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DELEGATED LEGISLATION
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): With permission, I shall put together the motions relating to delegated legislation.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),
Local Government Finance
- That the Local Government Finance (England) Special Grant Report (No. 70) on Threshold Payments (House of Commons Paper No. 963), which was laid before this House on 20th November, be approved.
That the Local Government Finance (England) Special Grant Report (No. 71) on Leadership Group Payments (House of Commons Paper No. 964), which was laid before this House on 20th November, be approved.
European Communities
- That the draft European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (Agreement between the European Community and its Member States and the Swiss Confederation on the Free Movement of Persons) Order 2000, which was laid before this House on 20th November, be approved.--[Mr. Mike Hall.]
SELECT COMMITTEES (JOINT MEETINGS)
- That, for the next Session of Parliament, Standing Order No. 152 (Select committees related to government departments) be amended as follows:
Line 37, before the word 'European' insert the words 'Environmental Audit Committee or with the'.
Line 46, before the word 'European' insert the words 'Environmental Audit Committee or with the'.
Line 48, at the end insert the words:--
'(4A) notwithstanding paragraphs (2) and (4) above, where more than two committees or sub-committees appointed under this order meet concurrently in accordance with paragraph (4)(e) above, the quorum of each such committee or sub-committee shall be two.--[Mr. Mike Hall.
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
- That, at the sittings on Thursday 30th November and Friday 1st December--
(i) the Speaker shall not adjourn the House until any Messages from the Lords shall have been received, and
(ii) if the House has completed its consideration of any Messages received from the Lords and the Lords have adjourned their sitting, the Speaker shall adjourn the House without Question put.-- [Mr. Mike Hall.]
PETITIONS
Lady McAdden Breast Screening Unit
12.30 am
Mr. David Amess (Southend, West): I have the honour to present a petition that has been signed by more than 21,500 people. The level of support for the petition demonstrates the very high esteem in which people have held the Lady McAdden breast screening unit for more than 24 years. The petitioners wish to express their concern at the way in which changing patterns of health care have impacted on the viability of the unit.
- The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Secretary of State for Health to investigate and resolve the problems the Lady McAdden Breast Unit is experiencing within the South Essex Health Authority; to facilitate the restoration to the Unit of full access to appropriate facilities and referrals to the Southend Hospital NHS Trust and Southend Breast Unit; to facilitate the restoration to the Unit of the ability to screen all women by palpation with full consent from the Royal College of Nursing, the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing and women themselves without fear of litigation; to review the conclusions of the 1998 White Paper on the availability of breast screening services to women under the age of 50 and the method of screening by palpation; to include screening for women under the age of 50 in the NHS screening programme; and to guarantee that the present activities of the Unit and its staff may continue without interference pending the Commission for Health Improvement's consideration of cancer services.
And your petitioners remain, etc.
Mixed-Sex Hospital Wards
Ms Debra Shipley (Stourbridge): It is a great honour to present a petition generated in my Stourbridge constituency on behalf of members of the West Midlands Federation of Townswomen's Guilds. The petitioners declare that they dislike mixed-sex hospital wards because they are an affront to dignity and decency. I wholeheartedly agree with them.
- The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Secretary of State for Health to make swift progress towards the removal of mixed-sex wards in hospitals.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
Flood Management (Somerset)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mrs. McGuire.]
12.32 am
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome): I am grateful for the opportunity to raise again the issue of flood prevention in Somerset. I am particularly grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who I know was in Somerset today--at the village of Norton Sub Hamdon, not more than two miles outside my constituency, and at a school which I believe that I opened, as chairman of education, a few years ago.
The Minister will recall that we last debated the subject on 3 May 2000. It was an excellent debate in which we addressed some of the basic issues. He and I broadly agreed that, in flooding, prevention is better than cure. We also agreed on the need to address the issues of environmental sustainability and sustainability of the resources applied to flood prevention. We also recognised that the Somerset levels is a unique and internationally important environment that needs to be protected.
I have sought this debate, first, to alert the Minister to some of the events of the past few weeks; secondly, to report the very substantial progress towards the objectives that we set ourselves in the previous debate; and, thirdly, to express some serious concerns about financing land drainage.
Somerset has not experienced floods with the dramatic overtones of those in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker), or in the Severn valley, or around the Ouse, in Yorkshire. Flooding has, however, affected a number of properties in my constituency. It has not been confined to the levels area, where we expect annual winter flooding. It has taken place in areas of the upper catchment and in areas detached from the Parrett catchment. There have been problems in my constituency in the areas of Ilton; Yeovilton, where the Yeo burst its banks; Queen Camel, where the Cam and Henshall Brook caused problems in the middle of the village; Shepton Montague; and near Frome in Old Ford and Vobster. There have been several separate incidents, and they all represent tragedies for the families involved. There is also the common thread that there are insufficient resources to do some of the things that are necessary to protect the people of Somerset adequately, given the huge demands on services.
Although the Environment Agency has performed extremely well over the past few months, there are still some questions that I shall be putting to it. I shall be seeking answers from it and local authorities if I do not receive satisfaction from the Minister. My questions will relate to the warning system, the maintenance of culverts and drainage canals, local government funding and the uninsurable risk that many householders are facing.
I move on to progress on the River Parrett catchment project, as it is now termed. When we last debated the subject, the Minister effectively challenged me and the people in Somerset to get our heads together to combine the interests of local authorities, the Environment Agency, landowners, farming interests, environmentalists and the wider community in an endeavour to ascertain whether we could arrive at a common solution to the problems.
Substantial progress has been made to that effect. A seminar was held on 30 October, paradoxically when the River Tone was within inches of bursting its banks in Taunton. It was an apposite moment for the seminar to take place. It was attended by 60 representatives of all the interests involved. They were able to reach common ground--it was a significant breakthrough--in terms of the scale of the problem, the need to address the flood defence system urgently, and some of the things that could be done in terms of management of the upper catchment, where it was felt that there were ways of ensuring that when heavy rainfall took place the time that it takes for water to reach the main streams and rivers could be extended.
That could perhaps be done by land management, by cropping practices that help to maintain more water in the soil and reduce the speed of overland flow, by reducing flow rates in the tributary water courses and head water streams by creating baffles and meanders, by developing a strategic approach for retaining storm water from developed areas so that it does not add to the peak flows in streams and rivers, and by developing on-farm flood water storage areas through agreement with local farmers. That agreement is crucial because it will require some changes in agri-environmental schemes so that there are proper incentives. Farmers must be encouraged to participate in schemes.
The use of the flood plain needs to be considered in a different way from that in which it is now managed. Perhaps we should consider a more equitable distribution of flood water across the moors, and use some parts of the flood plain more frequently so that settlements are protected. There should be greater use of gravity drainage systems on parts of the flood plain, which can enable the water to drain effectively.
There have also been discussions on the proposals for a barrage or barrier across the River Parrett downstream of Bridgwater. I know that the Minister is concerned about that proposal. I ask him to examine what eventually emerges and objectively to assess it. It may represent a way of reducing some of the severer impacts of floods, and it may be cost-effective in reducing silt and thereby dredging.
A holistic approach along the lines that I have set out has the potential to pay dividends. Much progress has already been made. I pay tribute to the work of the county council, whose chairman, Humphrey Temperley, has played a leading role. Given the level of agreement that has been reached, I have considerable confidence that the major debate on these matters to be held early next year will agree on concrete plans that deal with prevention rather than cure, and which we will be able to bring to the Minister.
My plea to the Minister is to respect what he has said on earlier occasions and to look at those plans objectively. In that way he will be able to determine where it is possible to co-ordinate Government policy in this regard, and where it is possible to take a positive view.
I must also address the issues of finance and of the costs involved in land drainage in Somerset. I shall give the House some idea of the scale of the problem. In Somerset, 36,000 homes are identified as at risk, and very extensive protections are given to them. The county has 125 km of sea and tidal raised-bank defences, and 366 km of raised river bank defences. Of the latter, 17 km are in
poor condition and 189 km need some work to bring them up to an acceptable standard. That is a substantial backlog of work.The county also has 21 pumping stations. Most of them are elderly and date back to the 1940s, with the newest built in 1968. Many are obsolete and unreliable, none have a proper planned maintenance programme, and 10 require urgent upgrading.
It is clear that the county faces a significant problem, the financing for which is shared among a relatively small population. The Minister knows that the Somerset flood defence committee has an annual budget of about £6 million. Most of that total comes from a levy, and most of the levy is paid by Somerset county council taxpayers--a cost of £26 per annum for each band D property in the area. That is the highest in the country, and amounts to a significant impost on the people who have to pay it.
Over recent years, there have been large increases in the precept. Two years ago, it was raised by 11.5 per cent, and last year by 8.2 per cent. The present backlog of work, the council's need effectively to borrow ahead to deal with significant capital projects, and the effects of this year's flooding all mean that the Somerset flood defence committee now faces a precept increase of something like 28 per cent.
As the Minister knows, the system of finance is extremely complicated. The sums involved can be recovered through the revenue support grant and the standard spending assessment, but only in the following year. That does not prevent local authority finances undergoing a major distortion.
Even before the current full review of flood defence funding is in a position to report, local authorities in Somerset have advanced a cogent case for what must be done to reform the system. First, they say that flood defence spending should be disregarded for the purposes of council tax benefit subsidy limitation. That is what happens with the police authority precept, and there is no logic in placing the flood defence precept--which is also substantial--within that limitation.
Secondly, the authorities say that there is a need to ensure that the SSA or revenue support grant pass-through mechanism operates on a current-year basis, rather than a year in arrears. They also say that it is necessary to provide for the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions control figures to be increased on a current-year spending basis. In addition, they say that, when the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food grants aid capital, revenue funds are needed so that maintenance moneys are not diverted to support those capital schemes. Finally, they consider that it is necessary to treat flood defence spending by the unitary and district councils in the county on the same basis as the Environment Agency levy spending.
I realise that the Minister is not in a position to say that all those proposals will be accepted this evening. However, I ask him seriously to consider the distortions caused by these unique circumstances. We have an internationally important wetland area in which people are uniquely vulnerable to floods and that is likely to continue in the foreseeable future. As the area is sparsely populated, it does not have enormous revenue income or capital sums available. Does the Minister agree that those factors, put together, represent a special case?
Secondly, can the money that is available be used more effectively in the sort of way that those at the Parrett catchment project suggest? Rather than building higher and higher walls to keep the water out, we should try to manage the floods in Somerset in a way that is effective, environmentally sensible and more responsive to the needs of the local community. I suggest that what is happening in gestation in the project in Somerset, provided it has Government support in due course, could act as a pilot study for other parts of the country.
There is a wider view--we have tested it in the Chamber, and I know that the Minister has some sympathy with it--that we cannot go on dealing with floods in the way that we have done hitherto. We need to address the problem in a different way, and the way that is being developed here has great merit. It will require departmental co-ordination, and it will be necessary to mobilise funding that is not automatically provided for these purposes. However, I think that any cost benefit analysis will show that this is a sensible application of funds to a defined and positive outcome, preferable to wasting funds on developing a solution that is not sustainable in the long term. That is why I am so strongly in favour of what is being discussed.
When we last spoke about this issue, the Minister said at the end of his speech:
- However, I stress that local people should come together and agree a long-term management plan based on river catchments . . . I shall be only too willing to examine the proposals and respond as positively as I can.--[Official Report, 3 May 2000; Vol. 349, c. 274.]
If the hon. Gentleman's all-too-brief visit to Somerset today has whetted his appetite--perhaps that is an inappropriate word to use--to see what is happening on the levels and talk to some of the people there, I would be delighted to welcome him to my constituency to look at a forward-thinking project. I hope that in doing so he would take away a favourable impression which would encourage him to mobilise the resources to enable the project to take off.
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