Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

May I compliment my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on the way in which the tragedy for people in the north-west has been dealt with? Some people have a simplistic view about flooding, seeing it as a binary issue and, for example, saying that dredging works in all cases—we know it does not. There are circumstances where capital schemes such as the Minister has outlined are the solution, but in other cases a more nuanced approach is required. Will her team continue to make the point that every different flood event requires a specific solution?

[Rory Stewart]

First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who was a distinguished floods Minister and is right in what he says. We need to look also at upstream mitigation, which means the planting of trees, the restoration of poached soils, and examining peat bogs and river movement. This is not only about hard defences, and the work that we will be doing over the next few months will focus exactly on those natural measures.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Dr Huq, we will get to you. Your question is different, but we will reach it.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

In people’s minds, fossil fuels are obviously a cornerstone of the Paris accord. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the involvement of faith groups was absolutely vital in getting that agreement? Everyone from the Pope to Christian Aid, and many other organisations, was fundamental in making sure that the moral case for tackling climate change was heard.

[Mrs Spelman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The engagement of faith leaders in securing a successful agreement in Paris last weekend was very important. I want to commend the work of the Bishop of Salisbury, who led an initiative in which 200 pilgrims from the Church of England walked 200 miles to Paris to show their commitment to reaching an agreement.

Climate Change and Flooding

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

I am not sure into which category I fall, although I suspect that I know.

First, I express my sympathy to all those victims of floods—Monmouthshire has been affected by flooding in the past, of course—and all those who helped with the clean-up. However, I take issue with the idea that man-made climate change has caused all that. It is unfortunate that the two issues have been mixed up.

We have had few debates about global warming and climate change. Climate change has been with us for millions of years, ever since the Earth was created. I urge the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to ask a few hard questions of those who are frankly displaying some hysteria about climate change. In the past 2,000 years, there have been periods of warming and cooling. It was warmer during the Roman period; it got cooler in the dark ages; it was probably warmer during the medieval period than it is now, and it got cooler again until about 1680, during the so-called little ice age.

One of the first questions to which the Secretary of State should find an answer is how much of the small amount of warming that has taken place in the past two centuries—about 0.8°—is down to man-made carbon emissions and how much is due to natural factors, such as the warming that must have taken place as a result of coming out of the little ice age.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

rose—

[David T. C. Davies]

I have asked that question on many occasions and nobody could give me an answer, but I think that a former Minister is about to do so.

[Richard Benyon]

Ninety-five per cent. of climate scientists seem to suggest that man-made climate change is the problem. Many of us would like my hon. Friend to be right in his scepticism because that means that everything will be okay. Unfortunately, 95% of climate scientists, such as those we met at the Royal Society, disagree with him.

[David T. C. Davies]

I take issue with my hon. Friend. The 95% or 97% figure is floated around often, and I have done some research on it. It appears to have come from the Zimmerman/Doran survey, which was sent out to 10,257 potential respondents, who claimed to be climate scientists. Only 77 responded and 75 said, “I’m a climate scientist and it’s all down to man.” [Interruption.] If any other hon. Members know where the figure came from, they are welcome to let me know.

The IPCC’s most recent summary for policy makers has also put out some misleading statements. Page 17 of the “Summary for Policymakers 2013” states that it is extremely likely that more than half of the increase in global average temperatures from 1951 was caused by man. However, of that 0.8° figure, only about 0.5° comes from the second half of the 20th century. That means that, if the IPCC is correct, only just over 0.25° out of 0.8° was caused by man. That means that more than half is due to other, more natural factors.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change may also like to ask about the lack of firm correlation between the increases in temperature and those in carbon emissions. Even in the past 200 years, there has been a sharp increase in carbon dioxide, but there has not been a sharp increase in temperatures. They have gone up and down. They were going up between 1910 and 1940 and they were going down markedly between 1940 and 1977, leading many to believe that we were on the brink of another ice age. From the mid-1970s until 1997, temperatures were rising, as were carbon emissions, but from 1997 or 1998 until now, there has been a sharp increase in CO₂ but no increase in temperatures. We may wish to ask why that is.

I have had meetings with the Royal Society and the Met Office, and I recently asked that question of Professor Jim Skea—a lead author on the IPCC—in a public meeting at the House of Commons, chaired by Lord Deben. I asked why there had been no increase in temperatures for the past 17 or 18 years, and he said that that was statistically insignificant. That is a fair comment. He was not trying to say that this is about oceans or because the volcanoes are cooling, or any of the other many theories; he said that it is statistically insignificant, and he may have a point. However, if the past 17 years of no increase in temperature are statistically insignificant, why are the 27 or so years before that when there was an increase in temperature so statistically significant that we have to go ahead with all sorts of policies that will have a massive impact on homeowners and businesses in the UK?

Finally—I do not think anyone will be kind enough to intervene on me, although if someone wishes to, I shall be more than happy—

draft Flood Reinsurance (Scheme and Scheme Administrator designation) regulations 2015 DRAFT FLOOD REINSURANCE (SCHEME funding and administration) REGULATIONS 2015

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 General Committees

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

I do not intend to detain the Committee for long. I add my congratulations to the Minister and all the others involved in getting us to the point—next April, I think—where the programme goes live. The team of officials supporting my hon. Friend have done extraordinary work over the last four or five years. They have even found success in working with the Treasury—and that, in the annals of Government, is something to be celebrated. I also include Huw Evans, the chief executive of the ABI, and his predecessor, who attended many long meetings—some in Downing Street, some at DEFRA—trying to bolt together something that would work.

It is worth, for just a few seconds, thinking about where we were. The statement of principles that so many Members on both sides clamoured for the coalition Government to continue, to roll over into the future, never could have been continued. First, it was time-limited; secondly, as my hon. Friend the Minister said, it had no limit on price. It was going to cause, as increased flood risk continued, a serious problem for constituents such as mine. In 2007, 3,000 households were flooded in west Berkshire and the stress and strain of that experience continues every time we have periods of heavy rain. Although many measures have been taken to stop such floods from taking place, we can now give people the added security of affordable, available—and it is available—flood insurance that will make an extraordinary difference.

There were those who put pressure on us to say that the market could not cope and therefore the solution had to be statist. They were asking us to go down a route rather similar to the United States flood insurance fund, which is costing the US taxpayer—unfortunately, it is a bankrupt system. The threat of a large-scale flood event has caused that scheme to be practically unaffordable in the United States; that proves that we were right to try for a hybrid solution, working with the industry, in which the Government put in a commitment and legal framework to try to set up something that works. Our scheme’s great benefit is that those with the broadest shoulders will bear the biggest burden.

The aim—this is what I want to press my hon. Friend the Minister on—is to move fast towards encouraging and incentivising households up and down the country to realise that if they take measures to secure their house against flood risk, they will benefit. They will start to be able to look at bespoke offers from insurance companies that will create great specialisms in this area. They will be able to have affordable solutions that will benefit them in the years to come. I dispute the idea that Flood Re is a waste of public money; I think it is vital spending that will be welcomed by hundreds of thousands of people up and down the country.

Flood spending has to increase, and I dispute the assertion of the hon. Member for Brent North that it does not. The Opposition amendments in Committee would have required us to go back to the Association of British Insurers and it to go back to its members and say, “Look, we have to tear up these very complex financial models that we have been working on for months and months to dance on the head of a pin.” At the end of the day, it would have failed. The Minister and his Department need to feel confident that they have brought forward the best possible solution that will be welcomed by households up and down the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rory Stewart]

From the insurance company’s point of view, in the case of the households that are most at risk, Flood Re provides the ability to lay off the flood component of its household and buildings insurance, which for a basic rate council tax payer is in the region of the £220 to £250 mark. There would be no reason for an individual insurance company to make the flood component of its insurance exceed that amount—that is the purpose of the £180 million pot.

I agree, however, with the hon. Gentleman on the basic questions with which he began, and we certainly need to look at this during the next 25 years: building on floodplains, climate change and increasing flood risk. That will have an impact right across the industry.

[Richard Benyon]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. Can I urge the hon. Member for Brent North to be careful about making bland criticisms such as those about building on floodplains? London and York are floodplains. Do the comments apply to those great cities? The issue is about how we build on floodplains and how much flood resistance there is. We can all think of buildings on floodplains that were lunacy and should never have happened—perhaps the Environment Agency was ignored—but such sweeping statements on this important issue need to be qualified carefully.

[Rory Stewart]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is correct. Building on floodplains is a question of doing detailed calculations; the point is not that floodplains cannot ever be built on. Scotland provides a good example in the constraints that it has placed on building on floodplains, but Scotland has certain advantages in terms of population movements and the nature of the land.

As my hon. Friend said, there are technical solutions that allow for building on floodplains in Britain in a more sensible fashion, but most important of all is the natural capital calculation. We need to be much more realistic about looking at the social and economic costs of building on floodplains. What are the likelihoods of a risk? How much is that likely to cost the householder? How much misery and distress is that likely to cause them? What impact might that have on house prices? When all that is taken into account, someone might still, for particular reasons, decide to build on a floodplain. There could be very good reasons to go ahead, but they must ensure they have gone through the due diligence and looked at the potential costs and risks of doing so.

That brings me to my conclusion. This has been a good and testing debate, as I have come to expect from the hon. Member for Brent North, and it means that we are now one step closer to ensuring affordable insurance. I am reassured that the Opposition are not challenging the measures. I think Members across the Committee would agree that the work done over the past few months by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury, by the insurance industry and by many of our civil servants—who must be both relieved and exhausted at reaching this stage—has brought us to a pretty impressive model.

I would like the United Kingdom to boast about and share this model with the rest of the world, so that others can see how we have addressed the issue in a pragmatic and focused way. We have done it by working with the insurance industry instead of against it. We have included a very broad sweep of universal provision and have taken into account questions of transition. We have set up a 25-year process. All that shows long-term strategic thinking and market focus, which we should be proud of.

I thank the Committee for the opportunity to set out the Government’s approach on Flood Re and the insurance industry for its hard work. This legislative framework is a good model for balancing pragmatic considerations of how a scheme can operate with public policy objectives. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Flood Reinsurance (Scheme and Scheme Administrator Designation) Regulations 2015.

Draft Flood Reinsurance (Scheme Funding and Administration) Regulations 2015

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Flood Reinsurance (Scheme Funding and Administration) Regulations 2015.—(Rory Stewart.)

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

Flood Re was established in May and will become operational in May next year. The House will have an opportunity to debate the regulations with me next week.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend reassure me that, as well as the hard engineered projects that will be funded by the large sum of money he has mentioned, there will be soft engineered projects that build on the experience in Pickering, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), which uses natural features such as woodland and coastland wetland areas, which protect coastal communities from flooding? Such schemes can be cheaper and more effective in certain circumstances.

[Rory Stewart]

My hon. Friend has an enormous amount of experience in this area. We can do much more to help on flooding, including restoration of peatland, woodland and wetland areas, which not only benefits flood alleviation, but considerably benefits habitats and the biodiversity that depends on them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Spelman]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that we are opening up churches to the social needs of the community and using them for a wide range of purposes. For example, churches are being used as citizens advice bureaux, post offices, shops, night shelters and food banks. Let me give the example of two churches in his area of Harrow: St Paul’s has a job club open to people of all backgrounds; and All Saints’ Harrow Weald provides not only an art exhibition facility but a forest school. These facilities are open to all.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is precisely the sort of issue where local leadership in the Church can make a difference? She might therefore understand the confusion in the Oxford diocese, where it has been many months since we had a bishop and it could be a year before one begins his or her new role.

[Mrs Spelman]

I am aware of the circumstances in the Oxford diocese. The Crown Nominations Commission did convene on 11 and 12 May but was unable to discern who the right candidate for the Bishop of Oxford should be. A number of bishop appointments need to take place in sequence, so the next time the commission convenes will be on 4 February. We all hope that in short order the right candidate will be found, but Bishop Colin, the acting bishop, is doing a splendid job and he is confident, as are his senior staff, that the needs of the diocese will be fully met.

Coastal Flood Risk

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[James Heappey]

The frustration locally was that the flooding came after more than a decade of under-investment in local flooding protection schemes. The dredging has been a great success. Farmers and local communities report that the water moved off the land much more quickly this winter, so the dredging had an immediate benefit. The improvement of local pumping infrastructure has also been well received, and water has been moving more quickly out to sea.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

I apologise for not being here at the start of the debate, but I was at a meeting of the all-party group on flood prevention—I thought I should make it quorate before coming here.

Did my hon. Friend see the satellite photograph of the Bristol channel at the time of the floods 18 months ago? It showed a plume of soil going out into the sea, which gives credence to his point that we need to take an holistic view in areas such as Somerset and, no doubt, in Lincolnshire too. That needs to be about dealing with not only the problem in rivers such as the Parrett, but land use in the hills surrounding areas such as the Somerset levels. When maize and other crops are planted in the wrong place, Somerset ends up in the Bristol channel.

[James Heappey]

I absolutely agree: we cannot tackle flooding simply by dredging a river, building an attenuation pond or building better flood defences—taking a dynamic, holistic approach to managing the whole area is key. Within that, it is important to recognise what land is used for, and farmers are becoming increasingly sensitive to the impact of what they plant on their land and its ability to hold water.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

This is my first time speaking in Westminster Hall, too, and I do so on a pertinent issue. I congratulate the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) on securing the debate. I represent a coastal community that is surrounded on three sides by the sea, so this issue is particularly close to my heart.

Of course, coastal flooding is a particular problem in England, with 5 million properties in England potentially being affected by it, and we have heard from hon. Members about some of the extreme weather that has impacted on their constituencies.

I will pick up on what hon. Members from Northern Ireland, including the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie), and the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), have said about the devolved nations. I will talk about where we can learn from one another, which is quite important. Similarly, one hon. Member from Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), talked about Europe.

Let me talk for a minute about Scotland, where the situation is a little bit different from the situation elsewhere. Our topography is slightly different, but that is not to say that we have not been affected by the devastating impact of changes in the climate, extreme weather and flooding.

The environment is largely a devolved matter in Scotland, and flood risk management has been a priority for the Scottish Government, who have invested quite heavily in flood defences and maintained and protected funding for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. We have also looked at developing a national picture of flood risk across Scotland, which will help us with investment efforts in the future.

The subject of my first question was raised by the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers). Will the Minister give us a slight insight into tomorrow’s Budget? I ask because we are worried about cuts to the budget for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, especially at this time. The UK’s own climate change risk assessment of 2012 said that one of the biggest challenges in the UK will be flooding and water shortage. So can the Minister tell us why there is a possibility of DEFRA’s budget being cut, and what impact such a cut might have on the Scottish Government?

[Richard Benyon]

May I offer the hon. Gentleman some comfort, albeit without having any knowledge of what is happening to the DEFRA budget? At times of great austerity, DEFRA managed to protect the flood funding budget; in fact, it spent more on flooding than any Government had in any previous year.

[Stephen Gethins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point, and I am glad that the situation reflected what was going on north of the border; I know that he had a good working relationship with the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Food and Environment, Richard Lochhead. We need to talk about this issue, to find out how we can learn from one another across these islands as we face the challenges of climate change.

The hon. Member for South Down said that we were facing a situation arising from “man’s inhumanity to the environment”. We are seeing the devastating impact that that is having on communities across these islands, and further afield. That is why we are interested in looking at climate justice, and considering not only adaptation to climate change but mitigation of it. We also need to consider how climate change impacts on people beyond these shores.

We are seeing the increased impact of climate change. We have taken action in Scotland through our national coastal change assessment and our national picture of flood risk. I ask the Minister what he can he learn from us and what we can learn from him. I urge that the issue is treated as a priority, because it is a priority for communities across these islands. We must continue to invest in flood defences.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

Seven schemes in the hon. Lady’s constituency have now been identified within the six-year programme between now and 2020-21, with a total investment value of £4.3 million. We are also raising money from partnership funding and the private sector, which enables us to protect more homes and more communities.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

In 2007, the community of Thatcham suffered the surface water flooding of more than 1,100 homes. Since then a huge community effort, working with the Environment Agency and unlocking a lot of local funding as part of the partnership funding scheme, has seen a lot of measures reintroduced. The last piece of that work needs preliminary design funding for this year. Will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the new Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), whom I welcome to the best job in Government, look closely at this case, so that Thatcham is protected for the future?

UK Sea Bass Stocks

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to comment on the excellent speeches we have just heard. I compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) for calling this debate.

The story of the management of this stock has been a very bad one indeed. The high point was the decision by the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) to increase the minimum landing size, and all credit to him for taking it. If we had followed that decision through at the time, it would certainly have made a difference. Why his successor rescinded that decision is something that I could not really determine from reading the excellent Adjournment debate in 2007 to which the right hon. Gentleman referred.

When I was in the Minister’s position, I set about trying to reverse that change in policy, and I tried to increase the minimum landing size. I was persuaded that it was important to do everything to conserve bass at a European level, and I believe that it is right to get agreement among our European partners, because many vessels from other countries fish this stock in our waters. To go to the EU was a sensible piece of advice that I received.

However, if we just left matters to the sclerotic processes of the EU, this stock would crash before we could do anything about it. There is a lot that we can do unilaterally, and there is a lot that we can do in this House and beyond as a sort of club of ex-Fisheries Ministers; I do not know what the collective noun for ex-Fisheries Ministers is, but I think it is an “exhaustion” of ex-Fisheries Ministers. We would all say to my hon. Friend the Minister that he has a much more difficult task this December than the tasks that I faced in three or four years of December rounds of talks. He is a very good negotiator and takes his job very seriously. However, my advice to him would be to take precisely the advice of the right hon. Member for Exeter—that this stock will not exist unless tough decisions are taken.

We now face a collapse in stocks. At times, when we talk about minimum landing size, it seems slightly like fiddling while Rome burns, and that there are more important things that we could do. However, it is still necessary to increase minimum landing size and I hope that the Minister will consider doing that, and take forward the work that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has already done on this issue and act unilaterally.

I take an old-fashioned view that fish should not be harvested until they have had a chance to breed. It is the spawning biomass that is crashing and it is on that issue that action needs to take place. This situation has arisen before; we can look beyond our borders and see where it has happened before. There is a fishery on the east coast of the United States called the striped bass stock fishery, which is now worth a lot of money. I have heard varying figures, including the figure that now, in its healthy state, it is worth $1 billion a year to the state of Massachusetts in terms of tourism and the added benefits that angling provides. I have also heard that nationally it is worth $2 billion a year to the US economy, and possibly more.

The stock spawns in the Chesapeake bay, but in the late 1970s it was overfished and crashed. Immediately, everyone was prevented from fishing it, whether they were recreational or commercial anglers. The stock has now recovered and it is a massive draw. British bass anglers spend all their savings to fly from the United Kingdom to the United States to exploit this exciting fish. It is branded; people wear T-shirts with the slogan, “I’m a striped bass fisherman.” However, British fishermen should not have to do that in US waters; they should be able to do it in UK waters. Similarly, they should not have to go to Ireland, where there is a very buoyant recreational fishery; I will come on to talk about that shortly.

I would love to portray the problem in the simplistic way that some do, which is to say that it is all about the pair trawlers. Well, I am afraid that it is not all about the pair trawlers. In the area from Felixstowe round to Sussex, the use of trammel and drift nets has increased by 20% or 30% in the past year. We need to look at all the activities in this sector. What is really interesting about the Marine Resources Assessment Group study that my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley mentioned is that it relates to a fishery in Sussex, where every way of exploiting this diminishing stock is used. There are pair trawlers coming over from the continent to exploit it; there are inshore fisheries that exploit it commercially; and there is also a very important recreational fishery. That is why MRAG chose Sussex to conduct this important piece of research.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) said earlier, I suspect that we will hear later today in this House the words, “long-term economic plan”. Well, let us just look at the economics of the issue that we are talking about. In Sussex alone, I calculate—from the figures in the MRAG report—that between 258 and 267 tonnes of fish were harvested commercially in 2012, and somewhere between 10 and 19 tonnes were harvested recreationally. Taking the median of those two, about 5.7% were landed from the recreational sector. However, what is really important is that the economic output per tonne in Sussex is 40 to 75 times higher for recreational than commercial. The employment that is generated, calculated per tonne, is 39 to 75 times higher for recreational bass fisheries than commercial.

The report states clearly that the final economic and employment impacts of recreational bass fisheries in Sussex are estimated at £31.3 million and 353 full-time equivalent jobs. The final economic employment impacts of commercial bass fisheries in Sussex were estimated as £9.25 million and 111.28 full-time equivalents. That is a staggering difference. As my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley said, if calculated across the piece it is more than three times as valuable as a recreational fishery than as a commercial one.

It would obviously be better if the EU had measures in place to put this stock back on track, but I urge the Minister to look at what has happened in Ireland, where there is a recreation-only fishery, a strict catch limit and a high minimum landing size, which I gather is about to be increased to 50 cm, on the basis of scientific advice received by the Irish Government. This is a highly valuable tourist attraction. In Ireland, angling, tourism and coastal communities are integrating in a much better way than in this country. We have a lot to learn in that regard. People who go there are welcomed and find charter boats linked to hotels and pubs. The whole package is there; it is part of a deal that attracts people. I want those fisherman to go to Devon, Sussex and Essex and exploit this exciting game fish.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am going to do something that should never be done in the House of Commons, which is to ask a question without knowing the answer. I do not intend to put my hon. Friend on the spot, but he was Fisheries Minister until quite recently, so why did he not do this? What was the obstacle? Where is the resistance? What were he and his successor having to fight to be able to implement this measure, not just in the EU, but domestically?

[Richard Benyon]

I did set about trying to increase the minimum landing size. I regret that we did not move faster when going through the process of consultation and further consultation, and trying to ensure that this was agreed at European level, because the evidence is all there. When you are a Minister, people tell you that someone cannot be prevented from doing something without enough evidence and judicial review, and that there are threats of infraction, and all the other things. However, I freely admit that if I had my time over again I would steamroller this through and take the consequences, because the consequence now is a crashing stock. The stock will disappear, along with the economic value.

To the fishermen in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), I say this: I have met them many times and I have great respect for them, but they will not be fishing for bass, not because of any decision taken by any Minister of any party, but because there will be none. They have a great future ahead of them exploiting other stocks, such as thornback rays and other things that are prevalent in those waters, but they really will have an economic benefit if they can get the fishermen on their boats to catch recreational bass in future.

[Mr Bradshaw]

It might help the hon. Gentleman if I say a little bit about my experience. In this regard, it was one of those occasions as a Minister where I had to stand up to powerful and well-funded vested interests and to officials. Great as my officials were, I am afraid it was a Minister’s decision against the advice and the will of my officials, and sometimes that is the right thing to do.

[Richard Benyon]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making that position clear. It is important to listen to advice, but as I say we could still be fiddling when Rome burns. This stock will shortly be gone.

Other hon. Members want to speak. I shall conclude by saying that 80% of bass swim within 12 nautical miles of the coast, so action is needed now. We need action on minimum landing sizes; we need spatial and temporal closures; and we need better protection of nursery areas. Yes, we need a bag limit, but I do not believe that that is a massive issue—whether it is one, two or three—but other technical measures in the commercial fishery are needed. We also need better data so that we can face down the interests that say that this is the wrong decision.

The only way forward for bass is for them to be caught by hand line or rod. Any commercial activity at all should be based on its being a premium, hand-caught resource, in a similar way to mackerel in the south-west and other species: a virtue is made of the fact that those are local and high quality. My frank message to poncey restaurateurs who demand bass the size of the palm of my hand for their fussy customers is, “Get those from aquaculture, don’t get them from out of our seas, because that is destroying a stock.” Actually, their customers will probably mind more about not being able to eat bass in future. I want to see our waters criss-crossed with charter boats taking fat cats out to fish this really exciting stock, putting that money into coastal communities, and see a sustainable source working for this country, not crashing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Benyon]

As Fisheries Minister, aside from my personal interest in fishing and angling and what my fishing friends would have told me, I do not think I would have known about the problem until it reached its present stage if it had not been for the Angling Trust coming to see me with a group of people who really know what is going on. We could then put in train a process—which I wish had happened earlier—involving the Government working well with organisations that are informed and rational in how they work with Ministers.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) said, the debate is not anti-commercial interests, anti-jobs or anti-employment. It is pro-economic, social and environmental development. It is about what all the political parties in the House believe in, yet we have had 10 years of debate and have achieved nothing.

As Chairman of the Select Committee on Public Administration, I have the word “accountability” in mind: that is the crunch. All the democratic pressure on successive Ministers was to get something done; my hon. Friend the Minister must ask himself why it has not been done. I invite him to consider what my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury—and indeed the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw)—said about wishing they had been tougher with their officials. It is not right to blame officials, who give their best advice, but there is also the question of legal advice.

Legal advice is not an instruction on how to behave; it is something to be taken into account in making a decision. If the risk of being taken to court—to judicial review—is balanced against the risk of losing the fish stock, which is the bigger risk? The Minister must be accountable for the decision. He is not being accountable to this House if he just submits to the legal advice. Legal advice is to be listened to, but in many cases it is to be overridden. It is to be disregarded—well, not disregarded; it is to be taken into account. The judgment that the Minister then makes is not about blindly accepting the legal advice. Otherwise we do not have accountability; we might as well be ruled by lawyers.

We have seen European law, human rights law and fear of judicial review take over the whole of government in some Departments—DEFRA may be one of the worst instances—but we expect our Ministers to govern. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister please to exercise his best judgment. He will then be vindicated for what he does. If he submits to the legal advice, he will be condemned.

When we think about why our system of government feels so unaccountable with respect to so many Ministers, the question we should ask is how they respond to the advice that they are given and whether the House should empower them to act in the national interest rather than submit to the rather blind legal advice they are often given. That advice is given for the best of reasons; that is the job of the lawyers. However, in my experience, lawyers always advise doing the more cautious thing from their point of view—not necessarily from the point of view of the public interest.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

We have started designating them. The first 27 were designated a year ago and, as I said, we are consulting on the second tranche. The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science is doing a huge amount of work—it did a lot of work this summer. We spent around £10 million on research to get the best evidence we can so that these decisions are informed by the scientific evidence. That work is going on, and we plan to do this in three tranches, as we have made clear all along.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

I am sure the Minister will agree that marine protected areas are only part of the conservation measures we need in our seas. Does he agree that more conservation work needs to be done, for example on bass, stocks of which, so the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea informs us, are absolutely plummeting?

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. As Minister for the marine environment, he did a huge amount to take forward marine conservation zones. When it comes to bass, I can tell him that we expect to have an important breakthrough in December. We have always said that there should be technical measures. The stock has been fished unsustainably and there is a tentative proposal, which we expect to be raised at the December Council, that will look at both bag limits and catch limits, so that we can preserve this vital stock.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

The Department believes in heeding scientific advice and taking action on it, especially with regard to the issues that are under discussion. The newly appointed senior chief plant health officer, who offers us such advice, is doing incredibly valuable work.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

When we see the diseases that are here and that are coming down the track, it is easy to get into a state of despair about how our countryside will look in 10 or 20 years’ time. Will the Minister assure us that we have learned all the lessons from past diseases; that the approach to phytophthora ramorum of destroying millions of larch trees has worked; and that the new chief plant health officer will be able to tackle many of these emerging problems?

[Dan Rogerson]

My hon. Friend and predecessor is absolutely right to focus on this. As I have said, we have made it a priority in the Department and we have learned the lessons. Any Minister or Department that sat back and claimed they had learned everything would not be telling the truth. We must continually learn from what is out there, and work with colleagues across the world to look for new threats. What we are doing with these contingency exercises is not just to plan for what happens but to walk through it and to ensure that we are aware of the new threats that could arrive in this country.

Managing Flood Risk

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Miss McIntosh]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me the opportunity to say that I believe that there is an incoherence in policy. We import woodchip at huge expense from the United States and other parts of the country to co-fire coal at Drax power station in Selby; I should be encouraging farmers in north Yorkshire and all around the country to grow fast-growing willow coppice trees to co-fire that power station. There are inconsistencies and incoherence in our renewals policy and we should visit those as part of our flood prevention scheme.

We have seen just about every type of flooding possible since autumn last year—coastal flooding, tidal surges, river flooding and overtopping, surface water flooding and, most recently, groundwater flooding. We know that all this has been the worst flooding incident in this country in 250 years, since 1766. This debate is the opportunity for the Department to share how the Government seek to adapt to more extreme weather events and how we are becoming more resilient and building more appropriately. Given what was asked at Communities and Local Government questions earlier, I am not sure that the House is entirely convinced that we are yet building in the most appropriate places—that is, not in areas that have something to do with flooding in their name or that act as functional floodplains.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

In 2007, 55,000 houses were flooded in this country. My understanding is that this winter about 7,000 houses were flooded. That is a personal tragedy for every single one of those 7,000, but I am not sure how my hon. Friend can claim that last winter’s flooding was the worst for 250 years. We had the worst rainfall for 250 years, but in the context of 2007, the flooding was nowhere near that scale.

[Miss McIntosh]

It was the worst weather event that we have had. My hon. Friend’s intervention raises the very interesting question of why the Bellwin formula was not raised for the roads, bridges and houses that were damaged in 2012-13. He is right about the number of houses flooded. I think that more houses were flooded in the whole of the Yorkshire region in 2012-13 than were flooded in total this year. I supported the bid by North Yorkshire county council to increase the Bellwin limit and I will come on to that in a moment.

My hon. Friend also raises the very interesting question—this supports my argument—of where the funding will come from. I absolutely agree that most of the flood defences held and that many more houses would have flooded than was the case. The House should celebrate that, but where will the money come from to repair those flood defences that held this time but that will have been damaged by the sustained bashing from the storm?

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

I start by referring hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and by apologising to the House for legging it earlier. I had to host a long-standing event on the Terrace for land-based colleges, and I thought I should stick to that diary entry.

I remind the House that 55,000 properties were flooded in this country in 2007, and 2,500 of them were in my constituency. That was a devastating experience. One house being flooded is devastating for the individual householder, and none of us must ever underestimate the impact that this problem has on individual households. This year, approximately 7,000 properties have been flooded across the country, including 140 in my constituency. It is worth reminding ourselves that 1.3 million homes did not flood because of good-quality defences that have been built under this Government and previous Governments. Many more properties have been protected as a result of the combined efforts of various agencies and not least local volunteers, who have been unbelievably effective in my constituency and in many other constituencies. The emergency services worked to protect properties during the floods by putting up flood defences, pumping out drainage systems and being on hand. I also commend local authorities, the Environment Agency and many others.

Drainage boards are unsung heroes on flooding. They do extraordinary work, and they are successful because they use local knowledge and have real expertise. They understand how to manage water. I pay tribute to my local authority, West Berkshire council, and particularly Carolyn Richardson, its emergency manager. At an early stage, following the Pitt review and the 2007 floods, she took on responsibility for the local authority’s emergency response systems, feeding through into silver and gold commands, which come into effect for events such as those that have occurred in the past few weeks.

The response by local communities where flooding has taken place, or where there is a threat of flooding, has been quite extraordinary. Friends and neighbours are to be commended for their actions, and in those circumstances we see Britain at its best and communities at their best. Local people have done what they can to help people in their hour of need. There is an ongoing emergency. In the Lambourn and Pang valleys, we have historically high levels of groundwater, and houses that had not been flooded have now been flooded. A number of people are absolutely exhausted as a result of their constant efforts to keep floodwater and sewage out of their properties. We are not yet in the recovery stage.

I am glad that we seem to have moved on, both in the House and in the media, from a rather sterile, binary argument about the need to dredge or not to dredge: the virtues of dredging were opposed by those who said that it was wrong. We seem to have moved on and adopted more sensible thinking. The worst time to make or change policy is in the teeth of a crisis, particularly as we sometimes feel the need to play the game of satisfying the 24-hour news agenda. Parts of the press that I have come across in recent weeks and years—they know who they are—have asked me some of the most stupid questions I have ever heard. I am glad that this ended up on the cutting room floor, but I was asked by one reporter: “Should the Government apologise for the floods?” A Radio Bristol reporter, who I think had just done a course on aggressive interviewing, once asked me, “It’s been raining for days down here—what are you doing about it?” That kind of an agenda and ludicrous editorial pushing, which says to reporters, “This story needs legs: go out there and find someone to blame”, does not show our media at their best. We seem to have moved on, and recently there have been some interesting pieces of work that have begun to show the complexity of the problem we are dealing with.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

Will my hon. Friend answer two questions on the framework within which this is judged? First, do we need to give more power and resource to local determination? Secondly, do we need to look at the overall framework? Holland has statutory standards that have to be observed, and that trigger the funding, taxation and resource to ensure that, even when flooding is not in the public eye, it continues to be worked on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Benyon]

I think Pitt was right when he said that the whole system had been too centralised and needed to be decentralised. The Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee disagrees. She wrote a very rude comment about the way we enacted the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 and did precisely what Pitt recommended. She said, “No, it was all terribly bad and a waste of money” and that she strongly believed it should all be centralised—I may be paraphrasing, and if she was here she would probably leap to her feet to say that what she had said was not so simplistic. Where local lead flood authorities are good, we are seeing the best sort of devolution of power and responsibility, and we need to see more of that. Where they are not living up to that, we should find ways of making it happen. We discovered through Exercise Watermark, for example, that some are not playing their part, and that some agencies are not fitting into that locally. Water companies were partly to blame at that time, but I do not know whether that is still the case.

[Alok Sharma]

I share West Berkshire council with my hon. Friend and our right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood). I, too, would like to put on the record my thanks to Carolyn Richardson and others who have done such a great job over the past few weeks. Local residents in Purley in my constituency have decided to form a flood action group as a way of getting local people together to liaise with the Environment Agency and others. Is that something my hon. Friend would recommend other communities look at, working together to find a local solution?

[Richard Benyon]

I applaud the residents of Purley, because I have seen that approach work not only in my constituency but right across the country. The National Flood Forum has a cut-and-paste organisation for local communities to pick up and run with. It is a superb organisation with real knowledge and expertise. I know that the Department and the Environment Agency will also assist local communities in setting up a flood forum. The difficulty is that communities that have never been flooded will be flooded. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) that there will be new flooding, as we all know, and it is in those communities that we want lead local flood authorities to start getting voluntary action going, with flood wardens, parish councils getting involved and local communities setting up those sorts of organisations.

I am guilty of not responding to the second point my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) made, on whether we should introduce a statutory activity. I blow hot and cold about Pitt’s recommendation to create a duty on fire and rescue services to prepare and be equipped to deal with flooding. In my constituency over the past few weeks, we have seen Tyne and Wear fire and rescue service, Cheshire fire and rescue service, East Yorkshire fire and rescue service and many others, all coming through the centrally controlled asset management register, which brings precisely these sorts of assets to our constituencies when we need them, and they are still there today doing wonderful work. Something is happening, and perhaps more can be done.

[Miss McIntosh]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work he did as Minister. Is it a matter of regret to him that we still do not have sustainable drainage systems in place? Does he accept that one of Pitt’s core recommendations was to end the automatic right to connect and make IDBs, water companies and others statutory consultees on future planning applications?

[Richard Benyon]

I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I was not aware that there was a time limit and will race through my final remarks.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Just to help the hon. Gentleman, there is a voluntary time limit of about 10 minutes.

[Richard Benyon]

I will be as quick as I can, Mr Deputy Speaker.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton makes an important point. It is a matter of regret that we have not yet brought forward the sustainable drainage provisions, which were the subject of much discussion. I can assure her that I wish we had brought them forward sooner. When they are brought forward, they will make life much better. On the automatic right to connect, I am also on record as agreeing with her on many points.

My most important point today is that we should not look at England’s flood problems through the prism of one area’s hydrology—particularly that of the Somerset levels, which have a complex hydrology. Looking at the Somerset levels as one cohesive hydrological problem is a mistake: parts of them did not flood, or did not flood so badly this time, possibly because of actions that had been taken.

The most important thing we can do is listen to the experts. A very good report was published last week by the Chartered Institution for Water and Environmental Management. We do not use CIWEM enough; its 10,000 real experts are at the beck and call of the Government, the Opposition, companies and local authorities. They have produced a really important report. I brought it with me, but someone has nicked it. [Laughter.] That is what people get if they leave their papers in the House. The report is really good and I suggest that hon. Members read it if they have not done so already. It shows some of our difficulties in managing flood risk and the problems of dredging indiscriminately.

We all have experts in our constituencies. One of mine is Dick Greenaway, who was the surveyor for the Thames Conservancy but has now retired. He has fascinating knowledge of the history of flooding. After the 1947 floods, an enormous amount of dredging took place in the River Thames. A lot of the experts of the time said that it would not work and it was being done for political rather than proper hydrological reasons. The dredging was picking up bronze-age remains close to the surface of the river bed, showing that it had not changed for a long time. Dredging can cause more problems. Since we stopped dredging the Thames to any large degree, the base of the river has dropped because of the action of the river and the change in climate. We ignore people such as Dick Greenaway at our peril.

In conclusion, we should now turn our attention to land use. We have an enormous amount of work to do in joining up land use issues, common agricultural policy reform, the drainage activities of some landowners and land managers and our management of rivers in respect of the water framework directive or flood problems at a certain point or further downstream. Some of what I have seen around the country has been very damaging in terms of flood problems lower down. We have to address that.