Winter Flooding (Preparation)

Chris Williamson Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Bone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) on securing this timely debate.

Like other hon. Members who have spoken, I have constituents who have been affected by flooding. There is a sizeable community in my constituency that, although it has not been affected by flooding for some time, is in desperate need of flood defence work to protect it from the increasingly severe weather that we are experiencing. I regret that some of the funding that was earmarked by the previous Government was cut. Consequently, the flood defence works that should be in place or be well on the way to being in place have been delayed. Hopefully, those works will be completed before there is an extreme weather event in my constituency, which would have a devastating effect on the community in the Chester Green area of Derby North.

The title of this debate is “Preparing for flooding in winter 2014-15” but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) said clearly, we must prepare for flooding in the longer term, although this winter is the most pressing concern. When the Minister responds, will he tell us what the Government are doing to encourage farming practices that reduce soil erosion? Some modern farming practices have significantly contributed to the flooding that communities around the country have experienced. The Government must look at that issue and enter into discussions with the farming industry to see what can be done to diminish those practices.

The main purpose of my contribution is to talk about the important role that the fire and rescue service plays in tackling flooding episodes. My hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) said that the fire and rescue service in her area was the only agency to roll up its sleeves, with its customary can-do approach, and do a good job. I agree with my hon. Friends the Members for Wansbeck and for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) that the fire and rescue service should be given a statutory duty to enable it to take a lead during flooding events, and to ensure it has the wherewithal to respond to floods—flood response is an increasing part of its activity. We refer to the fire and rescue service as the fire service, but increasingly its role is to deal with flooding events.

I was formerly the shadow fire Minister, and prior to entering this House I served on the Derbyshire fire and rescue authority, so I have seen at first hand the work that fire and rescue services do to tackle flooding episodes. They erect temporary flood defences—an innovative approach to diminishing the impact of flooding—where there are not permanent flood defences. They evacuate vulnerable residents—my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck said they did that in his constituency—and, importantly, they protect critical infrastructure. Much work has been done to protect critical infrastructure during some of the terrible flooding events that we have seen around the country.

I remember that when flooding episodes were widespread across the country two or three years ago, North Yorkshire fire and rescue service had to use all available hands to prevent a hospital from being inundated. It used high-volume pumps and so on. The scale of the emergency meant that it had to leave motorists stranded in rising floodwater so that it could protect the hospital from being flooded out. Usually, when there are major incidents, the adjoining fire and rescue service will send firefighters in to assist. I think the problem on that particular occasion was that the adjoining fire and rescue service was dealing with its own flooding episode. There is a message there, which I hope the Minister will take back to his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government, namely that reducing the number of firefighters is potentially counter-productive in many ways, not least of which is in dealing with flooding events such as the one I have just described. I believe that last winter, 70% of fire and rescue services were called upon to help with the winter relief efforts.

Like other hon. Members, I have already said that climate change is leading to more extreme weather events. Therefore, the role of the fire and rescue service will increasingly be to deal with the consequences of those events. I think that the hon. Member for Winchester touched on the cost of failing to deal with them; I hope he will forgive me if he did not, but I thought I heard him speak about the potential cost of failing to protect crucial infrastructure. It is absolutely colossal when we consider some of the power plants that have been under threat of being inundated, and hospitals, which I have already mentioned. This situation will only get worse, so we need to recognise the central and crucial role that the fire and rescue services play.

I know that the previous Labour Government invested significantly following earlier floods—I think it was after the floods in 2007—and put in place one-off expenditure to enable fire and rescue authorities to purchase additional equipment. However, that was about seven years ago and there has not been a similar injection of funding since. Maybe it has not been necessary, because that earlier injection gave the fire and rescue authorities the wherewithal to purchase that equipment. However, the equipment is now getting older.

One-off injections are not good enough. We need the statutory duty I have mentioned to enable fire and rescue services to plan for this increasingly important part of their activity. Because there is not such a statutory duty, and in the context of diminishing budgets, that understandably means that when the chiefs of fire and rescue services are planning their budget obligations, dealing with flooding will inevitably take a lower priority, because they are obliged to deal with their statutory obligations. That is why it is essential that, when it comes to planning at local level, a statutory duty is applied.

There is also a lack of consistency. My hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck has made this point already, but how can it be right that in Scotland and Northern Ireland, firefighters have a statutory duty to deal with flooding, and yet firefighters in England do not?

Other hon. Members have already mentioned the Pitt review. Recommendation 30 of the review was explicit on this point. It said:

“The Government should review and update the guidance Insurance for all: A good practice guide for providers of social housing and disseminate it effectively to support”—

I beg your pardon, Mr Bone: I am reading out the wrong recommendation. I thought I had highlighted the one I wanted to read out. I will just have to gloss over that for a moment. I was going to read that out with a great flourish. However, I can assure you, Mr Bone, that somewhere in the review there is that recommendation. I may intervene on the Minister later, if he will allow me, when I have scrutinised my notes properly; this is the problem when we prepare our notes in a hurry. There was a recommendation in the Pitt review that explicitly said that a statutory duty was needed.

For all the reasons that I have outlined, it would help in planning, in ensuring that there is necessary investment, in developing the integrated risk management plans, in training, in providing personal protective equipment and all the other necessary factors if we ensure that we have a coherent approach to tackling flooding in this country. And when the Minister responds to the debate, I hope that he can explicitly respond to the point about statutory duty, because a lot of Members feel it is important, and to my point about farming and the importance of reducing farming practices that are contributing to increased flooding in our country.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) on securing this important debate, which is of great relevance and interest to Members of all parties and the communities that they represent.

I start by reflecting on what we have seen and the impacts on constituencies described by hon. Members. Last winter saw record levels of rainfall and the stormiest period for at least 20 years. Record river flows, sea levels, wave heights and ground water levels in many locations across the country led to the flooding of more than 8,300 homes and caused damage or disruption to businesses, infrastructure, transport and utilities.

I have seen first hand the damage caused by last winter’s flooding and the devastating impact on people’s day-to-day lives. My sympathies continue to go out to those affected, in particular those who are still unable to go home because buildings can take a long time to dry out. The Government have led a major recovery effort to help people to get back on their feet, including committing more than £560 million of recovery support funding. Many organisations were involved in responding to the exceptional weather, including the Government and their agencies, in particular the Environment Agency, the emergency services and the military, as well as many voluntary organisations and transport and utility companies.

While efforts were generally effective, we acknowledged at the time that some aspects of the response and recovery required improvement. The shadow Secretary of State described a chaotic situation, but we have heard from many hon. Members that the response in their local communities was good. However, we must learn from the cases where it was less good, as we did for previous events and will continue to do. The shadow Secretary of State described the experience in 2007 under the previous Labour Government and the constant need to learn lessons and move on.

[Chris Williamson]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Williamson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dan Rogerson]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, because he wants to highlight the relevant bit of the review now that he has found it.

[Chris Williamson]

I am grateful for the opportunity to correct my earlier mistake. I meant to read out recommendation 39, which states:

“The Government should urgently put in place a fully funded national capability for flood rescue with Fire and Rescue Authorities playing a leading role, underpinned as necessary by a statutory duty.”

[Dan Rogerson]

The Pitt review certainly recommended that we consider that, but the advice of the chief fire officer is that such a change would not be right at this point. The hon. Gentleman makes that point consistently in Parliament and with my colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government. We have heard today about the huge contribution made by the fire and rescue services. There was no shortage of resource and they were a big part of the recovery process, which is a good sign that current arrangements are proving successful. DCLG can continue to keep the matter under review, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will raise it with Ministers from that Department.