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Mr. Drew: I thank the hon. Gentleman, although he has pulled the rug from under me, because the nub of what I am trying to say is that unless there is a clear statutory duty, there will always be a danger that fire and rescue services will not have the resources, equipment or trained personnel to intervene as we all know they would want to. That is why the Bill is seen as an appropriate vehicle for giving clear guidance to each fire and rescue authority on the need to equip its people to do the job.
The purpose of amendments 24, 25, 27 and 26 is to list the appropriate places in the Bill where we feel that the fire and rescue service should be added as an organisation with a part to play in dealing with flooding. More than anything, we are talking about how the operation of fire and rescue services is about looking at how to deal with flood risk and the different management strategies needed to do so. To be fair, DEFRA recognises
that, and to some extent we are highlighting the fact that this is a cross-departmental issue. As I will explain in a minute, other Departments perhaps ought to be listening to the lead that DEFRA is giving, to ensure that fire and rescue services are properly placed to deal with the problems that we have already identified and that we all know about.
Let me deal with the current situation. My hon. Friends and I believe that the current law is incoherent. Fire and rescue authorities have to plan to deal with floods. They have the power to respond, but they do not have a duty to do so. The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 gives fire and rescue authorities duties in respect of emergencies, including flooding. Those duties include assessing the risks of emergencies and planning not only to prevent them but to reduce, control and mitigate their effects.
The Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 gave fire and rescue services the ability to respond to eventualities other than fires and road traffic accidents, which could imply that flooding was included. However, then there was a problem, because the Department for Communities and Local Government effectively did a U-turn in March 2007, when it published the Fire and Rescue Services (Emergencies) (England) Order 2007, which did not include flooding. At the very least, therefore, there is confusion about the role of fire and rescue services in flooding.
Lembit Öpik: The hon. Gentleman knows more than most about how important it is to get such matters right. I am listening to his argument, but on the point that he has just made, is he implying that that confusion creates a risk that although fire and rescue services will always go to the aid of people in need, they might not have the resources to do so? Is his assumption that if his amendments were passed, the resources required to give the appropriate support around the country would follow on from the legislation?
Mr. Drew: It is the duty of the fire and rescue authorities to provide that equipment, the skills and the capacity for the fire and rescue services to react to flooding, just as they are expected to respond to fires and vehicle accidents.
I shall not labour the point, but in recent history we have some good examples of fire and rescue services being employed to their full capacity in Gloucestershire, Sheffield, and more recently Cumbria. It is clear that although that may not be normal-in these days of climate change, we are not quite sure what normality means-it is an important part of the fire and rescue services' precautionary provision. That is not just local provision. In episodes of flooding such as those in Cumbria and Gloucestershire, fire and rescue services are brought in from many other brigades. Such is the scale of the disaster that that level of response is needed.
My hon. Friends and I seek to put into the Bill what Pitt refers to throughout the report. The key part of the report is recommendation 39, which states:
"The Government should urgently put in place a fully funded national capability for flood rescue with Fire and Rescue Authorities playing a leading role, underpinned as necessary by a statutory duty."
One could say that that was slightly equivocal, but I take it to be, as near as dammit, a statement that there should be a statutory duty. Pitt subsequently argued:
"It is equally a matter of the fundamental principles underpinning this Review. . . which is to give clear and unambiguous direction-giving certainty where there is doubt-that the systems currently in place, or those otherwise proposed, will provide the desired outcome. We must be clear about who does what to ensure that people and organisations are held to account, structures are simple and outcomes are more certain."
In the recent Cumbrian disasters, as we know, the fire and rescue services were to the fore. I do not think it would be speaking out of turn to say that in discussions that I have had with my hon. Friend the Minister, that is held up as a good example of integrated working. I have no reason to deny that, although we have not yet had the wash-up-sorry about the pun-from those disasters to see what was learned and what could be done differently. From talking to some of the firefighters who were involved in the Cumbrian episode, I understand that there were issues concerning equipment and how they were to get access to it. I shall give a couple of examples.
In the Cumbrian floods in November 2009, according to the current edition of Firefighter, there were 64 sets of swiftwater rescue personal protective equipment. When the floods first broke, a Whitehaven crew fully trained in swiftwater rescue could not carry out its duties: in the safety-critical period when the floods first hit, there were no dry suits for them to wear. Crews who had not been trained for water rescue had to put on the dry suits that were available and take to the water, leaving the SWR-trained crew high and dry.
In the great scheme of things, that does not seem to be an issue on which we should legislate, but as I and others have said, this is life and death stuff. In a sense, it is more important than legislation. It is about what people do in a crisis, when they know that they have to get the equipment and the right people in place, and exercise their judgment about how to operate safely for themselves and have the greatest impact on those whom they are there to save and rescue.
I hope my hon. Friend understands that this is not necessarily the only chance to get the legislation right. There is a germ of truth in what the hon. Member for Vale of York says when she asks whether this is the appropriate place to try to change the law. I am open to suggestions on that subject, but we should not miss the opportunity to clarify the role of the fire and rescue services. We know that episodes of flooding occur all too frequently. The role of the fire and rescue services is clearly central to what happens in such emergencies. We must ensure that the fire and rescue services are properly equipped and trained and have the capacity to operate in the most effective manner. Making it a duty to ensure that would be the best way of achieving it.
Those who saw what happened in Gloucestershire have nothing but admiration for people who undertook the most dangerous jobs. My son-in-law is a retained firefighter, so I have to be a bit careful. I am not declaring an interest. Firefighters save lives and have to make the judgment calls that some of us talk about but are never required to make. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will listen to what my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington might say about ways forward, if he is called to speak. This is a serious subject, and I hope it will be treated seriously by the
Government. As we have a listening Minister who has performed admirably in improving the Bill, I hope that our new clause will be another change that we can get into statute, making a good Bill even better.
Mr. Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con): It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) who, as I am sure the House would agree, has spoken a good deal of sense about the fire and rescue services, who performed heroically in Gloucestershire in 2007, and continue to do so.
It is probably unusual for a Front-Bench spokesman on one Department to serve on a Bill in the sphere of another Department, but when I was asked to do that for the Committee stage I did it willingly, because the Bill is so important to my constituency.
When the Minister spoke for the first time this evening, he talked about the Bill rather more enthusiastically than I might do. I do not think it is quite the wonderful Bill that he described. It is certainly welcome, and a move in the right direction, and it puts the issue on the agenda for discussion. That is to be welcomed, but I regret that we were not able to win more votes on amendments in Committee. I would like us to strengthen the Bill tonight. Although it is welcome and contains nothing to disapprove of, there is not enough in it to make the kind of difference that I would like to see.
Lembit Öpik: Although we must not deviate too far from the amendment, does the hon. Gentleman agree that these and other amendments seek to improve things at the margins, but fundamentally in his constituency, in mine and in that of the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), there is a profoundly serious issue that probably needs upstream management, and which is beyond the scope of the amendments under discussion, but to which we will undoubtedly have to return if there is a repeat of the 2007 floods?
Mr. Robertson: The hon. Gentleman is correct. I hope that we will return to that issue soon-although it would have to be after the general election. We should treat the Bill-or Act, as it will then be-as a working document and a good start, but as something that we need to improve on. There is nothing wrong with that; we have to start somewhere. I do not mean to be over-critical of it, but I would rather see it improved in certain ways now.
We have heard a lot about floods occurring once in 100 or 200 years-or, in respect of the north-west floods of a few months ago, once in 1,000 years. I do not think that we can speak in those terms, as I do not believe that floods have been recorded for 1,000 years, in which case we cannot say how often they have occurred over a 1,000-year period. In view of climate change, which we discuss in one form or another every day, we cannot assume that weather patterns will be the same in the future as they have been in the past.
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The point is that we must do everything we can to prepare our areas for flooding. My own area of Tewkesbury floods regularly. It has been flooded in the past couple of weeks, and the roads as well as the fields near the famous Mythe waterworks, close to where I live, have flooded. It does not always make the news because it
happens so often. It is something that we have to live with regularly. Living at the confluence of two rivers, the Severn and the Avon, we know that we are going to flood every so often. What we request of the Government is that they do not make matters worse-for example, by building too many houses in the wrong place. Also, where it is possible to adopt measures to improve matters, we should do so.
I shall speak briefly to three amending provisions proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh), the first of which is new clause 2, dealing with the Environment Agency and the maintenance of main watercourses. We had major floods two and a half years ago, and afterwards, of course, there was a lot of wisdom: we then saw many drains and culverts in disrepair, ditches and streams that had not been cleared out, how much work could and should have been done on the rivers, and so forth. Although we have to repair the damage-that has been done throughout my constituency-we should follow a principle of maintaining the waterways. It is the same principle as having our car serviced at regular intervals rather than waiting for it to break down. Servicing should happen so that there is less chance of it breaking down again. Even with the car, we cannot entirely rule out a further breakdown, but servicing should make it less likely and if it does break down, the damage should not be so bad if proper maintenance has taken place. It is crucial to stress to the Environment Agency and other bodies responsible for waterways that we must have regular maintenance.
As I said, we found many examples in my constituency of where the situation could have been better-or less bad, which is probably a better way of putting it. The village of Prestbury, which contains the great Cheltenham race course and falls within my constituency, saw flooding not only in July 2007, but earlier in June 2007. I visited people who told me that they had lived there for 40 years, yet never experienced flooding before. I thought that that was rather odd as the area contains houses and streets that flood quite a lot, but it seemed not to have happened in this particular place until June 2007. I then realised that a housing estate had been built on what I consider to be an inappropriate place, which no doubt contributed to the flooding further down the road. I also discovered that two culverts had been put in, supposedly to take the water away, but-unbelievably-they had not been joined up. One culvert had become damaged, but had not been fixed. That is a good example of how a lack of maintenance and a lack of proper planning can make matters so much worse. I thus endorse new clause 2 and what my hon. Friend said about it.
Mr. Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con): I also support new clause 2, but does my hon. Friend agree that it would be better if it provided for quarterly maintenance and annual reports to Parliament rather than the other way around?
Mr. Robertson:
Perhaps I should ask my right hon. Friend to discuss that point with my hon. Friend. I think that he probably makes a good point, and he reinforces the principle that we need regular maintenance and reports to tell us what is going on. We certainly need those reports, as it is so easy for people not to maintain things and for us not to know about it. I return to the car analogy: if we do not have our car serviced at
the right time, it may not necessarily break down next week, but it might well do so not long after that. If we do not know that regular maintenance has been done, we will be heading for problems.
New clause 9 is important and would require the Secretary of State to assess the "staff, equipment and resources" that the Environment Agency possesses in order to implement the Bill's provisions. One problem I had during the floods of 2007-I am sure that other hon. Members did, too-was trying to establish who was responsible for what and for which watercourses. This may go slightly beyond the scope of the amendments, but once we had discovered who was responsible for what, getting them fixed became the next problem, as we were told that they did not have the money. It would be good if the new clause were adopted because the Secretary of State would know whether the Environment Agency had the resources necessary to deal with the problems-not only the daily ones, but the further issues with which the EA is now required to engage and for which it must prepare a strategy.
It would be folly and dangerous to go ahead without ensuring that the Environment Agency had the necessary resources. It has to prepare a strategy and then implement it, and if it needs £x to do so, but it gets only £x minus 10 per cent. or 20 per cent., the shortfall might prevent it from delivering the strategy. The same problem could arise with the lead flood authorities-in other words, county councils-which must have the resources to make them confident enough to prepare the strategy that is necessary, not a reduced one.
Lembit Öpik: The point about responsibility is important. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Environment Agency has at times wanted to intervene to prevent the building of houses, for example, but lacked the authority to impose its will? That is one of the problems that arises without clear delineation. Is he saying that in supporting this part of the new clause, he wants both resources and jurisdiction clearly defined so that we avoid ending up in the mess we had 10 or 15 years ago?
Mr. Robertson: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. It reminds me of another incident in my constituency, which provides an analogy. A chemical factory exploded; the Environment Agency was monitoring it. We all knew it was dangerous and said so at the time. I visited the site and came away not feeling at all well, and I made that clear to the agency. However, it was rather frightened that it did not have the power, the clout, the ability or the confidence to deal with the problem. That factory exploded in October 2000, leaving many people unwell as a result. We got rid of the factory; it left my constituency. The Environment Agency was very concerned about being taken to court by the company if it carried out certain actions that everyone in the area knew should have been done. The explosion proved us right: we were not scaremongering; it could have killed people. A couple of days after the explosion, it was, amazingly, flooded. It is a big issue. I would like to see the Environment Agency's role more clearly defined, and if it is given more responsibilities and powers, it will need more resources.
That brings me to amendment 5, which adopts a similar philosophy in seeking to ensure that local authorities are properly financed for "training and equipment costs" and that their ability to carry out what they need to carry out is laid before Parliament. There is considerable concern among local authorities about being given extra responsibilities, duties and powers without the concomitant funding. As my hon. Friend mentioned, we are not entirely convinced that the appropriate amount of money will be given to local authorities. The Minister did his best in Committee to assure us that there would be enough; I just hope that that is the case. The main planks of the Bill are that the Environment Agency shall prepare a strategy and implement it, and that the lead local funding authority shall prepare a strategy and implement it. If those strategies are to be effective, they are going to require the confidence of having the necessary resources provided.
With those few remarks, I support my hon. Friend in respect of new clauses 2 and 9 and amendment 5.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab): I support the proposals of my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) and others.
During this and a number of other Sessions I have found it difficult to support some of what the Government have done, but I fully support this Bill, and I commend the Minister on what has been a model process in many respects. The genesis of the Bill lies in the floods of 2007, which affected a number of hon. Members personally. They stood by their constituents and worked hard on their behalf, and I remember the Government's response as well. Ministers made visits within hours of the floods being seen as major disasters, as they did at the time of the Cumbria floods last year. They talked to people on the ground, and soon afterwards instigated the reviews that led to this Bill.
Sir Michael Pitt did an excellent job in conducting his review. His recommendations to the Government were very explicit. As was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud, who quoted from the report, what Pitt wanted was absolute clarity about the legal responsibilities and duties relating to flooding, which is why he strongly recommended that a legal duty should be placed on the relevant authority.
Along with my hon. Friend and other hon. Members, I work with members of the Fire Brigades Union. At the time of the floods we heard about not just the heroism of firefighters and others, but the constraints that hampered them and the problems that they encountered. The issue that arose time and again was the need-as echoed in the Pitt report-for absolute clarity about their responsibilities and the duties placed on fire authorities. So far so good, but when the legislation was produced, my colleagues and I were disappointed to note that it made no reference to those duties. The legislation is appropriate, but I fear that if we do not include that duty now, we shall not have an opportunity to include it for some time. How often does a Bill of this kind appear?
Notwithstanding all our commendations of those who were involved in the Cumbria experience, from firefighters to local authorities and others, I have to say-again echoing my hon. Friend, along with reports that we received from firefighters-that there was concern at the time about lack of equipment and training. There
was also concern about co-ordination, although I agree with the Minister that that seems to have improved dramatically. Firefighters turned up and found that the necessary equipment was not there or that the equipment was not appropriate, or in the wrong place. That is why I believe that the Pitt recommendations should be installed in the Bill, and that a duty should be placed on fire and rescue authorities to provide for major flooding incidents.
Mr. Greg Knight: Was the hon. Gentleman in the House on 15 December last year for the Second Reading debate? When I intervened on the Secretary of State to ask him when he would implement the Pitt recommendations by giving the fire service a statutory duty, he said that he did not think it necessary because, in his view, it provided a good service. Does the hon. Gentleman not consider that complacent in the extreme?
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