Draft Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2016

Debate between Rory Stewart and Seema Kennedy

Tuesday 8th March 2016 General Committees

[Rory Stewart]

That is a very good question. I think the answer to my hon. Friend is that in an extreme weather event, such as the sort she saw in Somerset, the regular removal of silt from a 1.5 km-ditch is unlikely to have a significant impact on downstream flooding. What it would do in normal cases of winter flooding, is reduce the flooding of agricultural fields which would be good. So it is good for the general operation of farm business in normal winter flooding situations, but in an extreme weather event I am afraid that 1.5 km of silt removal is unlikely to tip the difference.

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

I welcome these proposals. As my hon. Friend the Minister knows, I also have many low-lying agricultural areas in my constituency that have suffered from flooding. Many of my farmers have asked for simplification about dredging and I wondered how the Department will communicate this simplification to landowners, so that they know about it and can save time in what they are doing.

[Rory Stewart]

My hon. Friend asks a very good question. The answer is that we began the communication process through a highly publicised speech given by the Secretary of State at the Oxford farming conference, which got a lot of coverage in the agricultural press. There is increasing awareness now among the farming community of this future exclusion, but clearly we can do more. We will do our best to work with my hon. Friend, with the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, and particularly with the trade press, to make sure that farmers are now aware of the new procedures. In my experience, farmers generally cotton on very quickly to these kinds of legislative changes, but I am happy to take up the challenge if they want.

I will move forward to address the questions put by the hon. Member for Stockton North. Regarding the question of the calculation of risk and who calculates it, essentially that process has been led by water engineers within the Environment Agency. Some of the exclusions and exemptions are genuinely very low risk indeed. If we look through the list of the exclusions, it was necessary in the past to obtain a bespoke permit, in theory even if someone was just putting a floodgate over their house. Ambiguities within the legal drafting meant that anything that could possibly affect the flow of water, such as someone not letting water into their front door, could have required a bespoke permit.

In the past, putting a sign into a river required an entire bespoke permit. Now, there is absolutely no engineering evidence whatsoever that sticking a small pole into a river will have a significant impact on flooding downstream. However, to reassure the hon. Gentleman, I will point out that the process is very much driven by a cautionary principle—people are being very risk-averse. We have made sure that we have excluded only the very lowest risk activities. Again, registered exemptions are very carefully controlled. In fact, we have had some complaints from people who would like to see us go much further.

The reason we have had to be quite careful is that the measure has to apply to all rivers across the country; it is not possible for us to come up with a single set of rules without being very cautious. For example, there is a standard exemption for scaffolding to extend across 10% of a river. People come back to us and say, “Well, that doesn’t make much sense. If my river is only eight miles wide, you are allowing me to put only 0.8 meters of scaffolding into the river.” The reason for that is that we have to make sure we are very, very cautious, which is why nearly half of these cases will still require bespoke permits. We have to deal with the fact that every river is different, every condition is different and the hydrology of these different river systems is very testing. However, in straightforward cases—a noticeboard or a ladder going into a river, or a simple piece of work on banks, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw—we have taken the view that a calculated risk makes sense.

Finally, on the question of who is best placed to make such decisions, whether on IDBs or the action of local councils, the draft regulations apply primarily to main rivers, which is to say the rivers and streams that we believe have a significant impact on a large degree of flooding. Most of the local authority responsibility will relate to flood risk in general and include a lot of rivers that are not classified under the regulations as a “main river”.

In terms of the resources to be brought to bear, we believe that rather than imposing more costs on individuals, the Environment Agency should be saved about half a million pounds a year—a significant saving—and businesses about £14 million over 10 years. Those financial savings are only the beginning, from my point of view; the real saving is getting rid of the forms. Nothing is more eroding to trust in Government in the general sense of energy and common sense in action than having to fill out forms to put a ladder or a simple signpost into a river.

Coastal Flood Risk

Debate between Rory Stewart and Seema Kennedy

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Rory Stewart]

I am happy to sit down with the hon. Gentleman and talk about his experience in his constituency. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby talked about detriment to fishermen, and European funds have contributed £400,000 to repairing the damage to fishing equipment that has been caused by extreme flooding events. There are many more ways in which Europe can participate, and I would be interested to hear about the hon. Gentleman’s experience.

Partnership is at the core of everything that we are trying to do. We are finding ways to bring together the excellent work of the Environment Agency, the genuine concerns of local authorities, the knowledge of people such as farmers—my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes has touched on that—and the private sector. Port authorities are highly profitable private industries, which have an obligation to invest in their own capital infrastructure.

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that in areas such as mine, where the railway line at Rufford is at risk from flooding, Network Rail should contribute financially to the internal drainage board, which is on the table, and not leave the matter in the hands of farmers and rate payers?

[Rory Stewart]

That is an interesting proposal. I do not want to be bounced into looking at something that I have not thought about, but the basic principle behind my hon. Friend’s suggestion is correct. One would want all those stakeholders to contribute to IDBs. I would be interested to see whether that would work for Network Rail, and I would be happy to sit down with my hon. Friend and talk about that in more detail.

At the heart of the contributions by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and the shadow Minister was the question of resources. The discussion is becoming a slightly tedious one in which statistics are played back and forth. As the shadow Minister will be aware, because he has heard us say it again and again, we have invested more resources in flooding, in cash terms and in real terms, than the previous Labour Government did during their last five years.