Flooding

John Stevenson Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

The constituency in which I live and am proud to serve is the most flood-prone constituency in the country, as it is constituted on land drained by the Dutch some 400 years ago, many of whose descendants continue to live in our area. We are at the bottom of the catchment, so I agree 100% with what the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) says about the need for better management upstream.

We have seen numerous events in recent years, whether the tidal surge of 2013, the flooding of 2010 and 2011 in Goole or the flooding in December, which happened on a smaller scale. Whether in Crowle, South Ferriby or Burringham, or whether in Snaith, Cowick or Gowdall at the moment, we are repeatedly hit by incidents of flooding.

I begin by paying tribute to my constituents and how they are currently responding to the incredible deluge in Snaith and Cowick. I have been involved in flooding for many years as an MP, parish councillor and councillor, and I have never seen the inundation of water that we now see in the washlands of the River Aire.

My constituents are responding in an incredible way. The Snaith church ladies and our wonderful vicar, Eleanor Robertshaw—I sometimes call her the “commie vicar” but we are good friends—have been providing 24/7 support to those who have been evacuated and to emergency service responders, with free food being provided by many businesses, including the Supreme coffee house in Goole. The response of the community has been incredible.

I thank Vicky Whiteley and Snaith and Cowick Town Council, the Snaith sports hall voluntary team and Andy McLachlan of the Cowick and Snaith internal drainage board for their work in supporting my constituents. Andy and I have worked together on many flooding events over the years, and the response from the drainage board has, as ever, been first class. I also wish to thank the fire and rescue service, including those who have come in from elsewhere, from places such as Cheshire and West Yorkshire, and our ambulance service, which has been on hand with permanent resources. I should also thank the very many residents involved, the council staff and the Environment Agency staff. The response has been incredible. We are dealing with 4 million cubic metres of water, or 800 million gallons, still there, in an area below sea level. We are defended by hundreds of miles of defence banks in our area, and getting that away will be a big challenge.

[John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)]

Although we must not be complacent, does my hon. Friend recognise that in some parts of the country there have been successes? In the Carlisle area, through the work of the EA, the councils and the voluntary sector, and the success of the defences, we managed to avoided being flooded this year.

[Andrew Percy]

Indeed. We have not wanted for money for defence funding in recent years, including in Snaith, the community that is currently flooded. Only in 2015, millions of pounds of defence improvements were made, through the piling of the Snaith primary defence bank, but that has been overtopped this time, as have our secondary defences, on which we rely to keep us dry. It is true to say that in some places these schemes have worked, and we have a scheme under way in South Ferriby, but the water coming down the catchment in this latest incident has been on a scale we have never seen before, just as the 2013 surge then was.

I agree with some of what was said by the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard). He is a nice guy, one of my favourite shadow Secretaries of State. Some of the others are a bit bonkers, and I know that he agrees with me on that. I agree with much of what he said about the need to review certain things, but he then went on to try to make some cheap political points about what is going on at the moment. There are things we need to do differently, but I am not convinced that diverting millions of pounds, which could otherwise go to flood defences, to a massive inquiry is necessarily the best way forward. I will say something on that in a moment.

What we need now in my constituency is immediate funding, into the future, to look at what we can do for the defences that have been so overrun on this occasion. After the 2013 tidal surge, additional funding was made available to the communities in my area that had been devastated by that surge to allow them to take immediate defence action in the year or two afterwards. That was outside the normal funding rules, and we benefited from that in Reedness, which was overwhelmed in the tidal surge, with immediate action to shore up and improve the defence there. So may we please look at that issue?

May we also look at the funding for the section 19 inquiries that are already under way. My local East Riding of Yorkshire Council, because it has faced so many incidents in recent months, is now engaged in about four or five different inquiries, and funding that is a huge challenge for the local authority. A section 19 inquiry into the flooding in the Snaith and Cowick washlands is under way, but we need funding for that. The recovery of costs is also an issue. Heating Snaith priory church has already cost the church about £700 to £800, and possibly more. We are all doing what we can to get donations in for that, and the Bellwin scheme might cover it, but there are direct costs here to the town council and to the church and sports hall—voluntary organisations—for the costs they have borne in being open 24 hours a day and providing support to those who have been evacuated.

Business support is also an issue. I served on the Committee for the Flood Re Bill. Indeed, in 2013 I had to leave the Committee because of the flood warnings in place in my constituency, including warnings for my own house, when that tidal surge hit. We need extra support in terms of business insurance. I do not have time to say everything I wanted to stay, but I beg that the national funding formula is looked at. We are at the bottom of the catchment and we get everybody’s water; that water is coming to us, whether we like it or not. Although the current formula provides us with the best defences and highest standards, it is not taking account of the number of properties we have versus the risk we face. We need a change to that. We also need to look at the EA’s role in flooding and whether we need a separate body. We need to examine the Flood Re scheme. We need to fund the national flood resilience centre, in my area, the bid for which is with the Government—I have talked about that before. Finally, we need to look at planning and at maintenance.