Flood Insurance: Reform of Flood Re
Debate between David Simmonds and Emma Hardy(4 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Emma Hardy
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, because before he was elected as a Member of Parliament, he was running part of the Living With Water project in my constituency, which looked at bringing together the Environment Agency, Yorkshire Water and the council to create more sustainable urban drainage to improve resilience to flooding. He played a tremendous role and has made a real difference to many people’s lives. I share his delight that Flood Re is more than halving the premiums it charges insurers for contents-only insurance for the 45% of homes in council tax bands A and B to £25 a year. That will make a real difference to people’s lives, making insurance more affordable for everybody.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) on his clear response to this statement. My constituents in Brook Drive, Ruislip and all across the floodplain of the River Pinn are very interested in this issue, so I will ask the Minister two questions. In a borough where a tiny fraction of properties are in bands A and B, there is a risk that this change means that the cost of insurance will no longer be priced based upon the risk incurred at that property, but upon its council tax band. That risks shifting the provision from being a premium to simply being a tax based on the value of a property, which clearly would not be welcome and was not the original basis of Flood Re. Can she give the House a clear assurance that the claims experience data gathered by Flood Re will then be used by colleagues across Government to feed into such things as planning regulations, so that flood resilience can be built in to homes in the future?
Emma Hardy
The original purpose of Flood Re was to make flood insurance affordable for people who otherwise would not be able to access affordable insurance on the free market. This is not new policy, but returning Flood Re to the purpose for which it was created.
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (Fourth sitting)
Debate between David Simmonds and Emma Hardy(4 years, 10 months ago)
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David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Q
Professor Layzell: As I said earlier, I think Universities UK would recognise that there have been cases where this approach has not worked as well as one would have wished. If the legislation is proportionate and does not create undesired side-effects such as more risk aversion, it may help to achieve a greater degree of consistency, but it is about keeping proportionality.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Q
“the desirability of the preferred candidate having experience of either the higher education or legal sector.”
Why do you think that is desirable?
Professor Layzell: I think because the challenges that vice-chancellors feel they face arise when situations are complex. A simple black and white issue of saying yes or no is not where the problem is. It is the confluence of a number of legal requirements that you need to get your head around. You have got to have that legal experience and/or experience of dealing with these sorts of situations in higher education. It would be wrong to think that these issues are very simple yes/no decisions; they are generally more complex.
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (Fourth sitting)
Debate between David Simmonds and Emma Hardy(4 years, 10 months ago)
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David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Q I want to push you on this point about the effectiveness of non-legislative measures and how we compare the norms in different environments. I am not entirely convinced that Facebook, which is essentially an unregulated environment, would have the same norms as you would find in a university and the world of academia. I am not entirely convinced by that analogy, although I understand the point. Both of you have mentioned training and things like anonymisation of promotion processes as a way of addressing the issue, but presumably if those things were entirely effective and consistent, we wouldn’t be hearing the evidence about people suffering this chilling effect. Would you like to reflect on the effectiveness of those existing measures and any lessons that we as a Committee might need to take on board from what appears to be inconsistency in the way they operate?
Professor Layzell: As I said earlier, I think Universities UK would recognise that there have been cases where this approach has not worked as well as one would have wished. If the legislation is proportionate and does not create undesired side-effects such as more risk aversion, it may help to achieve a greater degree of consistency, but it is about keeping proportionality.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Q Thank you for your evidence, which has been extremely interesting. I am going to ask similar questions to those I asked earlier about the director of freedom of speech. In the past few evidence sessions, we have heard varying opinions on who the director should be, how they should be appointed and what skills or knowledge they should have. In your evidence, you referred to
“the desirability of the preferred candidate having experience of either the higher education or legal sector.”
Why do you think that is desirable?
Professor Layzell: I think because the challenges that vice-chancellors feel they face arise when situations are complex. A simple black and white issue of saying yes or no is not where the problem is. It is the confluence of a number of legal requirements that you need to get your head around. You have got to have that legal experience and/or experience of dealing with these sorts of situations in higher education. It would be wrong to think that these issues are very simple yes/no decisions; they are generally more complex.