§ Mr. McMasterTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) if he will make a statement on how the Bellwin formula will apply to(a) Renfrew district council and (b) Strathclyde regional council in relation to the floods in December 1994; what will be the trigger levels; what is his latest estimate of the total relevant costs in relation to the formula and the amount likely to be payable to each authority by his Department; what these amounts will cover; and what these amounts will exclude;
(2) in what ways the Bellwin scheme might be utilised to (a) defray the costs of repairing and/or reinstating housing stock owned by local authorities, (b) defray the costs of repairing and/or reinstating housing stock owned by housing associations, (c) defray costs of repairing and/or reinstating houses owned by individual owner-occupiers and (d) pay the costs of replacing houses which are deemed to be technically or economically unviable.
(3) what is his latest estimate of the direct costs of the flooding in December 1994 to (a) the Scottish Office, (b) Strathclyde regional council, (c) Renfrew district council, (d) affected tenants and (e) affected owner-occupiers; and if he will make a statement;
(4) if he will detail the expenditure his Department has committed to dealing with the problems created by the floods of December 1994, excluding additional borrowing consent for local authorities and moneys payable through the application of the Bellwin formula; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Stewart[holding answer 16 January 1995]: Under the Bellwin scheme, each authority will receive grant at 85 per cent. of all eligible expenditure above its threshold. The threshold for Renfrew district council is 472W £46,490 and for Strathclyde regional council £3,591,706. I do not yet have sufficient information from the authorities to estimate what may eventually be payable. However, all eligible expenditure above the thresholds will qualify for support. My officials are in contact with those authorities, but I do not want to press them for estimates before they are ready and while their priority must be to deal with the remaining effects of the flooding. The scheme on this occasion gives authorities until 31 May this year to prepare and submit their claims.
In order to be eligible for grant, expenditure must be incurred by a local authority in providing relief and carrying out immediate works to safeguard life or property or prevent suffering or severe inconvenience to affected communities. Expenditure by local authorities on repairing their own housing stock could be eligible for grant in as much as it met these criteria, but expenditure on reinstating stock would seem less likely to be so. The cost of longer-term repair and restoration of local authority housing stock, and the cost of constructing new houses to replace any houses made permanently unusable, would be of a capital nature and therefore not eligible for grant under the Bellwin scheme. Under the scheme, grant is payable only to local authorities, and therefore costs incurred by housing associations and individual owner-occupiers would not be eligible for grant.
The direct costs of the flooding to the Scottish Office will be those arising from Government support under the. Bellwin scheme for the expenditure incurred by local authorities. Strathclyde regional council has given me a preliminary estimate of £10 million for the costs of emergency action, including around £4 million for damage to the rail network. The regional council's capital costs falling in 1994–95 are estimated to be £1.365 million, for which I have already issued a supplementary allocation. I have said that I am prepared to consider further requests from the council for capital allocations arising from the flooding and if necessary will take these into account in setting the council's allocation in 1995–96. The Scottish Office is presently awaiting Renfrew district council's assessment of the extent of the damage to the housing stock, both public and private sector, and to other council property, and the costs likely to be involved in repair works.
Excluding the additional housing and non-housing capital allocations which have to date been made available to the local authorities affected, of some £100,000 and £1,365,000 respectively, and the Government's open-ended commitment to 85 per cent. grants under the Bellwin scheme, the other expenditure so far committed by the Scottish Office is £10,000 which is to he paid to the Clyde River Purification Board to help meet the costs of a hydrological study into the flooding. The Scottish Office is prepared to support other joint studies into the flooding. Should Strathclyde regional council, as the flood prevention authority, decide in the light of that study, or following its general consideration of the issues arising from the flooding, to carry out flood prevention schemes, grant of 50 per cent. will be payable on the cost of any such schemes which may be submitted to and approved by the Secretary of State.
§ Mr. McMasterTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) what was(a) the date and (b) the purpose of each visit by a Scottish Office Minister to the areas in Strathclyde which suffered flooding in December 1994; what were the main issues arising from each of these 473W visits; what specific action followed each visit; and if he will make a statement;
(2) if he will make a statement on his visit to (a) the Park avenue and (b) the Collier street area of Johnstone following the recent flooding;
(3) if he will make a statement on his visit, and those of his ministerial colleagues, the hon. Members for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) and for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton), to the Stockholm crescent and Barterholm-Thrushcraigs areas of Paisley following the recent floodings.
§ Mr. Stewart[holding answer 16 January 1995]: I visited areas affected by flooding on 12 December and my right hon. Friend made visits to affected areas in Irvine on 24 December, Kirkintilloch on 26 December and Paisley on 27 December, accompanied by the local Members of Parliament.
The purpose of these visits was to convey our sympathy, and that of the Government, to those who had suffered loss and disruption of their lives, to express our thanks to the members of the emergency services and others, and to assess how the Government could help. As a result, we instructed our officials to ensure that all possible sources of assistance were made available to the councils involved and to explore various related matters.
My hon. Friend the Minister with responsibilities for education and housing later visited Renfrew district council on 6 January to see for himself the areas of local authority housing which had been most affected by the recent flooding in advance of making decisions concerning local authority housing capital allocations for 1995–96 in the next few weeks. He had a useful discussion with the council and we await its further assessment of the repair costs and implications for its housing programme. My hon. Friend confirmed that the Government would look sympathetically at the council's case for additional housing capital resources in 1995–96 to tackle flood damage.
Strathclyde regional council will also wish to review its flood prevention policy. Developers and planners will also wish to give careful consideration to flood risks for new developments. Scottish Office Environment Department officials are currently working on, as a matter of priority,
Households affected by floods damage—December 1994 Uninhabitable (a) (b) (c) (c) Total Remaining partially habitable 2 days or less > 2 days but < 2 weeks > 2 weeks Renfrew District Paisley North constituency 177 nil 47 59 71 Paisley South constituency 102 nil nil nil 102 West Renfrew/Inverclyde constituency 54 nil 53 nil 1 Eastwood constituency 1 nil nil nil 1 Strathkelvin District1 255 nil 10 6 4 Kilmarnock and Loudoun District 19 7 5 5 2 Cunninghame District 29 13 nil nil 16 1 Breakdown in categories (a)—(d) is available for local authority stock only. 1. In Glasgow and Falkirk districts some houses required repair but remained habitable throughout. The figure for Glasgow was 2,800. Most of these were not affected by flooding, and 32 were uninhabitable for between 2 days and 2 weeks and 23 for over 2 weeks. The figure for Falkirk was 17. None of these houses was uninhabitable.
474Wa new national planning policy guideline on planning and flooding for publication by the spring.
§ Mr. McMasterTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish a table showing, in descending order of severity, the worst floods recorded in Scotland in terms of(a) average depth, (b) greatest depth and (c) the number of houses affected since 1965.
§ Mr. Stewart[holding answer 16 January 1995]: This information is not held centrally. However, the January 1993 Tay floods and the recent floods in west central Scotland were more extreme than any previous floods in the period of record. The return period of both of these flood events is estimated at more than 100 years on the major rivers, and possibly 200 years on the Clyde.
In the 1993 Tay floods, about 1,500 houses were inundated, over 1,100 in North Muirton, while in December 1994, 450 houses were inundated in Strathclyde. The total number of houses suffering damage was much greater in both events, some 3,500 in the recent flooding.
Previous major flooding events affected mainly agricultural land with few houses being flooded. Nevertheless, there have been many cases of localised flooding of housing in areas such as Langside on the White Cart water and adjoining the Brock burn.
§ Mr. McMasterTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is his latest estimate of the total number of households in each relevant parliamentary constituency which were affected by flood damage in December 1994; which of these(a) remained partially habitable, (b) were uninhabitable for two days or less, (c) were uninhabitable for more than two days but less than two weeks and (d) were uninhabitable for more than two weeks; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Stewart[holding answer 16 January 1995]: The table sets out the information in the form requested, and is based on provisional information provided by the local authorities concerned. In some cases, particularly Glasgow, the figures include houses which remained habitable but required some repairs attributable to flood damage. Where the information was not available on a parliamentary constituency basis, the relevant district council area has been used.