Flood Re scheme, either, so they, too, will be out in the open market looking for flood insurance. I am aware that in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), one business has already seen a hike of 490% in its insurance premiums because of the flooding last December. I therefore urge the Minister to think again about the problems that will arise in the insurance market if the Government do not make the right noises about providing investment over the coming years for the Humber region. It is devastating for home owners when their homes are flooded, and if they do not have flood insurance it is much worse.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), whose points on flood insurance are well rehearsed. I supported her on the matter during proceedings on the Water Act 2014. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) on securing the debate. Coming on last means that unfortunately I will be repeating not only what he has said but what many other right hon. and hon. Members have said, but as we have 10 or 11 minutes until the Front Benchers start to be called, I am sure that you will indulge me in that endeavour, Sir Roger.
The Minister will, sadly, hear again many things that I have previously said, not least because at the time of the tidal surge we were considering the Water Bill and I was serving on the Committee. I used that opportunity on more than one occasion to regale the Minister with accounts of what was happening in my area, but just for the record I want to talk about my constituency again now, with specific reference to what happened in December.
My constituency was hit most of all in December and, as any flood extent map will show, it remains the constituency with the most land at risk of flooding. Unfortunately, we were hit from three sources. We saw the Humber coming over at South Ferriby and Winteringham, the Trent coming over at Burton-upon-Stather, Burringham, Keadby and Amcotts and the Ouse coming over at Reedness, so in total about 11 communities and 300 to 400 properties were flooded. As right hon. and hon. Members have said, we were lucky, although we do not feel particularly lucky, that the impact was not a lot greater.
I live right on the bank of the River Aire, and I was standing by the river at the time of the surge that evening. The water was within inches of coming over, even though we enjoy very high levels of protection there—the highest that the Environment Agency offers. I was also standing on the banks the next morning for the high tide of the River Ouse at Goole, which also had a near miss and where there are 18,000 residents. Had the circumstances come together in the way that other right hon. and hon. Members have said we were lucky to avoid, our area would have been devastated.
Unfortunately, such events are not new to our area or, in particular, to my constituency. We had flooding in Goole in 2011, 2012, 2007 and 2008, and in Crowle in 2012. It is a recurring theme in our area, not least because of the geography. The flood risk extent maps explain why. My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden gave a potted history of the draining undertaken by Vermuyden in our area. That was hundreds of years ago. People have been living happily in our area since then, and it is of concern to people, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) said, that previous regimes and previous flood plans seem to operate on the premise that the rural areas can operate as a sponge, or be sacrificed, for the benefit of other areas. I want to explain why that is particularly dangerous in my constituency.
In 2007 we were faced with the first draft of the River Trent flood catchment management plan. Had it not been for the IDBs and several farmers who were well educated on the issue of flooding, that could well have been the policy that the Environment Agency adopted. It was only by arguing—we got up petitions and all the rest of it—that the Environment Agency was made to think again and to reassess the matter. It concluded that had it adopted the policy that it originally wanted to adopt, which was one of withdrawal, retreat and sacrifice, the entirety of the Isle of Axholme, apart from two high spots at Epworth, would have been underwater within a decade or two.
Sir Greg Knight
If the Government of the day, as a matter of policy, decide that it is all right to allow agricultural land to be flooded, is there not an argument to say that farmers should be paid for storing water just as they are for growing crops?
Andrew Percy
That is an interesting idea. I think that we would all prefer it if farmers were allowed to continue producing food, but my right hon. Friend raises one of the biggest criticisms of the current funding regime: the value placed on agricultural land is not sufficient. I am not against flood alleviation projects—of course not—and that includes the sacrificing of land at Alkborough flats in my constituency. That operated very well and possibly lowered water levels in the Trent to such an extent that it prevented a couple of communities from flooding. We do not have a problem with some of these schemes, in appropriate areas. What we have a problem with is the value placed on agricultural land and rural communities generally under the current system. In the original drafts of the various flood catchment plans for our area, there seemed to be a policy of retreat and sacrifice of rural areas. That has abated somewhat through various processes, for which we are very grateful.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden and others, including the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), have highlighted the nationally important infrastructure in our area and the national risk register. In my constituency, to add to the list of nationally important infrastructure that we all seem to be trotting out today, there is of course the port of Goole, which is England’s busiest and biggest inland port. We also have the power station at Keadby, which of course was one of the communities flooded in December. There is the Drax power station just across the way, and biomass imports come through my constituency via the railway lines. My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) talked about petrochemicals, and of course we have the motorway and rail infrastructure and agricultural land. I believe that 55% to 60% of our land is grade A agricultural land, so it is some of the most productive land in the country.
We have mentioned the Isle of Axholme, but of course the defences along the Trent and the Ouse do not just protect the 50,000 acres and 20,000 residents there. They are also major defences for Doncaster and Thorne. A catastrophic breach of those defences would have a significant impact on Doncaster, but although that is sometimes taken into account, it is not always accounted for in funding decisions.
Mr David Davis
May I draw my hon. Friend’s attention to something that has not been mentioned so far? Even though residential accommodation is given the highest score in the ranking, that is based on property value. One thing that works against the north of England is that properties there tend to be of lower value, which leads to a cyclical effect: the house is cheaper, so it gets less defence and therefore gets cheaper. It feeds on its own poverty. Does my hon. Friend agree that that has a distorting impact on flood defence funding?
Andrew Percy
Absolutely. I want to talk about the problems and failings in the current system, but before I do—I do not want to be entirely negative—I will praise the Government. The response in my area after the December surge was welcome. We appreciated the flood repair and renewal grants, and the support for business has been well received. Also, additional Government funding since December has been of particular benefit to my area: a £5 million scheme to raise the banks at Reedness has been approved, as has £3 million to shore up the banks at Snaith, and work will begin in a month’s time to shore up the banks at Burringham, which were not breached but were severely damaged.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) on his leadership on this matter, from which the whole region will hopefully benefit.
The hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) referred to the response to the floods. The local agencies responded well, but for future learning I draw attention to the Humberside fire and rescue service’s plans to develop the Ark flood preparation and response centre, which would be of major benefit not only to the region but nationally. What does he think about that?
Andrew Percy
I thank the hon. Gentleman for reminding me of that excellent bid, which aims for transition funds from the Department for Communities and Local Government and will be decided on towards the end of the year. He recently met the Humberside fire and rescue service to discuss the bid, which would create a national flood training centre. We do not currently have such a centre and firefighters must undertake training in fresh water, which is not always as clean as it could be. Events cannot be modelled in such water, but, more importantly, many firefighters come back with stomach bugs, which makes the practice expensive. Where better could a training centre that can model flood events be placed than in the Humber, which has the second highest flood risk after London? The bid has support from both sides of the Humber and from MPs of both parties, so if there is anything that the Minister can do to push it along with his friends at DCLG, it would be greatly appreciated.
I praise the Government for acting swiftly with the surveying work and for providing additional funding, which will benefit my constituency in the short term, but it is only a short-term fix. Although we are grateful for additional funding, today’s debate has been about the long-term strategy that is desperately required. Our region—the Humber, east Yorkshire and north Lincolnshire—is on the edge of an economic renewal. The Siemens investment has been talked about, and there is the potential Able site, so a lot is happening. The greatest risk to economic renewal must be the potential failure properly and adequately to deal with the massive flood risk. £888 million does sound like a lot of money, but it is not that significant when spread over 10 or 15 years. The potential return tells us all we need to know about the value of that money.
I do not have time to go on about the problems with the current funding system, such as building in future development and the value of agricultural land—the Minister has heard those arguments before—but I urge the Minister, who is gracious in all debates and knowledgeable about the flooding that hit our area, to do all that he can to support our proposal for a long-term solution to the problems. Although I said that it was outrageous that he would not write us a cheque for £888 million today, it is not actually all that outrageous—
Andrew Percy
As my hon. Friend says, tomorrow will do. We simply need to build support within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and across Government for a long-term solution to a unique problem. Everybody claims that their area is unique, but the Humber really is, for all the reasons that have been expressed today. There is a massive flood risk to infrastructure there.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden on securing the debate. We will move forward as a united group to meet the Prime Minister next week, which will not be the end of it. We will continue to push the matter to ensure not only that businesses get the required investment to encourage them to create jobs in the area, but also that the homes of the people whom we represent are better protected in future.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
This has been a quite extraordinary debate in many ways. Not only have some eminent Members of this House spoken, but the debate has been cross-party and good-natured. I never thought that I would live to see the day when certain Members from different parts of the House would call each other “Friends”. Someone less risk-averse than I am might have referred to Members present as the Yorkshire mafia. I would never dream of doing such a thing, but they have certainly made a powerful case, and I am sure that the Minister has taken note of it. I am also sure that the Prime Minister will have taken note of it before he meets them next week.
I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), in particular because the topic is not something that he has simply taken up for this debate. His parliamentary questions and previous contributions have focused clearly and repeatedly on moving the debate about flood risk away from rhetoric and on to the simple facts, and that set the debate off on exactly the right tone. I want to pick up on some of those facts: the Government’s capital spending plans up to 2020-21, which will result in a significant increase in the number of properties at risk of flooding; the fact that flood risk is increasing due to climate change; and the fact that the Government’s maintenance spending plans for tidal defences will result in the deterioration of existing flood assets. The issues are serious and it is right that they have been debated so thoroughly this morning. I want to focus primarily on the first two points: increased flood risk and capital investment.
The Government have set out their forward projections for capital investment in flood defences, which say that they will spend £370 million a year in 2015-16 and in every year through to 2020-21. What percentage of that money will be for new-build flood defences, and what will be for major capital repairs and maintenance? The truth is that we do not know. The Government have chosen to use capital spend as a proxy for spending on new flood defences. As a result, many people will think that they are building more defences and defending more properties when in fact, because of climate change and storm damage, they will simply be spending more on major repairs to existing defences. In other words, there may be no increase in the number of defences, or indeed the number of properties and homes defended.
The Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change has analysed the claim made by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, that 165,000 properties would be “better protected” in the current spending period. It warns that only a proportion of the 165,000 will actually see their flood risk reduce. Many capital schemes are simply replacing or refurbishing existing defences on a like-for-like basis, and to the same crest height. That is not good enough, for all the reasons that hon. Members have outlined this morning. With climate change, many of the houses will be less well protected than they were when the defences were built. Defences may have been repaired, but the risk that they will be overtopped as a result of changing climate has now increased. Too many homes and properties are still at risk, because the defences that we have are less effective than they once were as a result of the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather.
That is one of the reasons why the UK Statistics Authority is still not satisfied with the Government’s flood spending statistics. The UK Statistics Authority has yet to be satisfied that the Government are telling what it calls the truth about flood defence spending. Needless to say, that makes the job of planning for everyone involved in flood risk management incredibly difficult. The Government’s failure to provide a straight answer to the question of how they plan to reduce flood risk has made effective scrutiny of their policy difficult. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden has on previous occasions called for the Government to be more strategic in their interventions, and to stop being
“penny wise and pound foolish”—[Official Report, 10 February 2014; Vol. 575, c. 570.]
He is exactly right.
The Humber flood risk management strategy produced in 2008 seems to strike the right balance on the basis of the best evidence available at the time. However, we must be clear that the evidence on flood risk has changed rapidly and significantly over the past six years. Let me give an important example: the 2008 strategy states that the Environment Agency considered that it would be necessary to withdraw from 11 of the 33 flood management areas in the Humber plan; those 11 areas contained 1,961 homes in 2008. Significantly, in his opening remarks, the right hon. Gentleman said that he has been told by the Government that the 2008 numbers in his constituency have increased by more than 1,000 already.
Since 2008 our understanding of how flood risk is changing has increased significantly. The Met Office has stated that what was a one-in-125-days extreme rainfall event is now to be considered as a one-in-85-days event, and that trend is expected to continue. It is also chastening to consider that sea levels in England are rising by around 6 mm per year. The evidence is clear that the risk to the people of the Humber has increased. The simple message is that since 2010, while the assessment of the risks has continued to rise, the Government have chosen to cut investment in flood defences. We need to run simply to hold flood risk at existing levels. The Humber risk assessment must be redone to reflect new evidence on flood risk and the backlog of work that has not been delivered because of the cuts.
The Environment Agency carried out an updated Humber flood risk management strategy in 2011, which makes it clear that more new defences and the improvement of existing defences will be needed, and that more managed realignment of the coast, as well as increased flood storage, will be essential. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) rightly quantified that at £880 million over the next 10 years. The Minister, however, must be clear about who exactly he expects to deliver the strategic approach to flood risk reduction required in the Humber.
Since 2010 the number of Environment Agency staff working to fulfil the statutory consultation role on flood risk has reduced by 40%. The Government have made adapting to future flood risk voluntary for all local authorities. That is not the co-ordinated, long-term, well thought through plan that the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) spoke of—he is now, I trust, the toast of the Crown and Anchor pub, to which he referred so liberally. Furthermore, the Government have decided not to implement sustainable urban drainage, which would have required developers and water companies to meet some of the cost. No wonder the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden has called for the Government to be more strategic.
Barry Gardiner
I am conscious that the Minister needs to speak, so if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not give way.
Last week, the outgoing head of the Environment Agency used a speech at the RSA—the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce—to call for cross-party consensus of the kind that we have seen this morning. That is what we had with the Pitt review: an approach that focused on building the capacity for strategic intervention. There were 92 recommendations, but only 46 were implemented. That approach, however, saw improvements implemented at Brough, Swinefleet, Burringham, Gunness, Stallingborough and Halton Marshes.
Since 2010 many of the projects named in the Humber flood risk management strategy have become stuck in the pipeline, because Government cuts have closed off, and in some cases indefinitely delayed, the available funding for essential projects. Examples include the Sutton Ings flood alleviation scheme, a sustainable drainage retrofit that would have protected an area of central Hull in which there are 2,982 homes at significant risk of flooding. The Ulceby flood alleviation scheme would have protected an area of Grimsby in which 2,164 homes are at significant risk of flooding. We urgently need to get back to an evidence-based flood management policy that all parties in the House can support. Nothing else will deliver the risk management strategy required for the Humber.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. As is conventional—but I say this in a heartfelt way—I thank the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) for securing the debate, which has given hon. Members across the region and across parties the opportunity to add their voices to a collective strategy at the political level, and to work with the technical expertise and the communities involved to move forward in addressing flood risk in the area.
As the right hon. Gentleman set out, and as others have reminded us, on 5 December 2013 the east coast experienced a very serious tidal surge, causing flooding to communities along the banks of the Humber, and indeed upstream. The defences were overtopped, and there was flooding to more than 1,100 homes and businesses, and 700 hectares of land around the Humber. A number of right hon. and hon. Members have talked about the importance of some of that land. The Government and I very much appreciate the impact that had, and the distress caused to the communities and businesses affected. I sympathise deeply with those whose homes and businesses were flooded. I have seen at first hand the effects of flooding around the country. The hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) mentioned that a number of Ministers have visited his constituency and the surrounding area to look at the impact.
I am grateful to the Environment Agency and all the other risk management authorities in the area, and to the emergency responders, for their excellent work in preparing for—that is important—and managing such events, without which the damage would have been much worse. When the flooding happened, they responded quickly and efficiently, so I particularly thank, as I have done in previous debates, all the professionals and volunteers for the way in which they responded to the exceptional weather.
Twelve thousand warnings were sent directly to homes and businesses, allowing people to prepare. We should not forget that our defences protected 156,000 properties in the area during the surge. The hon. Member for Cleethorpes said that it was difficult for people who have been flooded to hear the Government talking about what has been achieved, but as the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) pointed out, it is important to send a message to those considering investing, or those who take decisions about levels of insurance premiums, excesses and so on, that defences do protect communities, and that many such defences operated successfully in this instance, as in others.
The 2013 event was of a similar magnitude to—it was slightly greater—the disastrous surge of 1953, in which 24,000 properties flooded and more than 300 people died. Surges such as the ones we saw in 1953 and in December last year will occur again, and it is possible that climate change could make such events more common and more severe. We cannot stop those events from happening, but we can ensure that our planning, preparation and investment in defences protect communities when they do happen. That is an ongoing process that right hon. and hon. Members present are at the heart of, on behalf of their communities.
Dan Rogerson
I will, although I will not be able to do so often, because I want to get through all the issues.
Mr Stuart
I am grateful to the Minister. On the point about putting a strategic framework in place, will he reflect on whether we need to establish, as in Holland, flood protection standards that trigger the resource to deliver the standard, rather than having a certain amount of resource and doing the best possible with that?
Dan Rogerson
I will come on to resourcing. The hon. Gentleman has made a point about the approach in another jurisdiction; a number of people referred to Holland—or the Netherlands, as I should properly say.
One example of the ongoing investment I referred to is the £20 million defence improvement project that is under construction to provide better protection in Grimsby. That will be completed in autumn 2015.
I will say a little more in a moment about what is being done in the Humber area, but let me first put this issue in the national context, following on from the comments of the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner). I have worked with him in Select Committee, and I now face him in debates—he is one of the two Opposition Front-Bench Members his party leader has thoughtfully provided to shadow me, and I am obviously grateful to both of them for the way in which they do that.
Let me reiterate that flood management is a Government priority. We are spending £3.2 billion on flood and coastal erosion management over this Parliament. For the future, we have made a record six-year capital commitment of at least £370 million a year, as the hon. Gentleman said, to improve flood defences, and that will rise to more than £400 million in 2020-21.
With the 2014 autumn statement, we will publish a pipeline—to use the jargon—for flood defence improvement projects for the next six years. That will provide protection for at least 300,000 further households throughout the country, meaning that, by the end of the decade, we will have provided a better level of protection to at least 465,000 households. That is on top of our achievements over this Parliament.
Despite taking a terrible battering this winter, our defences have protected a significant number of properties. About 1.3 million properties and 950 square miles of farmland were protected during that period. In response to the exceptional events of the winter, the Government acted quickly. We not only made an extra £270 million available to repair, restore and maintain critical defences, but made available recovery money for those most seriously affected.
The £270 million of additional funding is being used on the ground now to help the Environment Agency and other risk-management authorities to ensure that important defences are repaired before the coming winter, and are returned to target condition as soon as possible. From time to time, it has been implied that some of these defences will not be there to do the job for which they were originally designed; that is why it is crucial that the money is spent to ensure that they are back up to target condition.
In 2007, the then Government approved the Humber flood risk management strategy, providing the Environment Agency with a strategic business case to invest up to £323 million over a 25-year period up to 2032 on works to manage and reduce tidal flood risk in the area. Although the strategy was led by the Environment Agency, it was developed with, and supported by, other risk-management authorities and key stakeholders in the area. The first programme of improvement schemes started to be delivered in 2009, including schemes at Brough, Swinefleet, Halton Marshes, Stallingborough and Donna Nook. Schemes have since been delivered at Burringham, Gunness, Tetney and Grimsby, and the scheme at Cleethorpes is under construction. Defence improvements are also being planned for Hull.
The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) set out the importance of the protection at the Albert dock. The temporary defences are there, so they are in place to increase the level of defence. The work he was concerned about, which will make those defences permanent, will be completed during this financial year. Even if the defences are not made permanent by this winter, the temporary defences are in place, and they will be made permanent. It is important that the right hon. Gentleman raised the issue, given the level of risk. In the time remaining, I want to pick up on a few points.
Dan Rogerson
May I respond to the points that have already been made? I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, but there is a great deal to get through.
The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden mentioned the importance not only of new defences, but of assessing existing defences to see where improvements need to be made. That very much has to be part of the strategy, and he is right to mention the issue. Hull is an example of that process.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the effects over the entire estuary. It is possible to ring-fence some of the major population centres. Other Members have referred to the times when farmland can be used as part of a short-term measure to absorb water. Although I accept the point the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) made about the importance of farmland to the local economy and to the country’s food security, there are schemes—there is one in Kent—in which farmers have been paid to take flood water as part of a local strategy. Where a case can be made for doing that, it can certainly be part of the solution.
We have put in place the flood recovery fund for farmers, so that they can apply for funds to restore land that has been affected. A number of farmers in the west country have done that, but the money has also been made available to people who were affected by the early December flooding in the region we are talking about. It is important to put on record that that funding was available to help people deal with the shorter-term effects.
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden and other Members for their recognition of the fact that I do not have a cheque book with me and cannot sign over up to £1 billion of investment today.
Dan Rogerson
Although I accept that hon. Members are disappointed to hear that, it is important to note that the work they are doing, along with the technical advice that is being received and the work that all the local authorities are involved in, will make a strong case for a long-term investment plan. The Government will then be able to consider that, along with the most up-to-date information.
The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle set out events that took place under the Labour Government, which were of huge concern and had a great impact particularly in Hull, although also in the surrounding area. We must always be aware of the severity and the likelihood of such impacts.
On the flood risk to smaller communities, one strength of the Government’s partnership approach is that it has allowed some of the smaller schemes in rural areas to go ahead. We think that up to 25% more schemes will go ahead because of that approach, which has provided an opportunity to raise money locally to partner with Government investment. Some more rural schemes would not necessarily have been scored as highly as some of the bigger schemes, but partnership funding means that they are taking place, and I am aware of many that are going ahead as a result.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned hypothecation and using the climate change levy and other things. Clearly, it is for Her Majesty’s Treasury to decide how the taxes it receives are spent. The position of successive Governments has been not to focus on hypothecation, but to look at investing in things that are necessary. Members have made the case today for investment in flood defences, and we have heard that very clearly. That is why we are spending more than previous Governments have.
The hon. Member for Cleethorpes set out, as he has done consistently since the flooding took place, the impact on the local economy and the importance of the port in the area he represents. It is crucial that colleagues in all Departments and agencies are involved in our plans and strategies as we move forward—the flood envoy covering the area is a Minister in the Department for Transport—and that we take account of what they can do to secure critical assets and infrastructure.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned local knowledge and what local land managers, farmers and internal drainage boards can offer. The Environment Agency is keen to work with them to make sure it constantly improves provision. Of course, many of the people who work for it also live in the areas affected and have worked there for many years, so the agency has great expertise when looking at local areas.
The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) talked movingly about the personal impacts and about how some of the responders—he mentioned a parish council chairman—took action on behalf of their community, even though they themselves were affected. It is important to recognise that. He talked about climate change and the national picture. While the Members gathered here will want to focus on what they want for their area, it is important to ensure that everybody can make their case, because there are many vulnerable areas, including further down the east coast, for example, where people will be looking to take forward schemes. He also mentioned a number of local schemes and described the impacts and the repairs that are under way, and I would be happy to write to him about some of them to make sure that we maintain progress.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North rightly mentioned, as she has done consistently, the importance of making sure there is room for development in areas prone to flood risk. The Government and local authorities want to send a strong message that we want to make these areas resilient and as well-protected as possible. We do not want just to add to flood risk. The Flood Re scheme builds on what was there before, which was set up for properties flooded in 2008. While 2009 remains the cut-off, we are investing in flood defences to protect other areas. That is why it is important we are talking today about protecting areas affected more recently.
The debate has given local Members the opportunity to show that they are working together, working with local communities and local authorities and using the Environment Agency’s expertise to make a case for investment in their area. I am delighted that they have secured a meeting with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to take that forward, and that there is an opportunity to work with Departments on community resilience and the resilience of critical infrastructure.