John Redwood

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Flood Damage

At the weekend John Redwood went around his constituency of Wokingham to assess the impact of the recent flooding, which has left houses without electricity, several families in need of re-housing for the next few months, and resulted in the closure of Emmbrook School. Several Councillors have also visited people affected by the floods in their own wards and sent reports to John.

Having witnessed the damage, John Redwood yesterday asked the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to look at why several recent housing developments in his constituency had experienced flooding. In approving these developments, Mr Redwood said, the government and the Environment Agency had failed to insist on the adequate provision of drains and ditches to protect these new home owners, and he asked the Secretary of State to investigate this failure. [See item 1, from Hansard, below].

Mr Redwood will also continue to press the government on why, despite early warnings from the Met Office about the likelihood of a wet summer, in addition to concerns raised by him and others over the past few years about the risks of flooding, neither they nor the Environment Agency appeared at all prepared for what happened. People need to know exactly what the government is going to do in the future to stop this happening again.

From his tour of Wokingham and West Berkshire it was clear that the worst affected areas were entirely predictable – low lying roads and homes on land near rivers. The government and its Environment Agency should do more to divert water and put in place suitable barriers near homes and important public infrastructure.

John Redwood has been concerned about flood defence for some time, and has continually warned Ministers about the likely consequences of inadequate maintenance and lack of capacity.   On two occasions earlier this month he highlighted the Agency’s unsatisfactory record in maintaining flood defences. [See items 2 and 3 below].

Over the previous few years John Redwood has asked successive ministerial teams to give urgent attention to the need to replace or strengthen the Thames barrier in the immediate future, and to look at the efficacy of coastal defences in general. [See items 4-10 below].

Item 1 [Hansard, 23rd July 2007]:

Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): Will the Secretary of State look at why several recent developments of homes in my constituency have been flooded, and will he ask why the Environment Agency did not insist on more adequate drainage and ditches when the developments were being put in place, to protect new owners from that terrible shock?

Hilary Benn: As the right hon. Gentleman will have heard in answer to an earlier question, we have now given the Environment Agency a much stronger position in the process by requiring it to be statutorily consulted when new planning applications come in. We have tightened the planning guidance—both in 2001 and in 2006—by further strengthening it to make it clear to local authorities that in the end, the planning authority has the responsibility for ensuring that it has weighed up all the risks before deciding to give planning permission.

Item 2 [Hansard, 9th July 2007]:

Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): Why were more than half the flood defences maintained by the Environment Agency in an unsatisfactory condition last year? What urgent action will the Government take to improve the standards of maintenance carried out by the agency, and to do the most important capital works to increase capacity where people are most at risk?

Hazel Blears: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the events of the past couple of weeks have in everybody’s terms been unprecedented. It is inevitable that whatever the defences we had put in place some would be breached in such circumstances. As I have explained, a significant amount of extra investment has already been made in flood defences, and even more will be put in during the next couple of years.

Rightly, the right hon. Gentleman calls for urgent action. We all want action to be taken as quickly as possible, but it is important that extra investment is targeted at the areas where it will have the most effect, and where we will get the best value for money. It is without doubt that there is a significant amount of investment, which I hope will help in future, but it would be tempting fate for any Minister to stand at this Dispatch Box and say that we could have prepared for what has been a series of unprecedented events.

Item 3 [Hansard, 2nd July 2007]:

Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): Will the Secretary of State tell the Environment Agency that people expect it to maintain its flood defences to a good standard, which it does not, and to improve those defences to stop flooding, rather than putting people’s homes on a map of properties at risk, which makes it very dear to insure them?

Hilary Benn: I am sure that the Environment Agency would say that it does its best to make sure not only that new flood defences are provided, but that the existing ones are properly maintained. If the right hon. Gentleman has concerns about particular flood defences where he thinks that that is not the case, will he please draw them to my attention and I will raise them with the Environment Agency?

Item 4 [Hansard, 19th July, 2007]:

Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): Will the new ministerial team urgently look at the need to strengthen or replace the Thames barrier at some point in the next decade, as current predictions are that its design-life probably will not extend beyond 2020 at the latest? Given the pressures from flooding risks and the Government’s worries about global warming, is there not an urgent need to manage the consequences of such developments, and could we not link a new barrier to reclaiming land from the estuary so that we create valuable land for building?

Mr. Woolas (Minister for the Environment): The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the defences, and that is being considered. All those issues are a question of balance. Judgments have to be made on the types of defences and where they should be. We should not confuse—I know that he is not doing so—the need to protect against floods and the various causes of floods and coastal erosion, which has already been mentioned as it affects the eastern region.

Item 5 [Hansard, 23rd April 2007]:

Mr. Redwood: Under this part of the amendment, does the hon. Gentleman agree that the two most important steps that we must take to adapt—I agree with him that that is what we must do—are to collect more of the water that falls when it rains to use during the dry periods, and to have better coastal defences, especially to protect the 7 million people in the London area, because we are told that the Thames barrier will soon no longer be fit for purpose?

Rob Marris [Finance Minister]: I entirely agree. The right hon. Gentleman foreshadows remarks that I was about to make on building adapted homes—zero-carbon homes, for which there are fiscal incentives in the Finance Bill. However, I am not aware that there are any fiscal incentives—in this Bill, or previously—to deal with matters such as those that he refers to.

Item 6 [Hansard, 12th October, 2006]:

Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): Even if Britain is miraculously good at controlling its carbon emissions, the fact is that we are not going to control the world’s carbon emissions. As that is the reality, should we not turn our prime attention to how we protect our coastal and low-lying areas with sea defences?

Item 7 [Hansard, 8th June 2006]:

Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): Can we have an early debate on management of the likely consequences of climate change, which would allow us to look into the use of desalination plants, such as the one proposed for Beckton, for more water resources and better coastal protection? Otherwise, the welcome for the Olympic games in Britain will be, “Don’t shower while you’re here. These are the dirty games. There’s no water to wash—but be careful in case there’s a flood”.

Mr. Straw : The Olympic games will be a triumph for the United Kingdom— [Interruption.]—and for all the parties who have supported it over the years on a bipartisan basis. We have had plenty of debates on climate change, but I strongly take note of what the right hon. Gentleman said.

Item 9 [Hansard, Written Answers, 28th Jan 2003]

Mr. Redwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what guidance she has issued to the Environment Agency concerning priorities for capital projects to tackle flooding. [93601]

Mr. Morley: In order to be eligible for DEFRA grant aid a capital flood defence project must satisfy fundamental economic, technical and environmental criteria and achieve an appropriate priority score based (from April 2003) on a combination of three elements—(i) benefits as compared to cost, (ii) the number of people protected as measured by the number of households at risk, their vulnerability and the extent to which adequate advance warning of flooding can be given, and (iii) environmental protection and enhancement.

Item 10 [Hansard, Written Answers, 20th November 2002]

(1) Mr. Redwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the impact on home values and insurance costs of the published maps of the Environment Agency showing properties at risk of flooding. [81025]

Mr. Morley (DEFRA): No assessment has been made of the impact of these maps on insurance costs. The Environment Agency have always made it clear that their maps show the indicative floodplain area, not flood risk or definitive flood boundaries, and are based on land topography taking no account of the defences which are in place. The insurance industry is aware of this, and of the need to use the maps with considerable caution.

It is advisable for any prospective purchaser of a property on a flood plain to obtain further specific detail of flooding risk from the Environment Agency. This should be done as part of the normal conveyancing process.

The agency are developing a National Flood and Coastal Defence Database, with funding from Defra. The aim of the project is to provide a single, easily accessible definitive store for all data on flood and coastal defences which should assist insurers when making commercial decisions based on risk. Additionally, new maps indicating flood risk are being developed, to which the insurance industry will have access.

(2) Mr. Redwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the Department's budget is for flood relief measures in 2002–03. [81017]

Mr. Morley: Following a recent re-allocation of budgets within Defra, those for funding of flood and coastal defence measures undertaken by operating authorities have been increased to £124 million. Defra also provides funding of £4.5 million for the Storm Tide Forecasting Service and £2.5 million on research and development.