HC Deb 20 December 1968 vol 775 cc1733-47

12.15 p.m.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon (York)

The title of this debate is the prevention of flooding, which may be considered by some to be a somewhat inappropriate title for the problem of flooding, since it may be asked how one prevents flooding, which is an act of God. "Act of God" is a legal term which is clearly defined in our law. If something happens as a result of an act of nature which is completely unforeseeable, that is an act of God. But if it happens time and again, it is no longer an act of God; it is an act of negligence on the part of those who have to control the forces of nature, because it is clearly foreseeable. The question then arises whether the cost of prevention is balanced by the risk involved. The problem of flooding has reached the stage at which we must now consider the latter question.

No one representing my constituency can be unaware of the problems of flooding. York is built on an alluvial plain which has been subject to flooding for centuries. The people in my constituency have grown almost used to the occurrence of flooding at regular periods. Any visitor to the constituency who sees the walls around York may think that they are not fully intact. There are large gaps in the walls where in the Middle Ages the whole area was marshland. Now that the water table has fallen and the area is dry, it looks as thought there is a breach in the walls.

What impressed me recently at one of my "surgeries" when I was considering a constituency case was that the incidence of flooding has increased both in regularity and in gravity. Since this is the pattern throughout the country, I have asked for this debate—and I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity of raising this subject—so that we can consider the policy on preventing flooding.

The case to which I refer came from an elderly lady who had lived in her little bungalow in York for 10 years. For the first eight years she had never been flooded from the beck which runs at the bottom of her garden. Over the last two years, on about 25 nights, she has tried to bail out the water which was rising under her floorboards. She was in indifferent health, and this constant worry about whether her home would be flooded when she went to bed was causing grave damage to her health.

There, in a simple case, is both the poignancy and the suffering caused by flooding. This is not a case of stark, grave headlines about people who have lost their lives or their homes. This is the constant pattern of life for those subject to this problem. Since the incidence of flooding is increasing, this problem must be faced.

The purpose of this debate is to ask the Government to appoint a Departmental committee or some other committee to consider the present threat of flooding, the measures which might be taken to prevent the threat, and the cost of alternative measures. Clearly cost is a relevant factor. It has been said that we can prevent any floods if we are prepared to spend the money, and it may be that the country cannot afford to put this matter very high in its order of priorities. It ought also to be done as the result of a careful cost-benefit analysis. Land in our main urban centres which is constantly subjected to flooding is so expensive that it is a matter of concern to the areas that it cannot be used for building. It would benefit them considerably to know that the threat of flooding had been avoided except at the most excessive peak periods.

One of the difficulties is that statistics are not readily available. When the problem again arose in October, I wrote to my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and his letter—I hope I do not do him an injustice—suggested that he knows all and sees all but can do "nowt" about it—nothing that would be material to preventing the scale of flooding which occurred in York in October.

However, judging by the kind of information that I have obtained since taking an interest in the matter, it seems that there is a paucity of information about the degree of rainfall and the effects of alternative forms of flood prevention in different areas. I therefore have to rely on the figures for York, which I know, but it is clearly part of my case that, if a committee were appointed, it would be able to assemble statistics so that the nation would know and be able to judge. It is not sufficient for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to have the information. It is important that the country should also be able to judge what the threat is and what would be the cost of removing it, and it should be able to judge what order of priorities this should have in our public expenditure.

In York the river has risen 9 ft. above the summer level 53 times in the last 10 years. That indicates that the problem is not caused by the degree of rainfall. The number of times it has so risen in the individual years over the 10-year period is completely haphazard, and this is borne out by statistics that I have obtained from the Registrar-General's return and the Meteorological Office, which indicate that the pattern of rainfall in Great Britain over the past 10 years has not been markedly different in average from that between 1916 and 1950. The average over that period was 904 millimetres per annum, and, since then, while the figures have occasionally been higher and occasionally lower, the average has been about the same. All that goes to indicate that it is not the quantity of rain which necessarily causes the flooding.

Much more significant in the York figures is that, out of the 53 occasions when the river rose more than 9 ft., it rose above 13 ft.—this is the danger level, when houses are flooded—on seven occasions. In the years up to 1965 the river rose twice—once in three years—and from 1963 to 1965 once in two years to a height of more than 13 ft., but in 1965, 1966 and 1967 it rose above 13 ft. each year, and this year, for the first time for as long as I and most of my constituents can recollect—I suspect that it is probably unique—it rose above 13 ft.—indeed, about 14 ft. 5 in.—twice in the year. So over the years since 1958 the water has risen more than 13 ft. seven times, and of those seven occasions five were in the last three years, and of those five occasions two were in the last year.

I suggest that the problem is aggravated by the degree of run-off from the land. If water falls on ordinary agricultural or country land where there is no drainage, it tends to hold in the soil for a period and trickle through, and so the build-up in the rivers is not so quick. But as the result of the degree of drainage carried out in urban areas and on motorways and new roads—country roads are now being provided with drains so that the water does not run off into the land alongside—we are getting to a situation where the water can be in the river minutes or, at the most, hours after heavy rainfall.

Therefore, I submit that the cause is not that there has been an unusually high degree of rainfall but that we have now reached the situation where we are dealing quickly with the problem of getting rid of the rain and it is going into rivers which have been inadequately protected against a quick build-up of water. It is this which I believe is a major part of the problem. The Ministry believes that this is only a minor part of the problem; it recognises that it is a part but only a minor part. It says that, land drainage having been extended, we have dried out the land so that it is able to receive water and hold it for a longer period, so that the water does not just soak through waterlogged land. I do not accept this. I am no expert, but it seems to me, as a layman, that it is somewhat incredible. This is one of the things that I want a committee to consider. If land is not drained properly, it will dry out over the summer or over a period of dry weather, and water will, therefore, go through it in the same way as if it had been drained. The nature of drainage means that water will be removed from the land far more quickly in times of peak rainfall, and, in my view, this is causing much of the problem.

I should like to provide measures of flood prevention which will deal with this quick build-up, and I would provide them in relation to the amount of drainage that has been carried out in the area. Clearly, that requires information and a political policy about equating the amount of money spent on flood prevention with the amount of money spent on drainage. It might mean that those who want the drainage have to pay an appropriately higher rate towards the measure of flood prevention to protect other people living elsewhere who will suffer as a result of the increased drainage. All that can be done only by a properly constituted committee with power to make such decisions or recommendations.

The problem in York, for example, is that the river collects water from a vast catchment area to the north and has to pass through a narrow gap formed by the river banks in the city. There are catchment areas on the plain itself which are known as wash lands. These are areas where the river can easily overflow its banks. The water can be held on this land for a little while. I should like to see a series of balancing reservoirs up the river from York to the point where the river rises.

My hon. Friend has indicated to me in a letter that this is a possibility only up in the hills, at the uttermost point of the river. This is because, I suppose, the topography of the area and the contours would allow dams to be built there but not lower down. But he misunderstands my point. I would like to see an extension of the wash land on the low point up the river. By building embankments at the side of the wash land one could raise the level of the water that could be stored there. By diverting some of the water off the river for a period and then letting it through sluice-gates, it could be released back into the river at controlled intervals so that one would be better able to control the flow than is possible at the moment.

I was attracted to this idea by a report by the Civic Trust in York, which suggested that the nearest wash land to York, at Clifton Ings, to the north, could be turned into a marina for boating if it were flooded. This idea could be used also for flood control. This great wash land is secured, to some extent, by an embankment carrying a road which also leads to a bridge across the river. If this could be extended further around the washland, so that the whole area could be higher for the reception of water, and possibly, even, if it could be dug out so that the depth of the lake could be lowered, one would have a greater capacity to hold the water.

It is true that this in itself would not materially affect the degree of flooding in York. It would hold some of the water but it would not be enough when one is considering heights of 14 ft. 6 ins., which we have had this year. What is required is a series of such works up the river. The question is, is it worth it? Is it not better simply to pull down the 200 houses which are regularly flooded?

Of course, those in the 200 houses on the whole would prefer to keep their houses, and the unfortunate thing is that the problem is spreading. Whereas only 200 houses in working-class areas were affected and were in any case at one stage due for slum clearance, flooding is now reaching new estates of bungalows and semi-detached houses on which people have taken out mortgages, and they are not to be easily persuaded that one could simply knock down their homes. If this incidence is to increase, will we have to remove a large number of my constituents from their homes in order to compensate for not flooding agricultural areas higher up the river? I recognise that a question of balance is involved. If we extend the wash land, it will impinge on someone's land. But which is worse—to flood homes in urban areas or flood land higher up which is used for agriculture?

I would not want to make that decision on my own. That is why I want a committee, a discussion about a policy, a rational political policy for a problem that is not unique to my area but is general throughout the country. The floods of the last few years have been caused not by excessive incidence of rain but, in my view, by excessive incidence of drainage and failure to take appropriate remedial action. It is that which I want to try to remedy. I realise that this is a long-term policy, so the sooner we get on with it the better.

I repeat that I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this matter, and I conclude by wishing "Happy Christmas", not only to you, Mr. Speaker, but to my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. I hope that, if Christmas is wet, it will not be because water is coming up through the floorboards.

Mr. Speaker

I remind hon. Members that the Minister will rise at 12.45 p.m. to reply.

12.35 p.m.

Mr. John Ellis (Bristol, North-West)

The House is indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) for this debate. Not many of us are present for it but it is, nevertheless, a subject well worth debating. My hon. Friend's was an exceptional speech which I followed throughout. It was cogently argued and I shall return to some of the points he raised.

Reports have been issued recently about possibilities of forecasting excessive rainfall in future. In The Observer of 22nd September, the science correspondent, Mr. John Davy, referred to advances being made by the Meteorological Office in relation to its new computer. I have no hesitation in saying that that new computer is needed and that it will prove a major advance in forecasting and in the degree of knowledge and information that it will be able to tackle.

But those of us who have studied this matter and been in contact with it for many years know that, from time to time during the past 50 years, many articles have been written telling us of what great advances there were to be in weather forecasting. They have included cloud satellites and so forth. They have predicted a new age in which we would know where every sunbeam would alight and where every raindrop would fall. I therefore strike a note of warning.

Rainfall is perhaps the most difficult thing of all to forecast for these islands, both in timing and in amount. My hon. Friend was right in saying, however, that it is not just a question of amount of rainfall but also of allied circumstances which dictate the conditions as to whether there will be flooding or not.

Figures are issued from time to time about soil moisture deficits. This is a high sounding title. It is, however, an important factor to be considered. Obviously the danger point in all flood situations comes when run-off occurs, when the land is no longer able to absorb it. For example, if there has been a period of very dry weather, the soil moisture deficit figure is quite apparent. The land can absorb quite a lot of rainfall, but flood conditions are always precipitated where there has been a lot of rain, the land is saturated and then there is more excessive rainfall.

One does not have to have in any given area a given amount of rainfall at any single time for flooding to occur. It may be that, in one area where the land is saturated, quite a moderate amount of rainfall—say, half an inch or an inch—can precipitate a flood, whereas, in another area, an inch or one and half inches of rainfall will bring no flooding and the situation will go unnoticed. It is for these reasons that, when we get reports of flooding, it is perhaps York which catches it or, in the circumstances of earlier this year, Bristol, because these local effects all come into play at the same time.

Of all the vicissitudes that affect the way of life of our people, it may be that flooding is the most serious. Fortunately not many people lose their lives, but, for example, in Bristol hundreds of older people were affected by the floods. They have reached an age when they have ordered their existence to prepare for old age and then a terrible disaster comes upon them and they have to organise all the cleaning up. Their possessions, built up over a lifetime, have been destroyed. This is something which they have never expected. This is a human tragedy that does not lend itself to newspaper reporting and is so pitiful when one comes into contact with it. For this reason we should carry this work forward as speedily as we can.

I am pleased to see here my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture. He is an amiable Minister. When I saw notice of the debate on the Order Paper I wondered who would appear before us. There are many people who are interested in this matter. The Meteorological Office comes under the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Agriculture is interested, the Home Office looks after the police and the Ministry of Transport has to keep the roads open. All these Ministries have a stake in it. I am now informed that the Department of Education and Science is also involved. It is preparing a long-term report, which we welcome and would like to know more about. My hon. Friend has recently had a conference to tackle this subject, and I hope that we shall hear about that. As so much interest has been shown, perhaps he will be able to furnish us with a report of what the conference was able to achieve.

My hon. Friend is from the Ministry of Agriculture and, naturally, he is orientated towards the farming community. As my hon. Friend said, over the years more and more drainage systems have been put in. This means that runoff occurs very rapidly. I have seen whole areas like this, acre after acre of fields; the drainage pipes all discharge, and this adds to the problem, and also to the problems of the farmers, as my hon. Friend will know. I lived in a little village in North Yorkshire and the man who had the river bottom land was always flooded because all his neighbours had put in land drainage systems with grants from the Ministry.

It is much worse when these local factors are exacerbated by the position we are in Bristol and also in York. In Bristol there is the Avon Gorge, which is very famous, crossed by the Clifton Suspension Bridge. The river is running out in exceedingly narrow confines and looping out in a bowl on the other side in circumstances where flooding can be disastrous—as it was. I should like to know from my hon. Friend when this drainage was implemented, since it cost a great deal of money, and at that time some thought should have been given to the effect of it.

If drainage is a serious matter, so is the other point. Whatever we may say about land drainage schemes, with new housing estates, the development of whole areas, if the soil does not take up water moisture very well, as of course will happen if the land is covered with acres of concrete, there will be no capacity to absorb the water. From time to time there are huge floods round our towns and major cities, and this also affects the position.

It is high time that there was an investigation into this, so that when unrelated developments occur, such as land drainage or town planning, some thought can be given to the results in terms of flooding. I strongly support the request of my hon. Friend for an inquiry, and I hope that it will be pressed forward as soon as possible.

12.45 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Mackie)

The hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Ellis) said that a tremendous number of Ministries were involved and wondered why it was left to the Ministry of Agriculture to reply to the debate. The reason is that the Ministry of Agriculture pays the piper and therefore calls the tune to a certain extent, and that is why I am here today.

In view of the events of this summer and autumn, this is a subject which is inevitably very much in the public mind. I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) for presenting his case so well and for providing the opportunity to discuss flooding and the prevention of flooding. I have visited many areas where flooding has taken place, and I have seen the damage done not only to farmland and industrial properties, but to individual houses, where most of it occurred. Older people were affected and in many cases people who are less well off than the rest of the community, and I have tremendous sympathy for them.

The hon. Member for York said that floods are no longer considered to be an act of God, that it was time we appreciated this and that something should be done about them. I take his point, but the most important problem is what can be done to prevent or mitigate further flooding.

I will first say a word about the flooding which occurred this year. The hon. Member pinpointed his own area of York.

There is little doubt what caused the floods. The rainfall both in July and September was phenomenal. Over a very wide area four to five inches fell in a few hours, and even heavier rainfall in a number of places, reaching as much as 8½ inches in 24 hours. Moreover, the September floods followed an exceptionally wet summer, so that these phenomenal rains fell on ground that was already saturated. When torrential rain fell on saturated ground, flooding was inevitable, as the quick run-off rapidly overfilled many rivers. Flooding was also caused by water rushing down hillsides on its way to rivers and also in many places by the inability of surface water sewers in the towns to cope with the dramatic run-off.

Both hon. Members dealt with the point of whether land will absorb more land water if it is not drained or if it is well drained. The best technical advice I have is that if the land is well drained, particularly in a wet year, it is bound to be a little dryer and will certainly absorb more water than if it is not drained and is completely saturated. My own experience as a farmer confirms this. I took a farm a dozen years ago where there were literally no drains. I have now drained much of it, and we have seen no big difference in the amount of runoff in the streams. The land held the water at least as much after the drains had been put in as before.

Of course, different circumstances arise each year. This year the land was saturated to some extent irrespective of whether it was drained or not; it could not possibly hold any more water, and it ran off much quicker. After a drying out period in a dry summer the situation is different. If hon. Members will take up this matter with technical people I am sure that they will find that land drainage does not affect the water-holding condition of the soil.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon

The argument of the hon. Gentleman is that this has been an exceptional year, but the figures do not suggest that this is true. The figures for the monthly average compare favourably with the annual average between 1916 and 1950.

Mr. Mackie

Monthly averages, indeed any averages, are difficult to deal with.

A chap with one foot in a refrigerator and the other in a fire on average should be comfortable. The average may not show excessive rainfall but during this period 8½ ins. fell in 24 hours.

I must say frankly that it would be almost impossible to eliminate the risk of flooding in circumstances as exceptional as those which I have described at least without expenditure which would be out of all proportion to the likely benefit. Moreover, if the money could be found, protection could be given in some areas only and, as my hon. Friend the Member for York has mentioned, at a cost of demolishing important businesses and residential areas and with considerable loss of amenity.

My hon. Friend has instanced his area in York. I can cite another area in Scotland, which I visited, where if the little stream running through the middle of the town were to be made to carry the water which fell on Southend in September this year, a wholesale demolition in the middle of the town would have been needed. Hon. Members must try to appreciate this.

That is not to say that nothing could be done, or that nothing is being done, to reduce the risk of flooding. My hon. Friend spoke about the people in his constituency having a choice—it would have to be a fairly major decision—between staying in their existing houses or having reservoirs on large areas of agricultural land outside the town. This is a very difficult subject to decide, but I will touch on it later.

River authorities and other drainage authorities which are responsible for undertaking flood prevention work have spent over £100 million on land drainage and flood protection works during the last 15 years. My Department has met a substantial part of this expenditure by way of grant. As I said earlier, that is why I am replying to the debate. Had it not been for major schemes in those years, the loss and damage would, in our opinion, have been far worse.

I cite the example of the West Country. Schemes at Tiverton, Taunton, Stoke Cannon and Porlock prevented serious flooding and, possibly, saved a lot of life also in the serious flooding in the West Country in July. Similarly in the South-East, flooding and danger was reduced or averted by major schemes on the rivers Lee, Chelmer, Crouch and Stour. Many other schemes are in progress.

There is, of course, a limit to the funds and resources available, but it is for river authorities to decide how these resources should be used in their area, and I have no doubt that in the light of their recent experiences they will be reexamine their capital works programmes to ensure that they have their priorities right. Those priorities would bring in the question of reservoirs and whether they would be a suitable form of protection considering the enormous expense and the loss of agricultural land. I am advised that in most areas where studies of the provision of reservoirs have taken place, the difference which they would make to flooding would be only minimal, a matter of inches. We must, therefore, be very careful how we spend the money in that way.

In that connection, river authorities will benefit in the longer term from a major research programme which is being undertaken by the Institute of Hydrology under the aegis of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. That is one of the Ministries that were brought in by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West. This research will increase our knowledge of flood frequencies and enable our engineers to design their flood prevention works with much more precision and, I hope, with much greater economy. I think that everyone will agree that where it is not possible to provide physical protection against flooding, it is important to try to ensure that people in vulnerable areas are given warning of flooding wherever this is possible.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West mentioned the question of forecasting the weather and how, at one time, we were promised that every ray of sunshine and every shower of rain would be forecast. This has not worked out as well as we thought. I told my hon. Friend some time ago of an occasion when we considered carefully whether we should put out a flood warning one morning, but decided against it, although we very nearly did it, and by two o'clock the sun was shining.

The experience of this year's floods has shown that the flood warning arrangements worked better in some areas than in others. I know that some authorities have already taken steps to extend and strengthen their flood warning systems as a result of experience of these floods. As the House will know, I convened a conference of experts, which met only last week, to consider how existing arrangements can be improved in the light of this year's experience. The conclusions of the conference were set out in a Press notice, a copy of which I have with me, and which is now available in the Library of the House.

The most important recommendation of that conference was that every river authority should now undertake a comprehensive review of its area to determine, in consultation with local authorities and the police, what extensions are desirable and feasible in the coverage of its flood warning arrangements to meet the needs of vulnerable communities and industries throughout its area. I hope that every river authority will set about this task immediately and with great care. My officers will be only too pleased to give river authorities any help and advice which they may need in this.

My hon. Friend has suggested that the floods pinpoint the need for a national committee to co-ordinate the planning of flood protection works. I cannot altogether agree that that would be appropriate. Flood protection works must be planned, not only on a national basis, but in relation to the catchments and basins of individual rivers. My hon. Friend the Member for York gave statistics of the various floods over the last few years and of the rises in the rivers. He showed from that how necessary it was that flood prevention work should be planned locally and not on a national basis. I recognise, however, the validity of his point that if we get reports from all over the country on what could best be done to prevent what happened this year, an internal committee to coordinate those reports might be worthwhile. I will certainly consider that suggestion.

I emphasise, however, that this is why land drainage and flood prevention is entrusted to river authorities which cover specific catchment areas. The river authorities are well informed, responsible bodies, representing the local authorities and other interests in their area. It is right that they, rather than a committee in Whitehall—I know that there is always criticism of any committee in Whitehall—should decide what work should be carried out in their catchment area and determine the order of priorities. They know, however, that they can call on my officers for advice whenever they need it.

I assure my hon. Friends the Members for York and for Bristol, North-West that we certainly will do all we can to help and to provide effective flood protection within the limits of the resources that it is decided to devote to that purpose and also, as I have emphasised, to improve the flood warning services, which in some areas did not work as well as in others.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for York for raising this matter and for his good wishes for this season of the year. I assure him that we, in the Ministry, have a full appreciation of the difficulties and the various hardships caused by the floods. I am sorry that my letter rather led him to believe that we knew everything and could do nothing about it; that is not quite the case. I hope that he will go away a little happier now than he was about the floods this morning.