§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Studholme.]
§ 10.19 p.m.
§ Mr. Austen Albu (Edmonton)Floods, of which we have heard a great deal in the last year or two, are sometimes caused by acts of God, but many of them are due to acts of man, and the flooding in the borough of Edmonton to which I wish to call attention is very much due to acts of man in recent years.
The borough of Edmonton is part of that large area of Middlesex built up in the last thirty or forty years. It is on the side of the River Lee, an historical river where a severe defeat of the Danes took place many years ago. This river at one time was very wide indeed and always overflowed its banks, so that on both sides of it the land was extremely marshy. Edmonton itself is almost built on a watershed collecting the water from the nearby areas of Barnet and Enfield. The continual building up of these areas has meant that the water, instead of being able to seep into the ground and slowly drain away, is now collecting on roofs, and has to be drained off through the streams which drain the area.
1411 The area of Edmonton is drained by three brooks, which are partly culverted. There is the Sadler's Mill Stream, which joins the Salmon Brook. The Sadler's Mill Stream comes from Enfield and the Salmon. Brook from Enfield Chase. Thirdly, there is Pymmes Brook, which comes from Barnet. The Salmon Brook and Pymmes Brook join together very near the River Lee just by the Angel Road, which is probably better known as the North Circular Road.
Whenever there is a severe storm, either in Edmonton or in some of the areas for which it forms the watershed, the parts of Edmonton adjacent to one or other of these three streams suffer very severe flooding. The House will remember that on the night of 12th-13th June last we had a very severe thunderstorm. As a result, there was very severe flooding in Edmonton. Twelve roads were flooded, two surface water sewers collapsed, and 150 private houses were flooded, some to a depth of 2 ft. 6 in. There was very considerable loss of property and also a considerable danger to health. The danger to health was added to by the fact that the Middlesex County Council sewerage works, on the banks of the River Lee, were flooded.
Edmonton Borough Council estimates that the cost of the flooding to them on that occasion was in the neighbourhood of £1,500, but in addition to the damage done to private property and to the council amenities there was very serious industrial damage. It happens that the confluence of the Salmon Brook and Pymmes Brook is right in the middle of the main industrial area—one of the most important in North London—at the side of Angel Road. In particular, two companies, the British Oxygen Engineering Company and R. & A. Mains Limited, between whose works Pymmes Brook flows, suffered very badly. Edmonton Manufacturers' Association has estimated that the total loss, including the loss of output, from firms affected by this flood amounted to about £100,000. Although this was a particularly severe flood, flooding occurs from year to year.
The British Oxygen Engineering Company is engaged in very important work. Most people know that it makes welding equipment, but it is also engaged upon gas liquefaction and the manufacture of oxygen, some of which is very important 1412 for defence purposes. The foundations of its new design offices were flooded on this occasion and it estimates the loss on this account alone to be between £2,000 and £3,000. R. & A. Mains Limited, the well-known manufacturers of gas cookers and refrigerators, suffered physical damage of nearly £7,000 to their works, and they are having to take very special measures to deal with this.
The responsibility for the main drainage of this area is that of the Lee Conservancy Catchment Board, with whom I have discussed this matter, as has the Edmonton Borough Council. The Lee Conservancy Board has a very old history. If the Minister looks up the Acts he will see that they still refer to the Act of 1570, in the reign of Her Gracious Majesty Elizabeth I. That Act was introduced for bringing the river of Lee to the north side of the City of London. Since then the Lee Conservancy Board has had its catchment duties added to it, and we are concerned with them tonight.
There is general agreement that a complete cure of the conditions of these three streams is not possible until the completion of the whole of the planned works on the main watercourse, that is to say, the River Lee and the ancillary channels which are being built under the authorisation of the 1938 Act. These channels run—or are intended to run—from just below Edmonton right down to the Thames, and although parts have already been commenced, very important parts, including the one immediately south of Edmonton down to Walthamstow, is not yet started.
It is generally agreed that, unless these important works are dealt with, the flooding will be carried further downstream and other boroughs will suffer; but the Board has, as a matter of fact, included in its capital investment programme for 1955–56 important works on Pymmes Brook, which, I understand, have just received authorisation for the current year. However, it is admitted that this improvement will not deal with flooding under all conditions, because these floods have many causes. Sometimes they arise within the area itself, and sometimes in areas higher upstream. The Board says that this improvement will not in itself deal with all circumstances, and that, in some cases, it will have to close the channels and allow the flooding to take place at Edmonton, 1413 rather than that it should take place lower down.
I suggest to the Minister that the speed of this development is much too slow. I do not think that the capital expenditure allowed to the Board is anything near high enough, and I am not now talking of the grants made by the Ministry, but the annual rate at which it may spend those grants. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will not say that the Board has not, in fact, in recent years been able to spend the whole of the grants annually made to it, or, rather, the whole of the amount which it has been allowed to spend, because, although that may be perfectly true, it raises the whole problem of the very method by which the grants are made.
Approval for these capital grants is made annually, and, as a rule, the annual capital programme is approved in January. I understand that the Board has just received approval for next year's programme; that is, of course, for the financial year which commences at the beginning of April. This leaves quite insufficient time for it to prepare all the work necessary for placing contracts and all the other things associated with this particular job. The Board has to keep within the total amount allowed annually, or, otherwise, the surplus is merely taken off the succeeding year.
As a result, the Board is very limited in its outlook on these very substantial works, and I am not only referring now to local works but also to the main improvement works. For instance, it is not possible for the Board to recruit the necessary technical staff for a long-term programme. It is perfectly true that every year the Minister asks for its programme for five years ahead, but the Board is not given any assurance of any approval beyond one year and it can only deal with the programme for that one year.
I suggest that this is not the way to carry out large capital works of this kind, and that it is obviously having a very inhibiting effect on the Board, which desires to go ahead and recruit staff and carry out the many other tasks necessary before it gets the work started. The Board is always limited to the work to be done in a single year. I therefore suggest that this is a very good case for a continuing grant; that is to say, a guaranteed annual 1414 amount for a period of five years, or, at any rate, some reasonable period, with a minimum of three years, though I would suggest five years. This would not be a novelty in our methods of voting money. The University Grants Committee receives it in that way, and so does the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, while the British Institute of Management gets a four-year promise and the British Standards Institution a three-year promise.
In case the Minister should hold it against me that I have for many years been a member of the Select Committee on Estimates, which is generally concerned to ensure that public money is not wasted, or, at any rate, is economically spent, may I make it clear that on a number of occasions the Estimates Committee recommended continuing grants as a more economical way of spending money for capital works? In 1951–52, the Estimates Committee recommended such a procedure for B.B.C. external services. In 1952–53, it was recommended for research for defence purposes. Again, in 1952–53, it was recommended for school building programmes, and last Session it was recommended for capital works for agricultural research.
The present hand-to-mouth arrangement is quite inadequate. We need very much more drive if we are to get these works completed within a reasonable time. We fully understand that a quinquennial grant does not mean that the Board would get a grant which it could spend as it liked over a period of five years. But it would be a promise that the Minister and the Treasury would bring before Parliament annually a sum of a particular size which the Board could rest assured that it would get.
This would enable the Board to plan ahead, to engage the necessary staff, to enter into the many negotiations which it is by statute bound to enter into with a large number of other bodies, particularly for the purpose of compulsory purchase and for the discussions which it has to have with the local authorities, the Metropolitan Water Board, and bodies of that sort. It would also enable the Board to place contracts on a much more economical basis.
I realise that this business of land drainage in our towns is a very small 1415 part of the responsibility of that vast organisation the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, but I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary and his right hon. Friend will consider this matter of sufficient seriousness to press the Treasury for this change in the method of the approval of the amounts to be spent annually on capital works.
I am quite convinced, as I think the Estimates Committee itself has over a number of years become more convinced, that for works of this nature a quinquennial grant leads to economy, and that the present system is not the most effective and economical way of carrying out works of that sort. If the Government really have confidence in the present economic conditions of the country, then they can easily afford to make promises of this nature. In addition to effecting economies, this would certainly save my constituents a great deal of suffering and financial loss.
§ 10.33 p.m.
§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (Mr. G. R. H. Nugent)May I begin by expressing my sympathy to the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) on the loss and suffering of his constituents last June? I realise what a bad time they had, and that, as he said, this flooding in Edmonton is, unfortunately, all too frequent an occurrence.
However, I think it would be fair to say that the flooding last June was something quite exceptional. Last summer itself was something, we hope, quite exceptional, and June was about the worst month of all. There had been a very heavy rainfall in June, so that the ground was rather saturated. There had been two inches of rain in the week preceding this flooding, which is a very heavy rainfall for this country. Then, that night, there were some very heavy storms, and the result was practically a 100 per cent. run-off. So that on top of the normal problems of the neighbourhood, we had abnormal rain. As I say, I express my sympathy to the hon. Gentleman and his constituents.
I liked the hon. Gentleman's reference to the inadequacy of the River Lee and its floodings, and his reference to legislation in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. But I could not help thinking that one 1416 would have to go back a good many years before one found a Minister of Agriculture answering for problems in Edmonton, because it is a goodish time since there were any green fields there.
It is, of course, the ending of the period of green fields, and as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, the building up of houses, roads, and so on, which has exacerbated this problem, and which causes the rapidity of the run-off which we now have. In the old days there was a large amount of agricultural land, which absorbed the rain. There is now an almost complete run-off and immediate discharge, and the result is a very sudden increase in the total volume of water flooding down. That has led to the problem that we are now facing.
As the hon. Member said, the Board has realised that this problem has been increasing year by year. It therefore came to Parliament in 1937 and got its Bill in 1938, enabling it to go in for a really comprehensive scheme to rectify the position. It was held up at the outset of the war; after the war it came along again, but in 1945 circumstances made it impossible to start then. Finally, it got permission in July, 1949, and was given approval for the first part of the scheme to start with a capital investment of £400,000 and a total of £2.4 million. At that time it had a grant of 33⅓ per cent. In August, 1950, the work was actually started.
The hon. Gentleman rightly said that the principle of all these schemes to deal with the flood water is to start at the bottom end of the stream and work back. If the work were started at the top, it would increase the flooding in the lower reaches. The Lee Conservancy started in the lower reaches of the river. It took the view that it would have to deal with the Pymmes Brook area, and as that is in the higher part it recognised that it would have to deal with it at the end. It intended that it would start it in 1955–56, but following the floods of last year, when, quite rightly, the Edmonton Borough Council called the attention of the Conservancy to the very serious conditions, the Lee Conservancy took another view of the matter. The Edmonton Borough Council sent a deputation, headed by its distinguished lady mayor, to my Ministry and asked us to be helpful and sympathetic.
1417 Shortly afterwards, the Lee Conservancy came along, and we agreed straight away to an extension of its immediate programme to include this work in the Pymmes Brook area. The programme now is that the main works shall go ahead as the hon. Gentleman has described, and that at the same time the work in the Pymmes Brook area shall go on, taking about three years. It recognises that there is a danger that doing the work in the Pymmes Brook area may cause greater flooding in the lower reaches, if there is an interval of a year or two before the work in the lower reaches is completed. Therefore it came to the decision to put regulating sluices at the bottom of Pymmes Brook, where it reaches the main river, so that when the main river is full the discharge at Pymmes Brook can be checked. One hopes that this work will be of considerable relief in the short term. As soon as the work in the lower reaches is completed it will, of course, be the complete answer. The Lee Conservancy is taking a very realistic view of what to do in this matter. Immediately it asked for an increase in its scheme and for a greater capital allocation for the year, and it is going ahead now on that programme.
My answer to the hon. Member's first specific criticism, in which he asked whether the work cannot be speeded up, is that the Lee Conservancy is the body in touch with local opinion and has representatives of the local borough councils and the county council upon it. They are the best judges of what can be done. This is an immensely complicated affair, as the hon. Member knows better that I do. There are many owners of property to negotiate with and bridges to be built for road and rail, and so on. There is a very great deal of negotiation as well as the construction work to be done, all this takes a long time.
As far as we are concerned, however, we have agreed readily to the Lee Conservancy's capital programmes as it has put them forward. The only allocations that we have been forced to reduce were those in 1952 and 1953, when there was a general reduction in capital allocation programmes, and in 1953 a shortage of steel; but since then, in 1954 and again for 1955 and 1956, we have agreed to all that the Conservancy has asked for.
The next point was whether the present arrangement was a handicap to the catch- 1418 ment board or river board concerned. I really do not think that it is. The Lee Conservancy comes every seven years with its capital investment programme and has given us its ideas of what it will be spending right up to 1959–60. The expected capital expenditure figures over these years are as follows: £259,000 in 1954–55, £371,000 in 1955–56, £438,000 in 1956–57, £493,000 in 1957–58, £381,000 in 1958–59 and £349,000 in 1959–60. The Lee Conservancy has submitted the whole of that programme to us, and we have said that we agree to it in principle, that this is the right way to tackle it, and that this is broadly the sort of programme of which we can approve. But we cannot go further, and the hon. Member does not expect us to go further, than approving the actual amount year by year.
As the hon. Member recognises, Parliament must approve the actual annual expenditure which we carry on our Vote. We cannot specifically commit ourselves to these amounts every year. All we can say is, "We agree to this in general principle and, other things being equal, you will probably get something like this."
§ Mr. AlbuDoes that mean that the Lee Conservancy can take that as being as much of a promise as the University Grants Committee can take its promise?
§ Mr. NugentI cannot comment on that, because I have never had to deal with the U.G.C., but we deal with river boards all over the country and I can give the hon. Member this assurance. They sometimes make their major programmes over a period of five or seven years, and they must plan ahead, engage additional staff and make their contracts in the expectation that the Government will continue to grant-aid them on the schemes that they have put forward.
But if something unexpected happens, if a crisis or calamity strikes the country, the programme may have to be modified. Even then, our normal practice is not to cut down the major schemes that are in full swing but rather to put the brakes on those that are being started. We do everything we can to help river boards and conservancies to go ahead with the major schemes. I assure the hon. Member that our method of dealing with the matter is really what he is asking for.
1419 We approve the whole programme in principle, and then year by year we approve the specific amounts.
As it happens, we have been able to increase the rate of grant from 33⅓ per cent. to 50 per cent., because the basis of assessment is the income of the particular river board, on the one hand, and its liabilities, on the other hand. As the loan charges have risen, we have been able to assess them on a different basis and so give more help by putting up the rate to a 50 per cent. grant.
We realise the urgency that is involved and how much people have suffered, not only in Edmonton but in other areas, and we wish to push on with this work as fast as we can. The Lee Conservancy is well aware of the urgency of the work but has some most complex problems to deal with and difficult negotiations in securing the property it wants, as well 1420 as the engineering work, and it is doing it, I think, as expeditiously as possible. We are not in any way holding the Conservancy back. Now, our circumstances nationally allow us to agree to the full allocation that it wants.
I am quite sure that our method of doing it year by year, agreeing in general principle with the scheme, does not handicap them and in no way prevents them from placing contracts, planning ahead and engaging staff where they see the necessity to do so. I hope the hon. Gentleman will be reassured that we are trying to assist the unfortunate citizens of Edmonton, and I hope that we shall not have such unfortunate circumstances again before the new work is done.
§ Adjourned accordingly at a quarter to Eleven o'clock.