Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1100
- 1101)
WEDNESDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2008
MR PHIL
WOOLAS MP, MR
MARTIN HURST
AND MR
DAVID WRIGHT
Q1100 Mr Drew:
But you would accept that there is a significant problem now,
given what you said earlier? In my area, you have two-tier authorities,
you have got water companies, you have got the Environment Agency,
you have got British Waterways, you have got other utilities and
you then get riparian ownership with 20 owners, 19 of whom are
all willing to do something to take responsibility and one is
saying, "It's not my problem", and then the other 19
flood.
Mr Woolas: My view is that we
have got to get real about the problem we are dealing with here.
I do not think the country, well, the public are actually, but
I do not think the body politic, outside of course of this Committee
and people directly concerned with these issues, appreciate the
seriousness of the problem that we are facing. The people who
live in the flooded areas of last summer, they of course understand
it, but that surface-water flooding that happened in Hull and
happened in other parts of the country, what happened in south
Yorkshire and where the river flooding coincided with surface-water
flooding, those sorts of patterns are happening all of the time
all over the country, and we have had surface-water flooding in
the last two weeks in the country. If the scientists' predictions
are right, that this extreme weather is going to continue apace
and indeed increase, then we have to radically change the policy
and statutory framework that we operate in this area, and this
is why it is such an exciting and important debate, and the specific
on Mr Drew's question is not yet answered, but you can see my
attitude and the Secretary of State shares that attitude, as I
believe the Government more generally does.
Q1101 David Lepper:
We went to have a look at the washlands scheme last week, which
was a very interesting scheme, and in our discussions afterwards
with Natural England, they expressed some frustration about the
lack of progress on the 25, I think it was, schemes that came
out of the Making Space for Water document. All of them
are schemes which have a multiplicity of functions, in part controlling
the flow of water, in part flood defence, but also to do with
biodiversity plans as well. One of the issues, I think, was that
putting together packages of funding for some of these schemes
was difficult because the money allocated for one aspect of the
scheme could be transferred to be used elsewhere within a scheme.
What is the view of Defra about that? Does it sense that frustration
that is felt by Natural England and others?
Mr Woolas: Yes, I think it is
fair to say that we do, and it is a very fair question actually.
I think the attitude to that is reflected in some of the answers
I have given on surface water, that the need for a transparent
public plan, national and local, the need for horses for courses,
if I can use that phrase, the need to stop some of the local bureaucratic
obstacles getting in the way, and one group of residents I meet
from Yorkshire last week explained to me that there was a local
authority boundary that had stopped the upstream storage, flood
meadow storage, and their village was hit as a result, that sort
of obstacle we have to address, and I believe that our national
flood framework and our national flood plan will do that. Again,
with permission, perhaps I could ask Martin to give some more
detail.
Mr Hurst: I think the basic point
is a very astute one, that, to be fair, government finds it easier
to do single sources of funding for single outcomes than it does
for multiple outcomes. I think we are addressing that with the
caveat on floods that, with many of the things we are talking
about, it is very hard to demonstrate a catchment-scale effect;
it is a local effect and you have to appraise it as such. If you
look, for example, at the way that the catchment flood management
plans from the Agency and the river basin management plans are
working together, so we take water quality and flood benefits
together, if you look at the way that Natural England are running
and developing environmental stewardship, which is using money
with landowners to deliver multiple outcomes, and if indeed you
look at the money on catchment-sensitive farming which Natural
England and the Environment Agency jointly deliver, these are
all examples where we are acutely aware of the need to bring agencies
together and work together for more than one outcome.
Chairman: Minister, there are a couple
of other small things which we will drop you a line about that
we would have liked to have asked you, but I am conscious of the
passage of time. May I thank you and your officials for your assistance
in helping us with our enquiries. We have had an unprecedented
response from members of the public and organisations from as
wide a field as local authorities to internal drainage boards;
it has certainly captured the public imagination. While we might
still have some public interest, I would just like to put on record
my personal appreciation on behalf of the Committee for the tremendous
interest and input that we have had on this particular inquiry.
I do not think I have known as much public interest on any inquiry,
certainly during my time on the Committee, as this particular
one. The BBC have also helped with the programme You and Yours
where they certainly exposed to a much wider audience the work
that a lot of people, including government and agencies, are undertaking
to try and deal with the very difficult situation on flooding,
so with those words of thanks I now draw to a conclusion this
last oral session. The Committee will soon be considering its
heads of report and I hope that it will not be too long before
we are able to produce our final thoughts, but the Committee are
now going into closed session to deal with another vexed issue,
namely our report on bovine TB. Thank you very much indeed for
coming and for contributing to our inquiry.
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