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can and do give advice to the NRA and other local bodies on the need for works, the Ministry cannot direct an authority to undertake particular flood alleviation measures.

In considering applications for grant aid, the Ministry expects the local flood defence authority concerned to have examined a wide range of options for tackling flooding at a particular site and to have compared those options with the implications of taking no action whatever. In effect, the "no action" scenario provides a benchmark against which the relative advantages and disadvantages of public investment to resist the forces of nature can be judged.

Proposals for flood defence work are considered first by the Ministry's regional engineers for the relevant area, who have the necessary professional expertise. Essentially, there are three yardsticks against which all such proposals must be judged : planned schemes must of course be sound in engineering terms ; they must be environmentally acceptable ; and they must be economically worth while.

Naturally, as I told my hon. Friend earlier, the protection of life remains the overriding priority. Subject to that imperative, it is essential that all proposed flood defence works should meet the three criteria that I have mentioned. The economic yardstick applied is that a scheme is regarded as economically worth while if the benefits flowing from it--for example, in terms of physical damage or other detriment avoided--are at least equal to, or greater than, the costs of undertaking the work.

I hope that my hon. Friend, who holds strong and sensible views on financial prudence--stronger, almost, than those of any other Conservative Member--will agree that that is an essential safeguard to the interests of the taxpayer. The resources that the Government devote to flood and coastal defence, although very substantial, are of necessity finite. It is therefore right that expenditure should be focused primarily on areas of dense urban settlement, where the economic, social and environmental costs of flood damage are greatest.

Even in such areas, schemes can generally only reduce the incidence of flooding ; they cannot hope to prevent it altogether. Nevertheless, in the majority of such cases, the costs of carrying out flood defence will be comfortably outweighed by the resulting benefits, but in cases where the costs of a proposed scheme are in excess of the benefits that would accrue, the investment of public money cannot be justified unless there is imminent risk to life. The Ministry's financial support for flood warning schemes is, of course, a direct response to the need to avoid risk to life.

I accept that it is very difficult to put precise figures on all the costs and benefits of particular schemes, and my hon. Friend made a very powerful case tonight. But the Ministry makes every effort to quantify so-called intangible benefits of schemes--for example, the social or environmental benefits to which my hon. Friend referred tonight--and to take account of them in its decision making, even where they cannot be quantified.

I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that, although it may have been rather long-winded, it was worth my setting out at some length the principles to which my Department has to work.

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I come now to the particular problems of the residents of Warrengate road and the Mimmshall brook near North Mimms in my hon. Friend's constituency. As my hon. Friend said with such clarity and force, the area has a history of flooding problems, and that is probably an understatement. The resolution of those problems poses particular difficulties, of which my hon. Friend is well aware from his correspondence with the chairman of the NRA, Lord Crickhowell. Given the serious threat of recurrent flooding, along with the technical and other difficulties attending the possible solutions to it, the authority was right to embark upon a detailed study of the whole of the Mimmshall brook catchment. That thorough analysis was completed only in the last day or so, and my Department and my hon. Friend--I know because we spoke on the telephone about it--have received a copy of it.

The Ministry's river and coastal engineers are carefully considering the NRA's study as a matter of urgency, but I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that I am truly not in a position tonight to tell him what conclusions they are likely to draw.

However, I am aware that the report considers a wide range of possible options for dealing with my hon. Friend's constituents' serious problems, and that one of those at least appears to be broadly consistent with the rules to which the Ministry has to work and which I have outlined.

My hon. Friend and I must look to the NRA in the first instance to consider the options that it has now identified locally and to present formal proposals to the Ministry in support of its preferred course of action. I can give my hon. Friend and his constituency my guarantee that any such proposals will be handled by the Ministry's engineers as a matter of the highest priority.

In conclusion, I assure my hon. Friend and his constituents that we do not underestimate the grave seriousness of the problem that he has rightly brought to the Floor of the House tonight. As I have said, I fully appreciate the concerns of those affected and I, with my right hon. Friend the Minister, have expressed our deepest sympathy and concern for the care and safety of the residents in the light of the distress that they have endured.

I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that the solution is not straightforward, black and white or easy. The engineering and economic complications involved must be fully addressed. I hope that he will agree that I have been entirely open about the procedures that we are obliged to follow.

My Department is ready to act quickly to assess any formal proposal from the NRA when it comes. In doing so, we shall take into account the points that my hon. Friend has raised in reaching future decisions on this most difficult and distressing case.

Once again, I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, and on representing his constituents' interests with vigour and clarity in a robust speech, which I greatly value, having had the opportunity to reply. I assure the House that we shall do everything that we can to assist my hon. Friend's constituents.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes past Ten o'clock.

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