Flood and Storm Damage (Compensation)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 23 March 1953.

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Photo of Mr Charles Pannell Mr Charles Pannell , Leeds West 12:00, 23 March 1953

I want to say a few words about the Committee which has been set up under Lord Waverley, and I want to express a doubt about whether it is the sort of Committee we want for this problem. I shall not deal with the various constituency points which hon. Members have raised, although my interest is that I have lived under and been a member of, a local authority whose area has been subject to considerable flooding—an area represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Dodds).

Local authorities have had a considerable burden to bear. Hon. Members who know local authority work will also know that this is the end of the financial year; it is the time when local authorities prepare their rate statements and when finance committee and full council meetings are held. This is certainly not the best time—at the end of the financial year—to have thrust upon them all the additional administrative problems which they have recently had to face, although they have stood up to them extraordinarily well.

But I want to talk principally about the Waverley Committee. I do not think that it was set up in the happiest way. Indeed, I did not think that the Home Secretary treated my right hon. Friend's protest sufficiently seriously when he explained the situation by saying that a noble Lord in another place took an opportunity at the end of a debate to announce the terms of reference. It seems to me that we should have had some announcement at the beginning in the House, with the normal questions and answers, and it also seems to me that the Government made up their minds without advantage of the assistance of the Opposition.

As I understand it, we are to have an inter-Departmental Committee under the chairmanship of Lord Waverley, which will consider, among other things, the causes of the recent floods and the possibilities of a recurrence in Great Britain;to consider what margin of safety for sea defences would be reasonable and practicable having regard on the one hand to the estimated risks involved and on the other to the cost of protective measures;to consider whether any further measures should be taken by a system of warning or otherwise to lessen the risk of loss of life and serious damage to property;to review the lessons to be learned from the disaster and the administrative and financial responsibilities of the various bodies concerned in providing and maintaining the sea defences and replacing them in the event of damage;and to make recommendations. In my opinion, the Committee should go further than that. I have great respect for the interests represented on the Committee, but I suggest that it is not quite the right sort of Committee for the job. In the main, those on the Committee are officials. I could not take down all the names, but the interests represented are science, someone with considerable experience at the Ministry of Food, Sir Basil Neven-Spence—Lord Lieutenant of Zetland—a gentleman who is a Fellow of the Royal Society, a representative of civil engineering, the Lord Lieutenant of Huntingdonshire—and I should not have thought that was the best county to be represented on such a committee if we are considering the problem from the aspect of civil government—a gentleman learned in geography and somebody who has been a civil servant at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government.

It is the local authority upon which much of the responsibility falls at this time. I suggest, therefore, that this Committee is not earthy enough. We want to see on it somebody from the front rank of borough treasurers as well as working members and working officials of local authorities. We should not consider this question with the nice degree of objectivity which the personalities on the Committee seem to indicate to be in Lord Waverley's mind.

May I, with great respect, say a few words about the Chairman? He is a distinguished civil servant. We knew him in the House, but he always struck me as one of those people who are not quite as other men are. Somebody suggests that that is an understatement, but I think it is largely true. In his whole background, he was in the House of Commons but not of it; he was rather more a civil servant than he was a working politician. In the main he represented a university seat, never much subject to electoral pressure.