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11.10 pm
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Elliot Morley): I congratulate the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) on raising an important and topical issue in a well-informed manner. He is right about the division of responsibility for flooding and expenditure.
I understand the point that the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) made about Ottery St. Mary, and I know about its problems. I have read reports about it, and I know that the regional flood defence committee is considering ways in which to tackle the problems. After the debate, I shall find out what progress has been made.
The hon. Member for Totnes is right about weather patterns. In recent years, they have shown shorter, more violent downpours. We do not know whether that trend will continue, but the amount of rainfall has been extreme, and we witnessed its results in the south-west over the Christmas period. I express my sympathy for his constituent's loss of life.
I understand the hon. Gentleman's point about the priority score. However, I believe that it is the right method. As he will appreciate, there are many demands for flood defence projects, and it is right that money should relate to priority. The priority score reflects that in the number of properties, the number of lives at risk, the infrastructure, and the cost-benefit analysis. Urban areas do better because they contain more houses, have greater needs and are at greater risk. That is the nature of the priority score. However, the Government have, for the first time, included environmental issues in the priority
score. That helps rural areas. In North Norfolk, some rural areas already receive grant aid for flood defence. They would not have received it without the environmental criteria in the priority score.
I take the hon. Gentleman's points about social disparities. We will review the points system and the priority system. That is right and proper. I shall take his comments into account, and we shall consider them in the review.
Between 17 and 28 December, the south-west of England experienced the most extensive and prolonged flooding for 20 years. It resulted from unusually high rainfall--more than double the average--which fell on catchments that were already saturated by preceding rainfall. Conditions in low-lying areas were aggravated by high tides, especially on 24 and 25 December. Across the south-west peninsula, including the Somerset levels and moors, approximately 300 properties were affected to varying extents, and considerable, persistent flooding of farm land also occurred.
I pay tribute to everyone who was involved in tackling the flooding over the Christmas and new year holidays. They include the Environment Agency, local authorities, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, and the emergency services. Those people did a sterling job of protecting others, and we owe them a debt of gratitude. I wrote to the new chairman of the Environment Agency to ask him to pass on our appreciation to the staff who worked during that period to tackle the emergency.
No Government can prevent floods, even a Government with such an impressive records as ours. We have our limitations. [Interruption.] I shall not go into that. However, we can limit the risks and improve warnings.
The Ministry provides grant aid for capital flood defence and coast protection schemes which are technically sound, economically worth while and environmentally acceptable and which achieve the appropriate priority score. We recognise the importance of sustaining flood defences and coast protection and the outcome of the 1998 comprehensive spending review was an additional £23 million for Ministry funding over this and the next two years, bringing the total available in those three years to £230 million. That is a considerable sum, although it is certainly not enough to meet all the demand.
We recognise that we need to do more, and I was pleased to announce that the allocations for this year involved a reduced priority score threshold for Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food funding, which means that 30 extra schemes have been included. We are dealing with some of the problems and the south-west regional flood defence committee's capital programme has been given grant aid of £1.3 million. The Ministry provides agency regions and districts with varying grants for flood and coastal defence with the intention of providing higher grant support where needs are high and local resources low. Schemes in the south-west may be in that category. The general principle is that the grant rate may be increased if the capital programme increases, and vice versa.
That brings me to the point about the south-west that the hon. Member for Totnes made. The area's capital programme has been reduced because of the spending problems of the flood defence committee, which means that the grant available has been reduced by 10 per cent.
for 2000-01 to 25 per cent. with a supplement of 20 per cent. payable for tidal and sea defence works. I have set out the position on MAFF support for flood and coastal defence. Put simply, the more money regional flood defence committees raise and the more programmes they suggest, the more money they attract from MAFF in relation to capital grants.
There has been a problem with levies in the south-west. In the current year, the English local authorities will pay £206 million in levies to the agency. Those levies and local authorities' other expenditure on flood and coastal defences are recognised in their standard spending assessments and reflected in the distribution of revenue support grant. In recent years, increases in flood defence SSAs have been above the rate of inflation: 6 per cent. in 1997; 5.1 per cent. in 1998; 6.3 per cent. in 1999-2000--which is way above inflation--and 3.2 per cent. for 2000-01.
The hon. Gentleman is right about the problem of flood defence in the south-west. The difficulty is that the south-west councils have not always provided adequate funding. In particular, they have not always passed on the increases that the Government have made in SSAs. The Environment Agency reports that levies in the south-west region in 2001 will be only 5 per cent. higher than those paid in 1994-95. That compares to a 28 per cent. increase in the SSA over that period, so he is right to point out that shortfall. I was so concerned about the situation in the south-west two years ago that I wrote to all the chief executives of the unitary authorities that make up the south-west regional flood defence committee to express my anxiety about the inadequate funding being passed on to that committee. I have not written to any other council in this country.
I am pleased that in the past couple of years the local authorities have agreed levy increases in line with the increase in SSA. That is welcome, but the problem is the shortfall that has accumulated as a result of the years of underfunding. The authorities are still paying the price for that. Although they have been passing on the full SSA, which is a great improvement, they need to allow for that shortfall if they are to make up the years of underfunding. The Environment Agency calculates that the increase in the south-west for this year should have been 6.9 per cent., not the 3.2 per cent. that was levied.
The hon. Gentleman is right about the problems of underfunding, which, in all fairness, were chronic before the unitary authorities were established. Devon and Cornwall county councils were mainly responsible for the underfunding at that time.
Mr. Steen:
I thank the Minister for all that he is saying. It is music to my ears. I hope that it is also music to the local authorities' ears and that they do something about it. Am I right in thinking that district councils have very little role in flood defences, other than sandbags and a few other things?
Mr. Morley:
The hon. Gentleman is right. The main responsibility for the levies and deciding the levies lies with the county and unitary authorities, which send representatives who sit on the regional flood defence committee. It is those representatives who are responsible for deciding the levy that the committee raises each year.
Mr. Sanders:
Will the Minister confirm that in the lifetime of the unitary authority it has paid over the money it should have paid over, and that the problem lies with the county councils, not the unitary authorities, in the last two years?
Mr. Morley:
It is all the councils involved in the area of the south-west regional flood defence committee. I confirm that since there has been a division with the new unitaries they have paid over the full SSA allowance. The problem is that there is chronic underfunding, and there is a black hole in the budget of the regional flood defence committee. Unfortunately, to deal with some of the problems we have been hearing about, it needs to raise some extra money to make up for the years of the underfunding.
As the hon. Member for Totnes rightly says, following on from the 1998 Agriculture Committee report on flood and coastal defences--a very good report--the Government are reviewing those funding mechanisms. The consultation exercise has been completed, and the options arising are being considered with the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. I do not have a date for an announcement. I will make inquiries, and if there is an indication of when it will report I shall write and let him know.
Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley):
Will any regard be given to properties--whether residential or business--that find it difficult to insure because of constant flooding?
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