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11 July 2007 : Column 466WHcontinued
On affordability and availability of insurance, for many people in deprived areas, insurance can literally be unaffordable. Toll Bar, in particular, is a very deprived area. It is a former mining community. I think that many parts of Hull and Sheffield might fall into
similar low-income categories. It is not out of a lack of good will that people did not want to insure their homes; they had to make a lifestyle decision and they felt that they could not afford insurance.
Will the Minister ensure that in future cover is extended to those who have been flooded and remain at risk of flooding? Some businesses in north Yorkshire suffered hugely between 2000 and 2005. Will he ensure a level playing field? I welcome the support that the Government are giving through business grants to areas of south and east Yorkshire, where businesses have suffered. However, I believe that that money should be made available to others. May I provide him with the names and addresses of businesses that suffered between 2000 and 2005 because either they did not have insurance or they have not gone back to operating full-scale businesses such as dental practices? May I make representations to him about that? I hope that he will have regard to them and take them on board. Also, given the losses and heartfelt pleas made today, will he promise a full Government inquiry into the damage caused, and look at how much was caused because flood defence schemes, such as those mentioned today, did not go ahead?
I gather that many pumping and electricity stations are built in areas prone to flooding. Sometimes, pumping stations are not functioning because the electricity substations are flooded. Perhaps that is an additional point for the Minister. I know that that happened in Selby and Beverley. I hope that he will take that on board.
Finally, allowing the Minister plenty of time to wind up, may I ask him to promise to streamline the decision-making process and put one body in charge in order to remove confusion, and to have a one-stop shop for advice so that people know who to turn to for sandbags, skips and portaloos? That will enable victims of flooding, on the day and in the following months, to know exactly who to turn to. Furthermore, will he have regard to waterlogged land that has been contaminated? I know that a partial derogation has been granted, which the farming community welcomes strongly, but will his Department also allow farmers to enter waterlogged land that may be set aside, so that they can salvage what crops they can? There is perhaps a misunderstanding there. If they do so, farmers might infringe cross-compliance rules for flooded land that is set aside.
It is absolutely true that £14 million was cut from the flood budget. Let us remind ourselves why that money was cut: because the Government failed to implement the single farm payments on time. It is perverse that through the fault of one part of the Department, other areas, up and down the country, have suffered subsequently.
Will the Minister review the fact that farmers are paying a levy to internal drainage boards to drain ditches and other areas such as the outflow of main tributaries? Many of the rivers that flooded have not been dredged for years and are full of debris and choked with plant matter that prevents and impedes water flow, and the result is flooding of farmland.
On a positive note, one of the Ministers predecessors, the right hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), enjoys in his own constituency a pilot scheme whereby flood alleviation scheme money is
providedpartially, I think, through the EU European development fundto allow upstream land to flood. The scheme allows farmers to be reimbursed for the resultant loss of land from production. It seems rather bizarre that a former Minister with responsibility for flooding has such land. Will the Minister say whether we can have some of that money in the rural areas that we represent, and will he ensure that the schemes, if successful, are trialled throughout the country?
The Minister for the Environment (Mr. Phil Woolas): The debate has demonstratedif it needed demonstratingthe value of Members of Parliament to their constituencies. The knowledge and experience that has been fed back is very important, and the fact that members of the public have an MP for their area is also importantregardless of the party to which that MP belongs. My hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) has done his constituents and the House a great service in obtaining the debate.
I am conscious that I shall not be able to answer all the questions that have been raised. Several hon. Members have accepted that fact, and I apologise in advance for it. I am well aware that many thousands of people will be reading Hansard online and in more traditional ways to see what is going on and to see the Government response. It is right that I should take the opportunity, as has my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to put on record the sympathy of all of us in these terrible circumstances for the loved ones of the bereaved.
In the time available I shall try to answer the thematic points and then move on to the specifics. On funding, none of us knows whether the recent floods were caused directly or indirectly by climate change or whether they were simply exceptional events. We know, however, that similar tragedies have occurred around the earth, such as in Karachi in Pakistan, where 250 people have been killed in the past two weeks through exceptional flash floods, and in southern Australia, which has experienced the most severe drought on record. I do not know whether those events are connected, although it seems likely that they are.
We can predict flooding from coastal erosion and from the interaction of tides and waterways with some degree of accuracy. Hon. Members have spoken about that. It is possible to review the flood plain situation too. However, it is important to understand, and to say to the public, that nobody can predict where the next floods will take place.
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
Mr. Mike Hancock (in the Chair): We have seven minutes to go.
Mr. Woolas:
Thank you, Mr. Hancock, for chairing the debate, which has been exemplary. I was about to rebut the allegation of the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) about fundinghe mentioned the
in-year reduction in the non-capital budget. There has not been a U-turn by the Treasury. The flat cash assumptions that are made across Governmentsome are better and some are worseare part of the spending review period. When one is profiling capital expenditure, it would not be wise to front-load it in years one or two. The hon. Gentleman will know, from his knowledge of economics, that the planning of capital expenditure requires a lead-in time. Having said that, all hon. Members have welcomed the extra money that has been provided.
Let me warn both the House and members of the public who might be following this debate that, as hon. Members have said and as the chief executive of the Environment Agency and its chairman, with whom I had a long conversation in preparation for this debate, have said, it is not possible to predict where the next flood will be. The recent floods were, in some parts, surface water floods. The Environment Agency does not set out to tell us where floods are going to take place, because that is not known. It can tell us only the likelihood of floods in certain places. Given our experiences, particularly the nature of the flooding in South Yorkshire, one would never have imagined that there would have been severe floods in the Pennines. If the House is asking me to provide funding for all eventualities in the light of that background, I must say that it is not possible to do so. However, funding increases were set out in the announcement made by the Secretary of State.
In all tragedies, disasters or, indeed, malicious acts where the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 is triggered, there is a lead agency in the immediate responsethe gold commandand usually the chief constable is in charge. Hon. Members who recall debating that Act will know that that is required in order that agencies come under a single command and control structure. Such a structure is in place.
The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) spoke with great knowledge of his area and the response, and, as he indicated, both the perception and the reality are important. The truth is that this country is in its early days of civil contingency and civil resilience response under the gold command structure. One should always remember that the lead Department complements the response structures that are in place through the Cabinet Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government, whether we are dealing with a terrorist bomb, a flood, foot and mouth disease, a fuel supply crisis or something else.
We have improved enormously as a country in that co-ordination. It can always be better, and that is why the lessons-learned exercise, which we are under a statutory obligation to carry out, covers both the lessons learned from our knowledge and information
on the flooding and the lead-up to it, and the response of the agencies, be they public, private or voluntary. All hon. Members are invited to take part in that lessons-learned exercise. Indeed, the Government take the attitude that it is not only necessary but desirable to have an open mind about that. We can always learn lessons, but we cannot predict accurately the next flood or incident.
It is also worth putting on the record the understanding that I believe exists among officials, in the agencies and among Ministers about the psychological and human impact of flooding as well as its physical impact. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) spoke movingly about her experienceI am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House could share such experience. Civil resilience planning requires, above all else, public resilience. It requires the common sense of the British public, and that has been evident in spades in this response. No amount of planning can compensate for that.
Farms, businesses and homes have been damaged by some of the most severe floods and exceptional circumstances. Two main points have been made, one on the funding and the other on the lessons learned. I hope that hon. Members will accept that those have been understood by the Government.
The hon. Member for Eastleigh asked a number of other questions. Water companies are involved in the planning exercise. I do not know about the specific circumstances to which he referred. The hon. Member for York
Mr. Woolas: I am well aware of the difference between my hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) and the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh), both of whom speak with experience about flooding because of where their constituencies are. She asked about access to fields for farmers, and I hope that she will be pleased to learn that the Secretary of State has addressed that issue today. She asked that one lead agency be in charge. The lead agency for the flood defence preparation and for the immediate response is the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in terms of Government agencies. The lead agency on the ground is the gold command; it takes authority in the area.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough raised questions about the lessons learned and the need to front-load cost to flood defence
Mr. Mike Hancock (in the Chair): Order. I am afraid I must intervene. I should like to thank the Minister and all the hon. Members who took part for the courtesy that they showed the Chair and each other during a useful debate.
Dr. Gavin Strang (Edinburgh, East) (Lab): I am grateful for the opportunity to bring to the House the case for keeping open the Jobcentre Plus benefits delivery centre in my constituencya benefits centre acknowledged to be one of the most efficient in Scotland.
It might be helpful if I sketched out a little of the history of benefits delivery and processing on the east side of Edinburgh. Until a few years ago, there were two offices that people living in Portobello and the surrounding area could visit in connection with unemployment and benefits: a jobcentre in Windsor place, Portobello, and a social security office, Phoenix house, on Portobello high street.
Following the 2004 spending review and the Gershon report, the Department for Work and Pensions was obliged to reduce the number of its staff by 30,000 full-time equivalent posts by the end of March 2008. Half of those15,000 full-time equivalent staffwere to come from Jobcentre Plus. An efficiency programme was put in place, and about 630 offices were earmarked for closure, among which originally were both Portobello offices.
I was pleased that the efforts made by myself, as the local Member of Parliament, and by the trade union, the Public and Commercial Services union, led to the Government pulling back from the proposition that Phoenix house would be one of the offices to be closed. Talking to managers in the Department for Work and Pensions at Edinburgh level, Scottish level and head-office level proved to be constructive. At the time, the chief executive of Jobcentre Plus was David Anderson; so far I have not yet sought a meeting on this issue with the new chief executive, Ms Lesley Strathie.
This is the first time that I have put this issue on the record in the House of Commons, but I must say that I was not at all happy about the final geographical distribution of offices throughout the city of Edinburgh implemented as part of the Jobcentre Plus roll-out. It is true that the representations made by the union and I resulted in the retention of the office at Phoenix house, Portobello. The site is a good one: the building was purpose-built by the then Department of Social Security; it is highly accessible by public transport; and there is a good availability of staff.
What I deeply regretted, and still do, is that the decision was taken that Phoenix house would cease to be an office that is open to the public, and that my constituents from Newcraighall, Craigmillar, Niddrie, Portobello, Craigentinny and the greater Portobello area could no longer visit it for advice and help. Given the deprivation in the east of the city and the number of cases being handled per week at Portobello, which is significantly more, for example, than at the Wester Hailes office, a better balance would have been to have had an improved facility at Leitha good public office, as exists now; let me emphasise thatand to retain the office in Portobello as a centre also open to the public.
My constituents now have to go to the Edinburgh High Riggs office or to the Leith office. That aside, the important decisions that were taken maintained a
configuration of offices that still saw a role for the vital Portobello Phoenix house office. No longer open to the public, the Portobello office has become a benefit delivery centre, dealing with social fund claims. It is by no means a small office. It is a significant operation in Portobello, with about 95 staff. The team processes social fund claims; indeed, from 4 June, all social fund applications in the Edinburgh, Lothian and the borders area have been processed at the site.
Given the backdrop of where the Government are going nationally, with benefits processing being done at large centres, the decision to do all social fund processing for Edinburgh, Leith and the borders area at Phoenix house is wise and constructive in the circumstances. It is now a settled and practical arrangement that is wholly consistent with the existence of major processing centres at Bathgate and elsewhere.
My hon. Friend the Minister will be aware that we are in the middle of a sharp contraction of DWP staff in the Edinburgh area. Her colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Plaskitt) wrote to me in May to advise me that the debt management unit with 28 jobs at Argyle house in the centre of Edinburgh in my constituency will close in March 2008.
When the Department was closing the Castle terrace office, which was also in the centre of Edinburgh in my constituency, the staff were offered the opportunity to move to the large processing centre at Bathgate in west Lothian or to Portobello. Clearly, that was an important career decision, which I understand had to be made at the end of last year. At the end of the process to facilitate the closure of the Castle terrace office, a number of staff indicated that they would accept redeployment to Phoenix house, Portobello. The senior DWP official informed them that Portobello was
a long term feeder centre with the emphasis on the long term.
Knowing the Ministers interest in good industrial relations, and her concern that we treat people decently, I am sure that she agrees that the undertaking to staff is important. Those people are now working at Portobello. They moved there because they viewed it as a good prospect for the future. I repeat that they were told that it was
a long term feeder site with the emphasis on the long term.
No doubt they were aware that the Portobello office is highly efficient and is recognised as such at a Scottish level, so they would have assumed that the jobs that they were moving to were reasonably safe.
Everyone to whom I have spoken, including the Jobcentre Plus senior management, has praised the efficiency and skill of Phoenix house staff. They are highly able people and many have decades of experience in their field. I am conscious that the Minister and the Secretary of State moved to their Department only a couple of weeks ago, but I am sure that the Minister will already be familiar with the way in which Government policy on contributory and non-contributory social security benefits is being implemented in Scotland.
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