| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
“Each department and agency is responsible, under its Minister, for maintaining its own appropriate levels of protective security.”
If the Department had been observing the manual’s requirements, it would have produced—following a risk assessment and a risk management process—a formal document that would have been submitted by the departmental security officer to the heads of the Department for review and sign-off. Can the Chancellor tell us which of his Ministers examined and signed off such a document? If none of his Ministers did, does he not recognise and take responsibility for the fact that his Department’s Ministers abdicated their leadership at the very time when HMRC needed it?
Mr. Darling: No, I do not accept that. What I do accept is that, as Poynter has found, the systems in place were inadequate. They were complex and there were no clear lines of accountability, and that needs to be addressed. It is important for all Poynter’s recommendations to be adopted and accepted.
Mr. Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con): My constituents were appalled at the loss of their personal information by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, and disappointed that no Treasury Minister had accepted personal responsibility by resigning. Given that many other Departments hold extensive personal information on millions of individuals, can the Chancellor give my constituents a clear indication of what practical steps he will take, together with the Cabinet Office, to ensure that such catastrophic data loss does not happen again in future?
Mr. Darling: If the hon. Gentleman has an opportunity to read Kieran Poynter’s report and recommendations, he will see what has been done, what is being done at the moment and what is proposed for the future. He should also read the Cabinet Secretary’s review of security across Government and its recommendations. I think that that will help to answer some of his questions.
Andrew George (St. Ives) (LD): The Chancellor rather dismissed the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) and by my hon. Friends the Members for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) and for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) about the management culture that has led to the closure of many local offices. However, he acknowledged in all his responses that the present culture needs to change. Does he not also acknowledge that part of the cultural failure is due to the modern fad of Powerpoint-wielding management consultants who imply that remote and centralised management always knows best? That is a part of the culture that does need to be questioned, because it will otherwise result in a break in the connection with the real world, a loss of established staff and future systems failures.
Mr. Darling: I am not a great one for Powerpoint presentations myself, and I hope that the House will never change its rules to allow anyone to conduct one here, but, to be fair, I do not think that Powerpoint presentations or the lack of them had any bearing on this incident.
I understand perfectly well the points made by the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues about the closure of local offices. Such decisions can be hard, and there is bound to be controversy from time to time. What I do not accept is the underlying premise, and the impression sometimes given by Liberal Democrats—unwittingly, I am sure—that it is somehow possible to make an organisation better and more efficient without any change taking place at any time. I do not think that that can possibly be a sustainable argument.
What must be recognised is that, as Kieran Poynter has observed, there were failings in this instance. We need to address them, and in particular to do all that we can to raise the morale of staff. They understand that change is necessary, but they want to be supported through that change, and that is what the new management are determined to do.
Pitt Report
1.19 pm
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Hilary Benn): Sir Michael Pitt has today published his final report on last summer’s flooding. I thank Sir Michael and his team for the professional way in which they have gone about their work of identifying the lessons to be learned. I also welcome the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report, to which Government are responding today.
This month marks the first anniversary of the start of the floods. The lives of many people and businesses were turned upside down and the costs—human and financial—were considerable. Our thoughts will, above all, be with the families of those who lost loved ones, as well as with communities still trying to recover. I am sure the House will wish to thank all those who have worked so hard to help those affected over the past 12 months, and I would like to pay tribute to the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth (John Healey), the floods recovery Minister.
“Last summer’s flooding was exceptional”.
While we recognise both the huge emergency effort at the time and the investment over many years in flood defences—without which the effects would have been much worse—I said to the House last year that we would learn the lessons.
Sir Michael’s report sets out more than 90 recommendations including: establishing the right legislative framework to tackle flooding; clarifying who is responsible for what; ensuring that the public have all the information and guidance they need; working with essential services to assess risk and protect critical infrastructure; and having a clear recovery plan right from the start of any major emergency. I welcome Sir Michael’s report and the direction it sets. We will prepare a detailed response, with a prioritised action plan, in the autumn. We have already taken a number of steps that respond to Sir Michael’s findings, and I wish to report them to the House.
The Government have made available up to £88 million, with a further £31 million to come, to help local authorities assist those in greatest need, as well as repair infrastructure and help schools and businesses to get going again. A lot has been achieved: most of those affected are now back in their homes, and we will continue to work with local authorities and the insurance industry to help the rest to return to them as soon as possible.
Flood warnings save lives. Since last June, more than 73,000 additional people have registered with the Environment Agency flood warning system, and the EA will now automatically register properties to receive flood warnings where telephone numbers are publicly available. The EA has also improved its advice to the public and run flood awareness campaigns, and is working with the Met Office to improve the quality of flood warnings. The EA has spent £5 million on repairing defences damaged last summer. Current improvement schemes include a £5.9 million project refurbishing the Hull barrier and remedial works to culverts in Gloucester.
As I informed the House last week, I have decided that the EA will now take on a new strategic overview role in England for managing flood risk from whatever source, and that local authorities will take responsibility for surface water management, including surface water management plans, under the EA’s overview. We will now sort out the detailed arrangements for that, drawing on responses to the “Future Water” consultation and the results of the 15 pilot projects on urban drainage, which we are publishing today.
On critical infrastructure, electricity and water providers are responsible for ensuring continuity of supply. The electricity industry has identified just over 1,000 grid and primary sites that are in flood zones, and is working with the EA to see which of them might need additional protection. Every water company is reviewing how its critical assets may be at risk from flooding in order to prioritise investment plans. This information will be used as the basis of a planned nationwide programme to improve the resilience of critical infrastructure, which the Government will produce later this year. Most local resilience forums have now been briefed on critical infrastructure in their area, and the remainder will be by the end of August.
On reservoir safety, we will now go ahead to prepare flood maps for reservoirs coming under the Reservoirs Act 1975, and to ensure that where these are not already available, they are provided to local emergency planners before the end of 2009. They will decide the best way to ensure that communities are informed. We will also modernise reservoir safety legislation.
The Government will produce an outline for the national flood emergency framework by the end of July, with a draft for consultation by the end of the year. This will be part of a major programme to improve preparedness for severe flooding. We will bring forward a draft floods and water Bill in the next session. That will enable us to respond to many of Sir Michael’s recommendations
The Government are increasing investment in flood-risk management from £650 million this year to £800 million in 2010-11. The EA’s defences protected 100,000 properties from flooding last year, and this new investment will protect a further 145,000 homes across the country. We are also developing with the EA a long-term investment strategy for flood defence.
We have set aside £34.5 million for priorities identified in Sir Michael’s report. We will need to consider the detailed recommendations and their funding with local authorities and other partners before making a final allocation, but in order to make progress I am announcing today that at least £5 million will be made available to develop surface water management plans in the highest priority areas, and at least £1 million to improve reservoir safety, specifically for inundation mapping. I have also set aside an initial £250,000 to plan a major national floods exercise to test the new structures and arrangements being put in place, to ensure that we are better prepared in future.
We must recognise that we can never eliminate the risk of flooding, particularly as climate change takes hold, but all of us—Government, water and electricity providers, local communities and individuals—must take flood risk seriously and be as prepared as we can be to deal with it. Sir Michael’s report will help us all to do that. I know that he will be taking a close interest in its
implementation, and I will invite him to attend Cabinet Committee discussions on progress. I will report further to the House in the autumn with a detailed action plan.
Mr. Peter Ainsworth (East Surrey) (Con): May I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, and congratulate Sir Michael Pitt and his team on producing a very thorough and comprehensive report? One year on from the disastrous floods of last June, the thoughts of the whole House will be with those who tragically lost members of their families, and with those whose homes and businesses were wrecked and whose lives were indeed turned upside down.
Anyone who has met the victims of flooding knows only too well that, as well as the physical damage to property and the disruption to daily life, there is often a lasting, less visible but none the less real, emotional impact to cope with. It is essential that everything possible is done to protect communities against the risk of flooding, and to ensure that when flooding occurs, the response is swift and efficient. I pay tribute again to the work of the emergency services last year, who in often hazardous circumstances did an extraordinary job with great determination. Those circumstances were often made even more difficult by other factors; we know from the chief fire officer that he felt that there was “institutional chaos”, which affected the emergency services’ work. We must learn the lessons from that.
Although Sir Michael’s interim report published last December recognised that the weather events last year were exceptional, it found that the United Kingdom’s response was ill prepared. At that time, he made 15 urgent recommendations, and the Government rightly said they would act on them. However, in a progress report published in April, Sir Michael was critical, saying that insufficient action had been taken on key infrastructure and raising public awareness. He said:
“The public remain little better prepared than they were before last summer’s floods.”
What confidence can we have in the Government’s promise to act on today’s recommendations when previous urgent recommendations have been largely ignored?
Sir Michael’s interim report said that the floods were a “wake-up call”, but after a bit of progress has been made on some of the recommendations somebody seems to have hit the snooze button. It is one year on from the floods, but three years since the Government first announced plans to give the Environment Agency a strategic overview of all types of flooding. Last week, the Government re-announced plans to extend the role of the EA as part of the proposed floods and water Bill, but there is no intention to do anything but consult on possible legislation, and then not until 2009. Is that the rapid implementation that is needed, or is it dithering?
Last summer, the Prime Minister said, “We will do all we can to help people living in temporary accommodation after the floods.” What does he say now to the 11,000 people who are still out of their homes?
The Government also promised that local authorities affected by the floods would be compensated for the cost of clearing up. We have spoken to local authorities and they have told us that they are collectively some
£50 million out of pocket, because the money that they were promised has not been delivered. Does the Secretary of State expect the council tax payer to pick up the bill?
We welcome the report’s recommendation that there should be a presumption against building in high flood risk areas, but what are the Government doing to ensure that that is implemented? The report is correct to recommend that there should be an end to the automatic right of water and sewerage companies to connect new properties to the drainage system regardless of capacity, but where is the Government’s policy to deal with that and ensure that it happens?
On critical infrastructure, the report says that
“the approach taken by the Government to mitigating the risks from flooding and other natural hazards has been uncoordinated and reactive.”
It calls for the urgent publication of a national framework to reduce risks to our infrastructure. That was one of the “urgent recommendations” made last December. Is not vital infrastructure as vulnerable today as it was a year ago? When can we expect a national framework to be implemented?
The Secretary of State says that flood warnings save lives, and another of last year’s urgent recommendations was to introduce an opt-out telephone warning system. In April, Sir Michael warned that “insufficient progress” had been made on this. Today he says that the issue is “not yet resolved”. When will it be resolved?
Sir Michael says of his 92 recommendations that
“strong national leadership will be needed to make them a reality.”
I suspect that what he really means by that is that more dithering simply will not do. Is not that the single most important lesson to be learned? What people are asking is when we will get strong national leadership from this Government. I fear that they know the answer.
Hilary Benn: The hon. Gentleman thanked me for advance sight of a copy of my statement, but it is clear from what we have just heard that he did not do the House the courtesy of reading it or listening to it when I delivered it a moment ago. I do not share his assessment of the performance of the emergency services, and it is no good saying that he pays tribute to what they did. The reason that the emergency services were able to deal with the emergency in the way that they did was precisely the planning that had been put in place.
Nor do I share the hon. Gentleman’s assessment of progress on the urgent recommendations that Sir Michael Pitt made in his interim report. On the question of infrastructure, the hon. Gentleman has just heard about the progress that has been made. There are 43 local resilience forums in England, with 38 to be briefed—because the six forums in London will be briefed as one—and 29 of which have been briefed, so there are nine to be done by the end of August. Those nine have not been done because they have said that they want to wait for a revised list of essential infrastructure to be published. Once that happens, they will be briefed.
There are 4,716 households out of their homes, 58 per cent. of which are in Hull and the East Riding, and 8 per cent. in Tewkesbury. We will continue to work hard to get those people back into their homes, but we should pay tribute to the enormous effort that has resulted in most of the people affected going home. Some 48,000 homes were affected by the flooding and
great progress has been made in the past year: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman was not prepared to acknowledge that.
The money that my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government has promised local authorities has been delivered—up to £88 million—and, as I said, there is more to come in the £31 million that will be allocated by the end of next month.
The question of connection to sewerage is something that we will look at in the proposed Bill. I gave the hon. Gentleman the answer to his question about the national framework in my statement and I hope that he will welcome the fact that the outline will be published by the end of July and the first draft by the end of this year.
On the opt-out, the hon. Gentleman clearly did not listen to a word I said, because I told the House that the Environment Agency will now automatically register people whose numbers are publicly available and is in the final stages of sorting out the problem of ex-directory numbers. Of course, people have the right to opt out of a warning in those circumstances, but I am sure that all hon. Members would advise them not to do so.
Mr. Eric Martlew (Carlisle) (Lab): I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, but I wish to make two points. First, we should not believe that the privatised utilities will take the action that is necessary. After the 2005 floods in my constituency, of which I was a victim, they should have learned the lessons, but they did not. If they had done so, the problems last summer would have been lessened.
My second point is the need for more money for more flood defences. The Government have been very generous, and the Secretary of State has said today that more money will be spent, but there will never be enough taxpayers’ money, and money will have to come from other sources, whether it is the businesses or the individual households that will benefit from those defences or the insurance companies. I hope that future legislation will ensure that if the Government keep their side of the bargain and put in extra resources, other resources will also be brought in.
Hilary Benn: The responsibility that falls on the utility providers to ensure continuity of supply is clear. My hon. Friend can rest assured that the steps that we are taking will ensure improved protection for that infrastructure. Part of the process of the assessment is to identify where a piece of infrastructure is critical and where a way round it can be found, such as pumping water by a different route if a water treatment works is submerged, as happened with Mythe in the flooding last year.
My hon. Friend makes a good point about increased investment, and I am glad that he recognises that money that the Government are putting in. However, when it comes to the privatisation of schemes, we may find local communities, businesses and local authorities being prepared to put some money in. The question that we will have to address together is how we can draw on such contributions while also ensuring that we have a fair system, so that it is not only areas that can afford it that get flood defence schemes. The truth is that we all have a shared responsibility.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |