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Mr. Loughton: Yes, the Minister visited all of them, as I did. We know only too well how hard those places were hit. The hard work of the agency, and its close co-operation with emergency services and West Sussex county council saved the historic heart of Chichester from going under water. They laid 13 miles of pipes to divert water away from the city centre and that, touch wood--or touch Dispatch Box--seems to have worked thus far.
Mr. Rowe: My hon. Friend mentioned West Sussex county council. In those areas that were subject to serious floods--Maidstone borough council, for example--local authority staff in many ways matched the Environment Agency staff in their devotion to duty and the assiduity with which they carried people about and provided services.
Mr. Loughton: I am sure that my hon. Friend is right. I fear that this part of my speech may become a Thomas Cook's tour of various local authorities and agency staff, all of whom deserve our praise. In my constituency, Shoreham is very prone to flooding and the whole town was within inches of going under. It was saved only by the coastal defence work that the agency carried out, which has worked up to now, although not quite as much has been done as we should like.
I introduce one point of criticism--the Government's folly in slashing West Sussex county council's emergency budget. The Home Office cut our emergency planning budget by 31 per cent. It was only because the county council decided that the budget simply could not be reduced below current levels without endangering West Sussex residents that it--or council tax payers--picked up the tab for the difference. We retained spending at previous levels.
Mr. Morley: I want to respond to that point, in case I do not deal with it in my reply. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Home Office budget was originally designed for civil defence purposes during the cold war. Given that we are no longer under the threat of nuclear war, it is not unreasonable to review the budget. Of course, we now face other dangers, such as the floods, which seem to have occurred much more regularly. My colleagues in the Home Office are giving thought to the budget's future role.
Mr. Loughton: I am relieved to hear that and I hope the Minister will impose his thoughts on the Home Office because, in the words of the leader of West Sussex county council,
- If we had not put this additional money into emergency planning--
- the current situation would have been almost hopeless in coping with the flooding.
-
The money was important. The amount might have been relatively small, but it was large in percentage terms, and that had a big impact.
- all the lessons learned from previous events have been implemented.
We cannot accept that the Environment Agency has gone far enough. It is possible that it has not been allowed to go far enough, or has not been given the resources to go far enough, to respond to the comprehensive criticisms made in the excellent independent review team report by Peter Bye and Dr. Michael Horner after the 1998 flooding in the midlands. The report said that such floods
- had not been experienced in living memory in many places--
- Instances of unsatisfactory planning, inadequate warnings for the public, incomplete defences, and poor co-ordination with emergency services, that fell short of the Agency's own demanding performance standards.
There is evidence that various improvements have come on stream and are working. The new warning system, which I helped the Environment Agency to launch in Worthing in the summer, is in place and has worked exceedingly well. Most people who watch news reports now understand what the flood warnings mean. They do not need to have water on their doorstep to appreciate them. That is a vast improvement, as is the accessibility of mapping.
The problem is that the agency is perceived as having wider-ranging responsibilities than it performs or is likely to be resourced to undertake, and I shall be interested to hear whether the Minister thinks that these criticisms are justified. There are still problems of split responsibility with other bodies, which was especially true of the sewerage authorities after the sewerage agreement between water companies and local authorities in which the demarcation of their roles and responsibilities vis-a-vis the Environment Agency was not made clear.
Is there a consistent approach across the country based on best practice and including greater liaison between neighbouring local authority areas on developing flood threats close to common boundaries? Have the mechanics for the principle of a series of escalating safeguards, which were built into the flood monitoring procedures, been put in place, as recommended in the independent report? Has the Environment Agency addressed the problem revealed by the 1998 floods when insufficient rainfall information masked the severity of the event and flow measuring stations, not designed for flood monitoring, were literally overwhelmed?
In light of recent events, has the agency reassessed the annual probability of the Easter 1998 floods, which was thought at the time to be as low as 0.7 to 1 per cent.--a return period of between 100 and 150 years? Is the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds justified in its
criticisms that the agency's approach to flood defence needs to be much more integrated with its other responsibilities such as managing water supplies and that regional flood defence committees had been a barrier to integrated thinking? All those questions still arise. I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed now, or later, whether they have been fully taken on board.A key consideration--perhaps most relevant to comments made today--remains the failure to integrate the flood defence requirements with the planning system. That is presumably why the Minister for Housing and Planning was this week summoned, together with the Environment Agency, before the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee. News that the new planning guidance on building in flood risk areas is to be postponed is worrying. Undoubtedly, building on flood plains contributed to recent floods. Massive further house building on the scale that the Deputy Prime Minister is trying to impose on the south-east in particular can only massively increase vulnerability.
How many homes have been built in dangerous areas? How many more will have to be built on flood plains if the Government insist on sticking to their targets? How much extra will have to be spent on providing defences against flooding if we continue building houses in the wrong places?
Mr. Bennett: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the term "postponed" is a little misused in this context, in that the original hope was that the regulations would be out in December, but the Minister for Housing and Planning is now telling us that they will be published in mid-January? Does the hon. Gentleman also accept that anyone making a planning decision must take into account not only planning policy guidance but ministerial statements? The statement that the Minister made at the start of the Select Committee hearing was very useful and should be taken into account by anyone arriving at a planning decision.
Mr. Loughton: I will come to the issue of ministerial statements because, if anything, they add to the confusion.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire mentioned that between 950,000 and 1.2 million homes are in risk areas--particularly in London, which, proportionately, has the largest number, and in the south-east, where there has been most development. An area the size of Greater London has been developed since the war in the south-east of England. That amount of green land has been lost to development--double the average of any other region of the United Kingdom. That, of course, has serious implications for people gaining insurance for their properties, and potential implications for the value of those properties.
Yesterday, to return to the point made by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish, we had conflicting news. Following his walk along the polders in Holland, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions said that he was considering powers to veto developments on flood plains. That is fine. Perceptively, he proclaimed, according to the Financial Times:
- The areas that flood will be flood plains.
The Environment Agency, in its response to the independent report, stated unequivocally that
- in seeking to minimise the potential damage caused by flooding, we will continue to defend vigorously our advice to planning authorities to prevent inappropriate development adding to the problem of flooding.
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