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Mr. Keetch: Does my hon. Friend, and other Committee members, accept that the prime consideration
is not only planning and building on flood plains but the type of agriculture that is practised on those flood plains? Potato cultivation, for example, dries up water meadows--so that they cannot soak up water, silt runs off and rivers become clogged.
Mr. Derek Wyatt (Sittingbourne and Sheppey): Part of my constituency is under water. The Isle of Sheppey is always below sea level, and consequently has problems that other areas in Britain do not have. In 1897, and in the past century--in 1928 and 1953--we had floods in which three quarters of Sheerness disappeared.
Today, at 6.30 am, I woke up to the local newspaper, the Sheppey Gazette, which somewhat discourteously informed me that
I should like to congratulate the Agriculture Select Committee on its work, which is outstanding. Although Select Committees are not often praised, I offer my congratulations to its members.
I was marginally amused by the picture of the Thames barrier on the cover of the Select Committee's report--only because the barrier has added to our problems in Sheerness. I wonder whether the Minister knows of any studies done by the Ministry, or of other studies that have been commissioned, on the barrier's implications for areas further down the Thames.
I also ask--out of interest, not as criticism--why, in the report's list of memorandums of evidence and list of appendices, on pages li and lii, no evidence from Kent was listed? There was nothing from Kent county council, from Swale borough council--which is part of my constituency--from Queenborough town council or from Sheerness. Although it may have been an oversight on their part--if so, more the fool them--I also wonder what happened in Kent to the Committee's request for information. A substantial part of Kent is coastal. Certainly some parts of the Isle of Sheppey--and of the former Isle of Thanet; it is no longer an island--are always below sea level. On the east side of Kent, we have had phenomenal coastal erosion.
I take issue on one matter. As the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) and my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) said, there seem to be a plethora of agencies and activities dealing with flood
and coastal defence. Although my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will reply to the debate, I wonder whether the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions should not be responsible for the matter. I wonder also whether, in England, the responsibility should not be given to regional development agencies. I look forward to hearing my hon. Friend's comments on the matter.
Coincidentally, we are able to consider not only the Select Committee's report, but the Environment Agency's plans for my constituency, which are in a document entitled "Isle of Sheppey Strategy Plan, Summary Document, January 1999". It contains some wonderful pieces, some of which I should like to quote.
The document states:
I should like to quote another section, which I fail to comprehend fully. It states:
I thought that the section was saying essentially that the Environment Agency did not have a strategy for the island. I felt sadness in reading it because of the lack of warmth and humanity shown for the people of the island of Sheppey, which is constantly flooded. Flooding is not a new thing for us. High tides do not come only once every 40 years and affect other parts of Britain; my constituency is constantly being flooded and is always in danger of flooding.
I was very nervous about the idea of--whatever it is called officially--what I call "managed retreat", when the next spring tide arrives on the island. In the report's section on the history of flooding, the appalling hardships caused by flooding is scarcely dealt with. Poor people--Sheppey has had unemployment rates of 40 per cent.--cannot afford, or do not buy, home insurance. If they take it, they buy perhaps rather dubious policies. They are therefore doubly affected by flooding, because they are not able to insure themselves.
I should like to try to tease out where the legal and moral liabilities should lie in the flood and coastal defence recommendations. I take on board the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree on planning issues.
We have new houses all over Sheppey, but they have been built on bits of rough or dubious land. Planning permission should not have been given, and the planning side of the subject must be much stronger.
If managed retreat is introduced on Sheppey, the lives of eight farmers will be ruined for ever. The land at one of the farms--which I have visited--has been leased by, of all things, Crown Properties. By his own ingenious system of irrigation channels, the farmer has created a wildlife sanctuary and new land for sheep grazing, and he has maximised the land's potential to the fullest. It is an exceptional scheme. In addition, because he has been hit--as have most farmers--by the unusually difficult economic conditions of the past three years, he has had it tough twice.
The farmer sought permission for a change of use for an old barn which stored hay, and for some ancillary buildings. He was given it, and he has leased them to small, productive and profitable self-starter companies. Could we wish for more on the Isle of Sheppey? One of the buildings houses a company that makes tarpaulins and, in another, they collect and sell classic cars. Yet another is a stonemason's studio. Under managed retreat--which the Government could decide on in the next few months--who will insure the farmer if he has no insurance? If he is insured, and finds that he is under-insured, who will insure him then? I have not asked him this, as I have assumed that he is insured. However, if the spring tide wipes him out and he is left bankrupt, what then?
I understand that managed retreat is the cheapest option. I urge the Select Committee to analyse the financial implications of its recommendations when it next reports on the matter. I read far too many Select Committee reports--I am as guilty as anyone, as Iam a member of a Select Committee--in which recommendations have no budget or financial model, so we have no opportunity to find the best option. With no resolution on a compensation package before the next flood, the eight farmers on the island are caught between assurance and insurance.
Managed retreat will affect confidence in my community and add to the insecurity that affects all islanders. It could also affect the town of Queenborough, which has a population of 5,000, and the large village of Halfway. From today, any business man thinking of investing will think again, and a downward spiral will then become inevitable--after we have spent the past 10 years trying to provide the island with as much European and Government aid as possible.
Islands are strange places--they feel protective. The first people came to live on Sheppey in the sixth century, and the island has never been connected to the mainland. We hope to have a new bridge by 2001, but it has always had a swing bridge or an up-bridge. It feels its identity as an island. Managed retreat will not sustain the psychology of the island--it will damage it. That has been overlooked by the Environment Agency and the Select Committee report.
Governments tend to be reactive--that is the nature of the beast. However, yesterday the Prime Minister explained the planning required if we were to go into the euro. As we know that there will be a major flood--there is no doubt about it--I wonder whether we could have the same level of planning, particularly as regards
compensation packages. I wonder whether we could look at this matter now, before thousands of claims are made. We need five or six ideas for compensation packages.
"Sheppey was mopping up--and counting the cost--after massive floods hit the north of the island . . . Mrs Raymond said: 'It was terrifying. The lights failed and we were plunged into darkness. The children were very frightened and then water started to flood in downstairs. In places, the water was up to 3ft deep.
Then I realised that, in today's newspaper, I was reading the memory section, which was describing the 1979 floods. However, my constituency is prone to flooding, as we are below sea level and have unique properties.
Island councillor Steve Worrall . . . voicing the fears of elderly and disabled people . . . said: 'There are so many old people living at ground floor level. They dread the waters returning.'"
"An assessment of the current standards has concluded that although the standards of the northern sea walls are quite high (100 to 200 years), the southern clay embankments have standards of five years or even less. Without continued maintenance of the defences, the standard would fall even further and breaching would become inevitable. As the flood risk area is mainly below mean high water levels, breaching of the defences would eventually lead to permanent flooding of the entire flood risk area and abandonment of a great number of properties."
It is a nice way of describing Queenborough and Halfway, which are two of the largest villages on the island.
"The present value cost of the Strategy over the next 50 years including works to the southern defences"--
of the island--
"is estimated at £22.6 million, including capital costs, preliminaries, contingencies, design and supervision . . . The present value benefits"--
whatever that means--
"(or damages avoided)"--
I pass--
"are estimated at £369 million resulting in a benefit-cost ratio of 16.3."
That was certainly gobbledegook to me.
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