Flood Risk and Flood Defence Infrastructure: North-west England

Mike Kane Excerpts

Tuesday 18th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Sarah Hall) for this important and timely debate.

For my constituents in Wythenshawe and Sale East, flooding is a growing concern, severely affecting local communities on both sides of the river. On new year’s day, we witnessed one of the most severe flood events in recent memory: the River Mersey reached its highest level in 66 years following an intense downpour—70 mm of rain in just 18 hours. Emergency crews worked tirelessly and I join my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) in giving my thanks to them.

At Northenden golf club, helicopters dropped one-tonne bags of rock to plug the breaches in the embankments. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Withington (Jeff Smith) and I met representatives of our respective golf clubs, Northenden and Withington, a few days after the event. One of the nightmare scenarios now is that golf clubs cannot get insurance, and that is only spreading. That is what climate change is bringing to us. Manchester city council evacuated over 1,000 residents that day and closed footpaths and infrastructure near the river. The exact same thing had happened just a few years earlier; the then Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, visited a couple of days later—we thought we had averted disaster but clearly we had not.

Thanks to flood defences, nearly 12,000 properties were protected, but tragically 99 homes were still flooded because of the embankment breaches. On 1 January, the river at Northenden peaked at 3.76 metres, well above the property flooding threshold of 3.3 metres. That was not an isolated incident. When I was a young councillor growing up in Northenden that was a one-in-100-year event, but now it is happening annually because of climate change.

That is not all. The relentless discharging of untreated sewage into the River Mersey by United Utilities also points to a system under strain, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) mentioned. Storm overflows are designed to prevent sewerage systems from backing up during heavy rain. When they are overwhelmed, the environmental impact is profound. Polluted waters threaten wildlife, biodiversity and public health. The River Mersey becomes a wet wipe and tampon alley for weeks and months on end, making it unusable.

Yet in 2024 alone, United Utilities discharged sewage into the Mersey estuary 1,865 times, lasting for a total of 12,500 hours. That is the equivalent of 1.4 years of continuous sewage, at an average of five spills every single day. That is just the estuary. The combination of damage to homes and businesses and the environmental impact of sewage overflow caused by flooding has created a perfect storm in my constituency and right along the River Mersey estuary. We are paying for it in countless unsustainable ways.

What can we begin to do about the situation? Local action is extraordinarily important to stem the waters entering the Mersey in the first place. The South Manchester urban brooks project, in collaboration with the team at Biora, have come up with a plan to de-culvert Baguley and Fairywell brooks. We have to tackle these issues at the source.

De-culverting and freeing our buried waterways, restoring them to their natural, open-air condition, is transformational: it reduces pollution, improves water health, creates vital habitat for wildlife and lowers water temperatures. Most importantly, it slows the water course down before it ever enters the River Mersey basin at all. That is why that type of infrastructure upstream is critical for helping my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South. It also creates recreation opportunities for residents; Baguley brook in my constituency runs by a cycle path, for example.

When we bring back our rivers and streams, residents gain access to improved green space, which in turn improves their own wellbeing. But more than that, de-culverting reduces the long-term infrastructure costs and acts as a natural form of green infrastructure, which, critically, slows down the flow of water and reduces peak flows during heavy rain, mitigating flooding further downstream.

Bringing back our brooks in a restorative course of action will reduce flooding, but it requires careful hydrological modelling and carries a high up-front cost. It needs funding and commitment from decision-makers to succeed. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the plans in my constituency, to make sure that we take action on the devastating impact of flooding all along the Mersey valley?

Water Quality: Sewage Discharge

Mike Kane Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

Pope Francis said in 2015 in his encyclical, “Laudato si”:

“The earth, our home, is beginning to look…like an immense pile of filth.”

He was not wrong when it comes to the rivers in the UK. I thank my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for coming, along with my hon. Friends the Members for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western) and for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith), to a meeting at Jackson’s Boat, on the trans-Pennine trail, on the River Mersey in my constituency. We met Jamie Woodward, the physical geography professor from Manchester University who is doing so much work for us on the Mersey in our local area.

When we met, we were so pleased to see how well the Mersey was being used by cyclists, walkers and kayakers. However, according to the Environment Agency data, in my constituency United Utilities is the worst offender for dumping sewage into our local rivers and coastal waters. It pains me to say that, because I generally have a great relationship with United Utilities—it helps with my cost of living events all the time—but it had almost 70,000 discharges into our regional waterways. The smoking gun or incontrovertible proof is the loo roll, sanitary ware and baby wipes that bedeck tree roots, branches and plants along the course of the river. I cycle along it from my constituency to Stockport, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra), every week and see this with my own eyes.

I may have misheard the Secretary of State, but I cannot go along with her idea that the River Mersey is getting cleaner. Greenpeace recently said that it is more polluted than the great Pacific garbage patch, as a result of a recent scientific investigation that it carried out. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), who is sitting next to the Secretary of State, has done great work on floodplains and flood alleviation, so I am not just making a party political point.

The River Mersey rises in Stockport and heads through the north-west to Liverpool bay. In 2022, it was 70 miles of pollution, with raw sewage being pumped into the water 1,187 times, with the pumping of untreated human faeces and urine happening for 3,346 hours. This issue is too important for us all. There are existential consequences for our environment, for our public health and for businesses that rely on the beauty and nature to attract business and investment. These waters are the same ones that the children of United Utilities staff and its shareholders wade through. It is unconscionable that it continues these practices in full knowledge of that. I urge it and its pension funds, Lazard Asset Management, BlackRock and the Vanguard Group, not to sanction this any longer. I urge them to do the right thing today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Kane Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question, and she is right to say that a maximum of 30 people will be allowed at weddings from 4 July. That 30 includes the minister and the couple, and there should be social distancing of 1 metre-plus between individuals, households and support bubbles. The figure of 30 is what the Government have advised for now, and they obviously continue to listen to the science, but the couples I have spoken to are just so pleased to be able to get married. Perhaps a bigger party—perhaps a celebration of the renewal of vows—could take place next year.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

What assessment the commissioners have made of the financial effect of the covid-19 outbreak on churches.

[Andrew Selous]

Lockdown has meant that income from hall lettings, events and parochial fees has stopped completely in many cases. Donations of gift aid have also been adversely affected, so the Church is hugely grateful to those who are able to support it through the planned giving scheme. That regular, committed giving has become more important than ever to the mission and ministry of the Church.

[Mike Kane]

The Catholic diocese of Shrewsbury, which covers my constituency, has told me that income is down by a third since lockdown—a loss heading towards £700,000. In the long term, this will have an impact on building maintenance. Have the Government considered an enhanced gift aid scheme to help our faith communities to mitigate the damage?

[Andrew Selous]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and he is absolutely right to draw attention to this. I will certainly raise the issue with the Government on his behalf and that of the diocese that has brought it to his attention. I am grateful to him.