Flood Recovery Framework

Debate between Philip Dunne and Darren Henry

Wednesday 17th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Flood Recovery Framework.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I look forward to the debate, which is important because flooding remains a highly topical issue for many of our constituents who have suffered the appalling consequences of flooding this winter. I regret to predict that many more may suffer that fate during the years ahead as climate change provides more rainfall events of more persistent duration and at unpredictable times of the year.

However, I am not here to forecast the weather or to dwell on the causes or impacts of climate change. There are plenty of other opportunities to do that, not least through the work of the Environmental Audit Committee —which I have the honour to chair—and our latest, recently launched inquiry on climate and security. The consequences of flooding for national infrastructure are one of the issues being considered.

I will offer a few initial words of context on the flooding challenge we face. The Met Office’s “State of the UK Climate” report in 2022 confirmed how the UK has become wetter over the past few decades, albeit with significant annual variation. The third UK climate change risk assessment in 2021 identified flooding as one of the most important climate change adaptation challenges facing the UK. Six of the 10 wettest years on record in the UK have occurred since 1998, and this past year has seen the most rainfall for any 18-month period in England since Met Office rainfall records started in 1836.

[Darren Henry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for securing the debate. My constituency saw devastating flooding to homes and businesses during Storms Babet and Henk. Each time such storms occur, the same areas of Broxtowe are severely damaged. Does he agree that we must act now, not just to compensate, but to ensure that we mitigate against that level of damage occurring in the future?

[Philip Dunne]

I will go on to talk about multiple flood events involving the same properties, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right: there is an obligation on the Environment Agency, as the lead on this issue, to identify preventive measures that can be taken to stop flooding of properties. Few things are more devastating for a householder than to see their home get flooded, but one can barely imagine what it must be like to live through that multiple times. Most of us in the Chamber do not need to use our imaginations to know what that means—we have seen it at first hand in our constituencies, as my hon. Friend has just identified.

About 5.7 million homes and businesses in England are at risk of flooding, and more than half of the best, most fertile farmland in Britain is on flood plains. That is particularly relevant in the River Severn catchment, which crosses Shropshire. The River Severn Partnership—whose parliamentary caucus is ably chaired by my neighbour, the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), who I am pleased to see in his place—has formed to work with local authorities and MPs along the length of the catchment, and with the Environment Agency and others, to seek holistic solutions to adapt to those conditions and reduce flood risk.

Flood risk is a real and present danger. Latest estimates suggest that, by the end of this century, the River Severn will be 0.85 metres higher on average across the year and up to 1.5 metres higher during winter flood levels, although it is expected to be lower in summer, with 25% less water available for abstraction by as soon as 2050. In the past three years, we have already experienced three of the five worst floods ever recorded along the River Severn and, as yet, no climate allowance has been built into the considerable defences installed.

Regrettably, the River Severn catchment accounts for a disproportionate degree of flood events. In February 2022, 44 of the 80 flood warnings put out nationally were for the River Severn. Even when the catchment is not at the centre of storm events, we are often affected in Shropshire. Properties along the River Severn have been flooded twice in the past six months. In October, Storm Babet flooded 109 properties internally and 28 businesses, and in January, Storm Henk flooded 74 properties and 32 businesses. Those figures almost certainly understate the impact, as some people do not report to their local authority or insurer for fear of losing access to insurance in the future.

Putting in place the right preventive measures to reduce the risk of flooding is what the River Severn Partnership is all about, but that is a discussion for another day, unless my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham wants to intervene on that topic, given that I mentioned him.