§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mrs. McGuire.]
12.32 am§ Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome)I am grateful for the opportunity to raise again the issue of flood prevention in Somerset. I am particularly grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who I know was in Somerset today—at the village of Norton Sub Hamdon, not more than two miles outside my constituency, and at a school which I believe that I opened, as chairman of education, a few years ago.
The Minister will recall that we last debated the subject on 3 May 2000. It was an excellent debate in which we addressed some of the basic issues. He and I broadly agreed that, in flooding, prevention is better than cure. We also agreed on the need to address the issues of environmental sustainability and sustainability of the resources applied to flood prevention. We also recognised that the Somerset levels is a unique and internationally important environment that needs to be protected.
I have sought this debate, first, to alert the Minister to some of the events of the past few weeks; secondly, to report the very substantial progress towards the objectives that we set ourselves in the previous debate; and, thirdly, to express some serious concerns about financing land drainage.
Somerset has not experienced floods with the dramatic overtones of those in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker), or in the Severn valley, or around the Ouse, in Yorkshire. Flooding has, however, affected a number of properties in my constituency. It has not been confined to the levels area, where we expect annual winter flooding. It has taken place in areas of the upper catchment and in areas detached from the Parrett catchment. There have been problems in my constituency in the areas of Ilton; Yeovilton, where the Yeo burst its banks; Queen Camel, where the Cam and Henshall Brook caused problems in the middle of the village; Shepton Montague; and near Frome in Old Ford and Vobster. There have been several separate incidents, and they all represent tragedies for the families involved. There is also the common thread that there are insufficient resources to do some of the things that are necessary to protect the people of Somerset adequately, given the huge demands on services.
Although the Environment Agency has performed extremely well over the past few months, there are still some questions that I shall be putting to it. I shall be seeking answers from it and local authorities if I do not receive satisfaction from the Minister. My questions will relate to the warning system, the maintenance of culverts and drainage canals, local government funding and the uninsurable risk that many householders are facing.
I move on to progress on the River Parrett catchment project, as it is now termed. When we last debated the subject, the Minister effectively challenged me and the people in Somerset to get our heads together to combine the interests of local authorities, the Environment Agency, landowners, farming interests, environmentalists and the wider community in an endeavour to ascertain whether we could arrive at a common solution to the problems.
1113 Substantial progress has been made to that effect. A seminar was held on 30 October, paradoxically when the River Tone was within inches of bursting its banks in Taunton. It was an apposite moment for the seminar to take place. It was attended by 60 representatives of all the interests involved. They were able to reach common ground—it was a significant breakthrough—in terms of the scale of the problem, the need to address the flood defence system urgently, and some of the things that could be done in terms of management of the upper catchment, where it was felt that there were ways of ensuring that when heavy rainfall took place the time that it takes for water to reach the main streams and rivers could be extended.
That could perhaps be done by land management, by cropping practices that help to maintain more water in the soil and reduce the speed of overland flow, by reducing flow rates in the tributary water courses and head water streams by creating baffles and meanders, by developing a strategic approach for retaining storm water from developed areas so that it does not add to the peak flows in streams and rivers, and by developing on-farm flood water storage areas through agreement with local farmers. That agreement is crucial because it will require some changes in agri-environmental schemes so that there are proper incentives. Farmers must be encouraged to participate in schemes.
The use of the flood plain needs to be considered in a different way from that in which it is now managed. Perhaps we should consider a more equitable distribution of flood water across the moors, and use some parts of the flood plain more frequently so that settlements are protected. There should be greater use of gravity drainage systems on parts of the flood plain, which can enable the water to drain effectively.
There have also been discussions on the proposals for a barrage or barrier across the River Parrett downstream of Bridgwater. I know that the Minister is concerned about that proposal. I ask him to examine what eventually emerges and objectively to assess it. It may represent a way of reducing some of the severer impacts of floods, and it may be cost-effective in reducing silt and thereby dredging.
A holistic approach along the lines that I have set out has the potential to pay dividends. Much progress has already been made. I pay tribute to the work of the county council, whose chairman, Humphrey Temperley, has played a leading role. Given the level of agreement that has been reached, I have considerable confidence that the major debate on these matters to be held early next year will agree on concrete plans that deal with prevention rather than cure, and which we will be able to bring to the Minister.
My plea to the Minister is to respect what he has said on earlier occasions and to look at those plans objectively. In that way he will be able to determine where it is possible to co-ordinate Government policy in this regard, and where it is possible to take a positive view.
I must also address the issues of finance and of the costs involved in land drainage in Somerset. I shall give the House some idea of the scale of the problem. In Somerset, 36,000 homes are identified as at risk, and very extensive protections are given to them. The county has 125 km of sea and tidal raised-bank defences, and 366 km of raised river bank defences. Of the latter, 17 km are in 1114 poor condition and 189 km need some work to bring them up to an acceptable standard. That is a substantial backlog of work.
The county also has 21 pumping stations. Most of them are elderly and date back to the 1940s, with the newest built in 1968. Many are obsolete and unreliable, none have a proper planned maintenance programme, and 10 require urgent upgrading.
It is clear that the county faces a significant problem, the financing for which is shared among a relatively small population. The Minister knows that the Somerset flood defence committee has an annual budget of about £6 million. Most of that total comes from a levy, and most of the levy is paid by Somerset county council taxpayers—a cost of £26 per annum for each band D property in the area. That is the highest in the country, and amounts to a significant impost on the people who have to pay it.
Over recent years, there have been large increases in the precept. Two years ago, it was raised by 11.5 per cent, and last year by 8.2 per cent. The present backlog of work, the council's need effectively to borrow ahead to deal with significant capital projects, and the effects of this year's flooding all mean that the Somerset flood defence committee now faces a precept increase of something like 28 per cent.
As the Minister knows, the system of finance is extremely complicated. The sums involved can be recovered through the revenue support grant and the standard spending assessment, but only in the following year. That does not prevent local authority finances undergoing a major distortion.
Even before the current full review of flood defence funding is in a position to report, local authorities in Somerset have advanced a cogent case for what must be done to reform the system. First, they say that flood defence spending should be disregarded for the purposes of council tax benefit subsidy limitation. That is what happens with the police authority precept, and there is no logic in placing the flood defence precept—which is also substantial—within that limitation.
Secondly, the authorities say that there is a need to ensure that the SSA or revenue support grant pass-through mechanism operates on a current-year basis, rather than a year in arrears. They also say that it is necessary to provide for the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions control figures to be increased on a current-year spending basis. In addition, they say that, when the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food grants aid capital, revenue funds are needed so that maintenance moneys are not diverted to support those capital schemes. Finally, they consider that it is necessary to treat flood defence spending by the unitary and district councils in the county on the same basis as the Environment Agency levy spending.
I realise that the Minister is not in a position to say that all those proposals will be accepted this evening. However, I ask him seriously to consider the distortions caused by these unique circumstances. We have an internationally important wetland area in which people are uniquely vulnerable to floods and that is likely to continue in the foreseeable future. As the area is sparsely populated, it does not have enormous revenue income or capital sums available. Does the Minister agree that those factors, put together, represent a special case?
1115 Secondly, can the money that is available be used more effectively in the sort of way that those at the Parrett catchment project suggest? Rather than building higher and higher walls to keep the water out, we should try to manage the floods in Somerset in a way that is effective, environmentally sensible and more responsive to the needs of the local community. I suggest that what is happening in gestation in the project in Somerset, provided it has Government support in due course, could act as a pilot study for other parts of the country.
There is a wider view—we have tested it in the Chamber, and I know that the Minister has some sympathy with it—that we cannot go on dealing with floods in the way that we have done hitherto. We need to address the problem in a different way, and the way that is being developed here has great merit. It will require departmental co-ordination, and it will be necessary to mobilise funding that is not automatically provided for these purposes. However, I think that any cost benefit analysis will show that this is a sensible application of funds to a defined and positive outcome, preferable to wasting funds on developing a solution that is not sustainable in the long term. That is why I am so strongly in favour of what is being discussed.
When we last spoke about this issue, the Minister said at the end of his speech:
However, I stress that local people should come together and agree a long-term management plan based on river catchments…I shall be only too willing to examine the proposals and respond as positively as I can.—[Official Report, 3 May 2000; Vol. 349, c. 274.]Those words were of great encouragement to the people who are working on this project. The Minister displayed the openness to reasonable and rational debate that we have come to expect of him. I hope that that view is shared by the civil servants in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. I hope that we can ensure that discussions take place at the highest level on some of the issues and stumbling blocks. Most of all, I hope that the Minister will look very carefully and positively at what emerges from Somerset, as he said he would.If the hon. Gentleman's all-too-brief visit to Somerset today has whetted his appetite —perhaps that is an inappropriate word to use—to see what is happening on the levels and talk to some of the people there, I would be delighted to welcome him to my constituency to look at a forward-thinking project. I hope that in doing so he would take away a favourable impression which would encourage him to mobilise the resources to enable the project to take off.
§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Elliot Morley)First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) on obtaining this debate and on putting his case in such a persuasive way. I get all sorts of offers in this job, but to go to the hon. Gentleman's constituency and discuss these issues is an attractive offer. He has rightly made the points that, because of its wetlands, the area that he represents is of international importance, and that there are serious flood management issues.
1116 I acknowledge his point that the Somerset levels have experienced regular flooding for some years—it is almost an annual occurrence. Although it is a flood plain, people live and work there, so we must strike a balance between the needs of an internationally important wetland and those of people in the area, who need to use its roads and who need to work there.
As the hon. Gentleman pointed out in a previous debate, I gave strong encouragement to local people who were working together to try to address some of the issues and some of the long-standing and potential conflicts between the demands of conservation and those of local people and of agriculture. I am glad that a meeting was held on 30 October and I welcome the high-level conference in February. They represent attempts to make progress on those matters.
I have read some of the submissions made by local organisations—the National Farmers Union, the Country Landowners Association, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Environment Agency. Those organisations are finding common ground and coming to a common agreement on dealing with the issues. I strongly endorse the point made by the hon. Gentleman that the approach to flood and water management in Somerset must be integrated, holistic and sustainable. That is the key objective that we must work towards.
I welcome the development of management catchment plans. I pay tribute to Humphrey Temperley, the chair of Somerset county council, and to the Somerset flood defence committee for their role in trying to develop those matters and find consensus. That is most important.
I accept the hon. Gentleman's point that we need to give some thought to such matters as the management of other catchments, land management, cropping and planting regimes, and river management. We need to examine whether river flows can be widened; the hon. Gentleman referred to meanders and the installation of baffles to try to hold back more water. We should perhaps consider a more sophisticated approach to water retention at times of peak flow. All those issues are worthy of consideration.
The importance of the area is recognised in the fact that the Somerset levels are designated as environmentally sensitive. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, there are different rates of payment in relation to management tiers for dealing with water management. That is a helpful advantage; it gives us an opportunity to consider how we can integrate more environmental management in the various agri-environment schemes for water management. I have to enter the caveat that agri-environment schemes must produce environmental outcomes. That is how we account for the schemes; they are audited both within the Government and by the European Union, which is ultimately responsible for them.
It should not be impossible, however, to take a more integrated and holistic approach towards agri-environment schemes while achieving both environmental outcomes and water catchment objectives. At present, the matter is being considered and discussed, but it has not been subject to major development. I am extremely interested in giving more thought to the matter, to find out what we can do to take it further. It represents a new dimension in water management, but it meets the need for an integrated, holistic and sustainable approach.
1117 There are possibilities to be explored in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and in other Departments—for example, in MAFF in relation to our funds for agri-environment schemes and for flood defence. An integrated approach may not be as easy as it sounds, although the logic seems overwhelming, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am keen to explore such matters to see what can be done. In that respect, I shall be extremely interested in the outcome of the February meeting and to hear the suggestions of local people on how they might be applied. The Environment Agency is closely involved. There is technical support and advice on what is and is not feasible. That applies to any barrage proposal for the River Parrett.
I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman an undertaking to consider any proposal. Again, the caveat is that any proposal for an expensive scheme, such as a barrage, must be subject to exactly the same criteria as we would apply to any technical flood defence measure—it must meet technical and environmental standards and economic criteria. There has to be a cost-benefit analysis and such a scheme must meet the technical standard in achieving what it is designed to do. With that caveat, I am more than willing to consider any proposal and to test them against those criteria.
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the funding of flood defences is complex and considerable demands have been made on resources in Somerset in recent years. MAFF has actively supported the Environment Agency and its predecessor in constructing flood defences in Somerset, which has enjoyed a high grant. There has been a high levy, but the higher the levy, the greater the grant that Somerset receives. During the past 20 years, approximately 20 km of defences has been improved to a 1:100 year standard or better. The Minehead sea defences scheme was completed in 1998, at a cost £12.7 million—a significant investment in Somerset.
We are giving attention to tidal and fluvial schemes. Given the recent autumn floods, we recognise the need to consider rivers in particular. We are providing exceptional support to emergency works on the River Parrett's banks this year. Two major schemes are planned for 2001 on the Lower Tone at Baltmoor wall—a £2 million scheme—and at Stanmoor bank, a £3 million scheme. The medium-term programme indicates expenditure of about £8.4 million during the next four years. The agency has set out the need for substantial increases in expenditure in Somerset to fund those new capital works and the increased maintenance that is also required. As the hon. Gentleman said, a significant increase in levies might be required in Somerset.
Somerset has been responsible in meeting its requirements on flood defence. In fact, it has been better than one or two other counties in the south-west, as the hon. Gentleman may be aware. I make no criticism of Somerset; it has taken the issue seriously and has not been 1118 afraid to raise the appropriate levy. Of course it has been rewarded for doing so—it has received substantial grant aid from the Ministry.
The necessary flood defences are being identified. When they have been identified, they will be addressed. The hon. Gentleman may be aware that MAFF has announced additional funding in relation to the autumn floods. An additional £51 million is available for flood defence works. That money comes on top of our existing programme, which was being increased. As a result of that additional money, we will be able to increase the grant rate for river flood defence schemes by 20 per cent. We are also providing additional funding for catchment studies, which will inform decisions on flood management on a catchment basis. The additional money for catchment studies may be useful given what may be the outcome of the high-level conference in February. We shall consider the issues that the hon. Gentleman has raised, such as upper catchment management, and whether we can apply them to a whole catchment plan. We have some funds to pay for those studies.
The hon. Gentleman is also right to say that the chairman of the Somerset local flood defence committee has written to me about the way in which the increases could be funded. He asked a series of complex questions on local government finance and the way in which the flood defence schemes are funded. They are complicated, but I appreciate the point. I can give the undertaking that I will reply to the questions as soon as possible, following consultation with my colleagues in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions.
Such questions are not unfamiliar to me—one or two other local authorities have raised them. I see the logic in their case and I am willing to consider the matter. We are also undertaking a full review of the way in which funding is raised for flood defence schemes. That started before the present round of autumn flooding and is due to report in autumn 2001.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman. I do not think that there is much between us on the issue. We both want a sustainable and holistic approach to flood management in Somerset. I am not afraid to consider new approaches. They have to be properly evaluated. Obviously, our professionals in the Ministry, who have years of experience, need to look into the matter. The specialists in the Environment Agency also need to consider it.
Given the pressures, however, with what may be a range of changes in weather patterns and increased rainfall, we must consider all the options. I am willing to do so and I certainly look forward to the outcome of discussions in local groups and organisations in the hon. Gentleman's constituency and area, which will provide an input into informed choices for the way forward.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at one minute past One o'clock.