“Risk management”

I beg to move Amendment 3, in Clause 3, page 2, line 33, before ‘maintaining’ insert ‘re-instating’.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment 4, in schedule 2, page 39, line 35, after ‘of’, insert ‘re-instating’.

Amendment 5, in schedule 2, page 40, line 44, after ‘of’, insert ‘re-instating’.

Amendment 6, in schedule 2, page 46, line 3, after ‘of’, insert ‘re-instating’.

Amendments 3, 4, 5 and 6 all serve the same purpose and underline an opportunity to improve land and water management at the same time as reducing the risk of flooding. The importance of the word “re-instating” as opposed to “restoring” was explained to me by the Woodland Trust. It said that if someone is to restore an historic oil painting, they work on the original, repairing damage. If they are to reinstate an historic oil painting, it implies that the original is lost or destroyed and they need to create a new version that is the equivalent of the lost one. The concepts, therefore, are different.

It would be nice to see the possibility of reinstatement included in the Bill. The best example is woodland recreation, which comes from the Woodland Trust. It points out that woodland is more effective at retaining water than other kinds of landscape, such as grassland,  and that it can lead to a 10 to 20 per cent. reduction in flooding. Woodland delays the flow of flood waters downhill to the flood plain and so reduces flooding and harm to properties and structures on the flood plain.

Woodland obviously has other benefits; it prevents soil erosion and can be a source of sustainable biomass. It is therefore a genuinely sustainable energy source. That is an example of how good water management can tie in with good management of the landscape, a positive approach to biodiversity and so on.

Woodland is only one example of things that could be reinstated. I imagine that it would take a long time to reinstate peat bog, but there are other opportunities, such as natural wetlands and river banks. Whole water channels could be reinstated. This is a good opportunity to reinforce the possible ecological credentials of the Bill and to set out the Government’s firm intention—I think it was set out in their water strategy, “Making Space for Water,” and reinforced by the organisation Blueprint for Water—to work with nature and the landscape to seek opportunities to meet other environmental objectives alongside the simple one of reducing flood risk.

It is always a delight to serve under your astute chairmanship, Mr. Chope—I hope that in the future we can at least warm up a bit. I want to raise one simple point and I use this group of amendments to take that opportunity. The matter is something about which other colleagues and I have been asking for some time. We are fortunate to have a DEFRA Minister leading on the Bill, as I wish to ask whether we can use the single farm payment more effectively to do the sort of things the hon. Member for Cheltenham has mentioned about landowners having a reasoned approach and being willing to allow their land to flood deliberately or being encouraged to use their land in such a way that we can restore wetlands or develop natural balancing tanks. I am concerned that we are spending all this time on legislation when the real changes we want to see relate to the implications of using existing policies more effectively.

I would like to hear from the Minister on that because, certainly in terms of coastal flooding, there are good examples of single farm payments supporting landowners who face the reality that their land will sometimes be unusable because it will flood. Such an approach protects property or other land that seems to be more valuable. I hope the Minister will say something about that when he sums up and that he will say how the legislation will encourage and catalyse the sort of things that the EFRA Committee has long been arguing for, as he knows. Although it has not just been me who has argued for such things, I was one of the instigators, as he will no doubt remember.

I welcome this debate, because it is important and it gives me the opportunity to put on the record the fact that we consider the cause of reinstatement a valuable contribution of the Bill, and to explain why it can be delivered within the clauses we have at present. We too want the matter to be dealt with—let me be categorical about that.

The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire and his colleague have tabled a series of amendments that affect provisions where the Bill lists things that might be done in the course of flood or coastal erosion risk management. The amendments would affect  subsection (3)(b) in Clause 3 and paragraphs 24, 29 and 47 of schedule 2. The schedule amends other Acts, which means that the amendments would affect the definition of risk management not only in this Bill, but in the Coast Protection Act 1949, the Land Drainage Act 1991 and the Water Resources Act 1991.

The phrase

“maintaining or restoring natural processes” is in the Bill and each of the Acts as an example of a thing that may be done as part of risk management. The Amendment would add the word “re-instating” in each instance, so that the phrase is changed to read, “re-instating, maintaining or restoring natural processes”. In each instance, the list is intended to provide illustrative examples of things that may be done; it is not an exhaustive catalogue of things that are permitted.

I am happy to agree that re-instating natural processes might usefully be done in the course of managing flood and erosion risk. Let me give one example, because we are not waiting for the Bill to get on with it. Following the Pitt review, a working group was formed, including the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Natural England, our principal adviser, to look at shoreline management plans and to ensure that, wherever possible, natural processes were given careful consideration as the way forward. We are already going along these lines, as the hon. Member for Cheltenham knows.

The amendment is not necessary because the Bill, as currently drafted, already allows natural processes to be reinstated, and we would want that to happen where appropriate. Inserting the word “re-instating” would have no useful direct effect. For all intents and purposes, I can confirm that “re-instating” is synonymous with “restoring”. On that basis, I ask the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire not to press the amendment, because the Bill already enables the function that the amendment seeks to be carried out.

Let me turn to a matter that my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud has raised previously in Committee and in debates on the Floor of the House. What we do with a combination of payments to farmers, whether through single farm payments, the uplands changing landscape scheme, or other stewardship schemes, is important because of the contribution that such things can make to wider land management issues, including flood risk management. When walking on top of the Plynlimon hills in Wales, the source of the Wye and the Severn, it is possible to see what can be done up there in terms of allowing the land to be rewetted—not with the Woodland Trust in this instance, but with the Wildlife Trust, with which I have been up on those hills—thereby contributing significantly to the management of flood risk further down. Our incentives in respect of uplands stewardship schemes can recognise that, which is important. We seek to do more in that regard, working with farmers and landowners.

We regard reinstating as important and we are moving ahead with it in practice. The word “restoring”, as used in the Bill, gives the opportunity for reinstating as well. I hope that the hon. Member for Cheltenham will ask leave to withdraw the amendment, which has been useful in allowing us to probe the Government’s intention and that of our agencies in interpreting the clause. Reinstatement is important for the way forward.

I am grateful for the Minister’s remarks and accept them in the spirit in which they are intended. There is slight frustration in Bill Committees because, occasionally, we come across amendments that seem to be well enough drafted and are accepted by all parties but the Government seem incapable of going through the mental process of accepting them, even though it might help and put things beyond doubt if they accepted an Opposition Amendment as drafted just once in a while. Doing so would be good for their soul.

Anyway, on this occasion the Minister has been explicit and said that he accepts that reinstatement is within the remit of flood risk management work, as set out in the Bill. I hope that explicit statement is enough and that in future someone making a grant application for a reinstatement scheme is not told by a grant-making body that their scheme does not fall within the scope of the Bill. That would be the practical result of not making such things clear enough. I optimistically hope that will not be so, but look forward to quoting the Minister’s remarks in Committee, should that eventuality ever arise.

I am happy not to press the amendment to a vote and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move Amendment 85, in Clause 3, page 2, line 37, at end insert—

‘(da) managing the use of land, natural habitats, woodland and other natural landscape features with the result of reducing flood risk or reducing erosion,’

To reinforce landscape-scale approach and explicitly include natural landscape management as well as building and defending. ‘Result’ used not ‘aim’ as aim should be sustainability/wider environmental objectives.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment 1, in Clause 7, page 5, line 12, leave out ‘objectives’ and insert

‘landscape scale objectives, including how the strategy will protect biodiversity, semi-natural habitats and encourage native woodland creation.’.

Amendment 2, in clause 8, page 6, line 9, leave out ‘objectives’ and insert

‘landscape scale objectives, including how the strategy will protect biodiversity, semi-natural habitats and encourage native woodland creation.’.

Amendment 85 would insert into the list of things that can be done in the cause of flood or coastal erosion risk management a more specific approach to managing the natural landscape on a landscape scale. That is on a similar theme to other amendments we have discussed. It would include

“managing the use of land, natural habitats, woodland and other natural landscape features with the result of reducing flood risk or reducing erosion”.

It is interesting to note the use of the word “result” rather than “aim”. The aim in most cases of good land use and the management of natural habitats is not reducing flood risk, but a wider environmental objective such as the increase of biodiversity or the provision of a pleasant landscape in which people can enjoy recreation.

This is another opportunity to reinforce the use of the natural landscape as a means of reducing risk in an holistic and sustainable way. It is not just waterways in the landscape that are seen to have an impact; water passes through the whole landscape. Therefore, land use in general can have an impact. Woodlands are one example and agricultural land is another. Such uses should all be recognised explicitly as contributing to the management of flood risk.

Amendment 1 would do a similar job, but it leaves out the vague terminology of Clause 7 and includes

“landscape scale objectives, including how the strategy will protect biodiversity, semi-natural habitats and encourage native woodland creation.”

There is a slight risk that other environmental objectives of the kind referred to in passing in clause 7(2)(j) are often these days reduced to CO2 emissions and that we think only of climate change. However, it is important to set out other possible environmental objectives. We have tried to expand on that provision to define what such landscape scale objectives might be. They could be to protect biodiversity and semi-natural habitats such as hedgerows and native woodlands, or to encourage native woodland creation.

I am grateful to the Woodland Trust for advising us on the amendment. It pointed out:

“Individual tree planting and woodland creation is a crucial component of landscape scale action. In relation to water management these new woods could mitigate flooding whilst contributing to wider environmental objectives. Indeed, the evidence shows that woodland creation alleviates flooding and reduces flood risk whilst conferring a range of other benefits to the environment and landowner. For small floods, woodland has a greater flooding reduction effect than other habitats such as grassland. Modelling also suggests that woodland can mitigate large flood events on floodplains by absorbing and delaying flood flows...

Certain simple amendments to the Flood and Water Management Bill could help ensure that landscape scale opportunities are scoped and implemented in the future. The Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management strategies could encourage government—national, regional and local—and its agencies to investigate the opportunities for landscape scale actions such as native woodland creation and the protection of semi-natural habitats.”

The use of the phrase “landscape scale” is significant because much of what comes under the Bill, particularly the provisions on local flood risk management strategies, is reduced to local authority areas. Some existing planning law, such as PPS25 with which the hon. Member for Tewkesbury and others will be familiar, narrows down the consideration even further to individual sites. That makes it difficult to look at the landscape as a whole and at the opportunities for managing water in it. One of our objectives in discussing the Bill is to try to broaden its scope at planning level to look at the whole landscape and the way in which it treats water. This is an important amendment and I would like to hear the Minister’s response to it. Amendment 2 was tabled on exactly the same basis and does the same thing to clause 8, which refers to Wales.

I do not automatically resist all amendments; I hope that I will show that as the Committee progresses. I will listen to all hon. Members, and we will explore where I think there is a good legislative opportunity. Let me also turn that on its head and say that, sometimes, I will try to explain why legislation may not be necessary.  I am a pragmatic and sometimes reluctant legislator. If we can clearly address issues within the legislation available, maybe the hon. Gentleman will agree with me.

May I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Cheltenham and for Brecon and Radnorshire and to the Woodland Trust for inspiring debate on this important issue? The amendments are interesting and would strongly direct the national strategy towards emphasising the protection of biodiversity, the saving of natural habitats and the creation of native woodland. I acknowledge that there are strong links and, in some cases, critical dependencies between the way in which we manage flood and erosion risk and the state of some aspects of the natural environment. That is absolutely clear. Indeed, flood and coastal erosion risk management has had, and continues to have, a profound impact on the biological and geological diversity of coastal, river and wetland environments. I also acknowledge that the creation and protection of semi-natural habitats and woodlands can have clear flood management benefits. In that respect, I have a great deal of sympathy with what the hon. Member for Cheltenham seeks to achieve with the amendments. I will, however, explain why it is not necessary to accept them.

The aspects of the natural environment that the amendments focus on are not the whole picture. In fact, there could be more. Clause 3(3) lists

“examples of things that might be done in the course of flood...management”.

It is therefore an illustrative list of examples. It is not meant to be an exhaustive catalogue of things that are permitted. Furthermore, if I accepted the amendments, there could be unnecessary duplication with maintaining or restoring natural processes, which is already on the list in clause 3(3)(b).

The distinction is between a process and a feature. Land use and the management of natural landscape features are not necessarily the same as managing a process.

Indeed, I understand the distinction, but let me explain further. The hon. Gentleman touched on the desirability of working at landscape scales as well as simply building defences, and on the need to contribute to sustainability and environmental objectives; we fully agree. However, the need to contribute to sustainability through flood and erosion risk management functions is already covered by Clause 27, which centres on sustainable development. For the record, clause 27(1) notes that

“an authority listed in subsection (3) must aim to make a contribution towards the achievement of sustainable development.”

Moreover, section 4 of the Environment Act 1995, centring on the aims and objectives of the Environment Agency, also covers the issue.

Such matters, and the desirability of using natural habitats and landscape features, will be better reinforced by the guidance that will result from the Bill rather than by their inclusion in the Bill itself. It already has them bolted down, but we also need to introduce the guidance, which will provide an opportunity to flesh out, much more than the hon. Gentleman’s Amendment would, the sort of possibilities that we envisage. For example, I would expect objectives for water quality and the historic environment, including creation of woodland.  One of the best days that I had last summer, going into the autumn, was with the Woodland Trust, looking at and searching for ancient trees with its volunteers—that is part of our cultural and historic environment as well. I would expect such things to be given due consideration in the national strategy.

Furthermore, while I would expect the strategy to address what contribution flood and erosion risk management might make to creating and restoring natural habitats where appropriate, I would not want to single out native woodland over and above, say, wetlands or coastal habitats, which might even have a more direct connection in certain areas with how flooding and erosion is managed. We need to think wider, which is where the guidance gives us the opportunity. Through the guidance we—the loyal rather than the royal “we”, including the Committee—can be more specific in steering the types of contributions that the flood and erosion risk management strategy might make to achieving wider environmental objectives. I suspect that is what hon. Members are trying to tease out and what the Woodland Trust is trying to get at.

There are bound to be strong links between the management of flood and erosion risk and environmental objectives for the foreseeable future. However, we cannot foresee all details or all priorities, so it is better to keep the requirement on the face of the Bill to specify how the strategy should contribute to the achievement of the wider environmental objectives without specifying here and now what could be a narrower set of objectives. I have expressed my great sympathy with the objectives of the proposers of the amendment and illustrated how we can deal with such objectives. For all those reasons I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

I must admit that I am not entirely sure I follow the ministerial logic. If the list is explicitly not exhaustive, as he stressed, I do not see how adding to it can limit it—that may be a logical discussion to be had elsewhere.

I accept from the Minister’s remarks, which were positive about landscape scale objectives and the management of natural features as well as processes, that the Government’s heart seems to be in the right place. I slightly regret that they do not feel able to make that explicit in the Bill, but perhaps we shall have to return to the specific definition of “sustainable development” to which he referred. The Sustainable Development Commission has at times been rather frustrated with the way in which the objectives of sustainable development have been mangled by various Departments—I am sure his is not one of them. Given the good intentions expressed, I am content to beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move Amendment 7, in Clause 3, page 3, line 2, after ‘information’, insert ‘to all interested parties’.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment 91, in Clause 7, page 5, line 3, at end insert—

‘(ea) how the strategy and risk management functions are to be communicated with a view to providing a single communication route for all members of the public concerned about flooding,’.

New clause 14—No automatic connection to waste water pipes for major new developments—

‘(1) There shall be no connection to waste water pipes or drains granted until—

(a) water companies have been consulted on the capacity of the existing system to manage the extra demands from new properties;

(b) water companies have conducted a detailed assessment of the likely extra demand and the capacity of the existing system to handle it;

(c) financial responsibility for building the extra infrastructure has been apportioned, and

(d) formal planning permission has been given.’.

New clause 15—Water companies to be statutory consultees—

‘(1) The relevant planning authority for all major new developments must consult equally—

(a) water companies and

(b) the Environment Agency.

(2) The consultations must—

(a) be in accordance with PPS 25;

(b) establish the impact of the proposed new development on the local drainage system, and

(c) inform the planning application process.’.

New clause 22—Planning permission and connection to the sewerage system—

‘(1) The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 is amended as follows.

(2) After section 70B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 insert—

“70C Prior to granting planning permission under section 70(1), a local planning authority must consult the relevant sewerage undertaker in relation to the proposed location of any connection to the sewerage system.”.

(3) “sewerage system” shall have the same meaning as in section 94 of the Water Industry Act 1991.’.

I would like to make some general points about the Clause in a small stand part debate, so I shall limit my remarks to Amendment 7.

The Pitt recommendations were clear. In recommendation 16 he called on local authorities to

“collate and map the main flood risk management and drainage assets (over and underground), including a record of their ownership and condition”, while recommendation 17 was:

“All relevant organisations should have a duty to share information and cooperate with local authorities and the Environment Agency to facilitate the management of flood risk.”

Recommendation 90 specified:

“All upper tier local authorities should establish Oversight and Scrutiny Committees to review work by public sector bodies and essential service providers in order to manage flood risk, underpinned by a legal requirement to cooperate and share information.”

The purpose of amendment 7 is to specify especially when items of information, in particular the mapping, have been prepared, that under the duty set out in terms of examples in clause 3(3)(i) to prepare, gather and disseminate

“maps, plans, surveys and other information”, that information is indeed shared.

Some points about this have been made on the Floor of the House, but they might have escaped the Minister’s attention, because it is always said that if someone  wants to keep a secret, it should be said on the Floor of the House as it will not go any further. However, I want to explore to what intent and purposes the mapping by Ordnance Survey will be made widely available and how the information will be posted. The most advanced mapping is undertaken by the Environment Agency and the Met Office. A certain amount of mapping of properties is done by districts. The mapping of highways is done by county councils. Unitaries undertake both, while a certain amount of modelling and mapping is done by insurance companies. The idea of inserting in the clause the phrase “to all interested parties” is to emphasise the point that, for example, when the National Flood Forum holds meetings after flood events, it does not always invite insurance companies along. That just seems plain daft. If all the interested parties are to be brought together, all the relevant ones should be there and obviously insurance companies have a role to play.

We have raised the issue of confidentiality elsewhere, and it goes without saying that the information that we believe should be shared must respect that confidentiality. However, when the information and mapping has been gleaned by public funded bodies such as the Environment Agency, the Met Office, Ordnance Survey and, to a certain extent, districts and counties, we want to know why it is currently not being shared and what measures under clause 3(3)(i) the Minister is proposing to take to ensure that it will indeed be shared.

As for recommendation 90, we were told in the December progress report that it is covered by the Bill. The Minister would help me enormously if he told me where such information was located.

To sum up, the purpose of the modest amendment is to press the Minister on what measures he intends to take to make sure that all the maps, plans, surveys and other information are reaching the right people.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Vale of York for explaining her Amendment, because until she did so just now, my main criticism was that it seemed a wee bit vague. I was not quite clear who the interested parties were or how information was to be disseminated to them. I imagined lawyers or all sorts of people who claimed to be interested parties having a field day with the amendment, if it were accepted, by saying that they had not been consulted.

However, the hon. Lady has raised an important issue that gets to the heart of some of the measures that relate to insurance and information that we might be discussing later in our proceedings. I understand that already in existence are inundation maps that reveal the risk of surface water flooding as well as the more common river flooding maps. They are not at the moment shared with the general public or insurance companies, but with more professional consultees such as local authority finance departments.

A potential threat is posed by revealing some information. Not everyone wants to hear the information that their house faces a flood risk, as that would pose a threat to their house price, their insurance premiums and the excesses they are charged. It would create other issues relating to insurance and might even threaten the resale of the house. However, it would be wrong for that information to be disseminated to insurance companies, for instance, while their policyholders could not get  hold of it. The hon. Lady’s amendment raises a critical issue, and I will be interested to hear the Minister’s reply before passing judgment on it.

The Amendment is useful as it teases out such issues, and I thank the hon. Member for Vale of York for tabling it. The amendment would add “to all interested parties” after

“preparing, gathering and disseminating maps, plans, surveys and other information” in the list of examples of things that might be done under Clause 3. Amendment 91 would require the national flood and coastal erosion management strategy in England to specify a single communication about flooding for all members of the public.

Although amendment 7 emphasises the need to disseminate information to interested parties, it is not critical to ensuring that that happens. The list to which the amendment applies is an example of what might be done in the course of flood and coastal erosion risk management. The clause does not need refining in that way to ensure that interested parties receive information. Best practice on engagement with stakeholders and consultation will be addressed better through the national strategy or the accompanying guidance, which will contain great scope to explore and explain fully what is required in respect of disseminated information.

Furthermore, a body that prepares and gathers maps, plans, surveys or other information and does not at least disseminate it to interested parties—who vary from situation to situation, as the hon. Member for Cheltenham said—will be at risk of challenge for failing to act reasonably in discharging its functions. That will also encourage bodies to do the right thing in terms of disseminating information. There are drivers for ensuring that the information is properly disseminated.

The provision as drafted does not suggest any limitation to the dissemination of information; a body may go further. If appropriate, bearing in mind what the hon. Gentleman said, it could make that information available generally and not just to the interested parties specified. Amendment 7 could cast doubt on that by suggesting some limitation. There is no limitation in the Bill as drafted. If it is felt that maps or information are useful and could be distributed more widely, there is no reason why they should not be. The Bill will allow that to happen.

Amendment 91 would require the national flood and coastal erosion management strategy in England to specify a single communication route for all members of the public concerned about flooding. To deal with one aspect of that suggestion, the Government and the Environment Agency are working to ensure that the national Floodline, of which hon. Members will be aware, becomes the single point of contact for members of the public concerned about flooding. Another aspect is that the Environment Agency now routinely provides information, including flood maps, on its website. We are starting to do that work already, so there is no need to legislate for it. It is already in train as a result of the Pitt review, which can be fleshed out in both national strategy and guidance.

To answer the question understandably asked by the hon. Member for Vale of York, our recent Pitt update showed the progress being made on aspects 90 and 91. Aspect 90 says:

“All upper tier local authorities should establish Overview and Scrutiny Committees to review work by public sector bodies and essential service providers in order to manage flood risk”.

It was highlighted that that would be covered in the Bill. I refer the hon. Lady and Committee members to paragraph 54 of schedule 2, which gives provision to do so. It is within the Bill, and we are taking it forward.

Another aspect, in terms of data, is that we have a pan-Government agreement—a PGA. It provides Government bodies such as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Environment Agency, Natural England and so on with access to core mapping data from a number of suppliers, including Ordnance Survey. The PGA is managed on behalf of the Government by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

The hon. Lady has tabled a good, intelligent amendment to allow her to probe for such information. We can do a lot more in guidance and in the strategy, and work is already under way, but we do not want to limit what can be done. A future Minister might say to the Environment Agency or others, “Why not make that great information available to everyone?” As the Bill is currently drafted, we can do so.

Will the Minister elaborate on why information from Ordnance Survey is so freely in the public domain, but not that from the Environment Agency or the Met Office?

The hon. Lady makes a good point. I think that we can do more. Certainly the Secretary of State and I have had discussions on increasing the intelligence and quality of the data.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham made the observation that—although not due to reluctance on the part of the Government—it is not always appropriate to swamp everyone with every piece of information. The right piece of information needs to be put in the right place so that it is understandable and usable. There is further scope for that, and the Bill as drafted will allow us to do more. On that basis, I ask the hon. Member for Vale of York to withdraw the Amendment.

I neglected to refer to Amendment 91 earlier, so I shall speak to it briefly. It underlines a point made by the National Flood Forum. It is important that the public should have a single point of contact for flooding. I detect from the Minister’s remarks that he expects the national Floodline to be that contact point. That would be reassuring.

Will the Minister assure us that the sort of examples that I gave in my opening remarks will not occur when phoning the national Floodline—that there will be no categories of flooding for which people will be told that it is the wrong kind of water or the wrong sort of flood, or that it is ground water more than a certain number of millimetres below ground level? Will he confirm that the national Floodline is intended to be a comprehensive service designed to provide a single point of contact that can be important for those who find themselves in a situation of real distress and confusion? It is important that they are given clear, straightforward, simple answers to their questions.

Indeed. The important point is to whom the hon. Gentleman’s constituents should speak if their house is flooded, no matter what causes it. The Environment Agency provides a national Floodline, but we are planning to enhance the service in order to provide a one-stop shop. Through it, home owners and businesses will be provided with information on all forms of flooding that are relevant to their location.

We will also be providing for local authorities to investigate flooding incidents—in the past it has not always been clear who is responsible—for the publication of information and for the compilation of a register of flood and coastal erosion risk management assets to ensure that there is clarity of responsibility. That should mean that local authorities can also deal with queries from local residents. We see the national Floodline as a one-stop shop.

The Ordnance Survey, like the Met Office, might fall under a different Department. However, in a spirit of co-operation, and because we can return to some of these matters later, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: new Clause 7—Definition of high flood risk—

‘(1) The Secretary of State must ensure by regulations that local development frameworks must develop a definition of an area as being “high flood risk”.

(2) The Secretary of State must consult all interested bodies as the Secretary of State may determine.’.

New clause 8—Definition of high flood risk (No. 2)—

‘(1) The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 is amended as follows.

(2) In section 70, after (b) insert—

“(c) For all applications within high flood risk areas, the local planning authority may cite high flood risk as grounds for refusal.”’.

This is to ensure that the Secretary of State sets up regulations to ensure the local development frameworks define certain areas as ‘high flood risk’, with amendment to the Town and Country Planning Act to ensure it is applied.

New clause 25—Flood risk areas—

‘(1) The Environment Agency shall carry out an assessment of the whole of England and Wales to determine which areas of land are at risk from flooding, and it shall determine these as being “flood risk areas”.

(2) For the purposes of this section, an area of land shall be designated as a flood risk area if—

(a) there is evidence of it having flooded in the past;

(b) for the purposes of paragraph (a), an area shall be deemed to have flooded if water has rested on the surface of the land, or just below the surface;

(c) the local planning authority, or the Environment Agency after consultation with the local planning authority, are of the opinion that building on a section of land would be likely to increase the risk of other pieces of land flooding as a result of water displacement; or

(d) having consulted with the local planning authority, the Environment Agency reasonably believes that the area might be subject to flooding in the future.

(3) If an area of land is designated as flood risk, the Environment Agency shall submit a formal objection to any medium or large-scale planning application which is proposed for that land.

(4) For the purposes of subsection (3), a planning application shall be designated as being medium or large-scale if it involves the building of more than 10 houses, or if it involves the building of a public, commercial or industrial unit covering larger than half an acre in land area.’.

New Clause 25 basically requires the Environment Agency to submit a formal objection to any large or medium scale planning application that is proposed for land designated as being a flood risk. I also want to define medium and large scale, which could mean the building of more than 10 houses or the building of a public commercial industrial unit covering an area larger than half an acre. Just as importantly, I should like to discuss what flood risk means.

We have had considerable debate on that already this morning, when we tried to define what “flood” meant, although I do not think that we reached any satisfactory conclusion, and we discussed what risk means and what risk management means. I shall try to go a little bit further in my Amendment. An area should be designated as being a flood risk if there is evidence of its having flooded in the past, meaning that water has rested on the surface of the land or just below its surface—I do not intend to go over the arguments that were made before—or if the Environment Agency, in consultation with the local planning authority, has reason to believe that the area might be subjected to flooding in future, or if the local planning authority or the Environment Agency are of the opinion that building on a section of land would be likely to increase the risk of other pieces of land flooding as a result of water displacement. That is an important point.

The new clause goes to the heart of what we are doing here today—and this week and next week—which is to protect houses, businesses and public services from flooding. Some of my remarks may stray into what might be considered to be responsibilities of the Department for Communities and Local Government, which is inevitable when we discuss such a Bill.

I am particularly concerned because we often hear that flood-risk areas are protected by PPS25. I do not accept that argument, having looked at it, studied it and seen how it works. Yes, it says that building should not take place in flood-risk areas, but it qualifies that considerably and allows building to take place in flood-risk areas using the exceptional tests. It is a matter of opinion what amounts to an exceptional test or, indeed, an exception.

Against that background, I want to talk a little bit about what I am really concerned about, which I mentioned briefly earlier: the regional spatial strategy for the south-west, which is not finalised yet. We have had 35,000 representations on that strategy: I think that you will be familiar with some of those, Mr. Chope. In my Constituency alone, that strategy proposes to increase housing by about 40 per cent., as I mentioned earlier, adding another 14,500 or so houses to the stock of roughly 40,000 houses in my area. I could talk about why I feel that  those projections are flawed, but you may pull me up if I go too far down that road, Mr. Chope. For example, the projections are based on growth forecasts, although it is difficult to predict what the growth in the economy will be this year, never mind over the next 16 years, and it assumes that building should take place in principal urban areas rather than scattering it around to villages that might want some housing. Any projections of that nature are flawed. I also object to its being drawn up regionally, rather than democratically and locally. There are many objections to the RSS system and the way in which it is put together. In essence, I am concerned because where on earth are we going to find the space for those houses in an area that is obviously and clearly a flood-risk area? Should we have to find that many houses? Surely, we should be sensitive about what happened in 2007.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham is correct to mention not only July 2007, but June 2007, which leads me to a good example of flooding that he will be familiar with. In June 2007, which was, just to remind Committee members, a month before the big flood, I visited some houses in Prestbury, close to Prestbury Park race course, which is often referred to as Cheltenham race course although it is in my constituency not the hon. Gentleman’s—and long may that be so. The residents told me that they had lived there for 40 years and had never known there to be a flood. I found that curious, but then I started to think about it and analyse it and realised that two things had happened that could—I do not know for sure—have contributed to the flood. One was that something like 150 houses had been built further up the hill just above Prestbury, at a place called Noverton lane. That was a controversial development, on what were previously green fields that could soak up the water. There was some concern about whether the run-off from the houses would send the water down the hill into Prestbury, and that it would be called a flood. I shall perhaps not go too far into this here because I am sure that we will come back to it: two culverts were placed in Prestbury some years ago but not joined up. Why on earth not, I do not know, but that obviously worsened the flooding, and one of the culverts had been damaged and not repaired, which made it even worse. That relates slightly to a separate amendment, but the fact that the houses were built on the top of that hill must have contributed to Prestbury’s flooding, even though the new development supposedly had new drainage systems that would take care of the run-off. In that case they did not.

That was in June 2007; those very same people were flooded again in July 2007. The hon. Gentleman talked about the perhaps inappropriate use these days of the concept of probability of flood risk. Those people might have been told, “This is a one-in-250-years flood”; it was two in one month. I do not think that we can continue to use that concept, that we can say that July 2007 was a one-in-250-years or a one-in-1,000-years event. We have not been measuring flooding for that long. Also, every single day of our lives we are rightly told about the dangers from climate change and about how global warming will cause the weather to be very different, unpredictable and more extreme. I understand that, and the evidence is that that will be the case. However, we cannot use that argument one minute and the next say that this is a one-in-100-years or a one-in-5,000-years flood. We cannot put both those arguments  forward at the same time. My point is that we have to take the weather conditions over the past few years very seriously, and not simply write them off and say that it is very unlikely that they will happen again. It happened again this year, not in my area but up in the north-west, where we saw some terrible flood damage. Again, I read on the front of The Times that that was a one-in-1,000-years rainfall. Has rainfall been studied for the past 1,000 years? I doubt it. Can the next 1,000 years be predicted? I doubt it. That simply is not the way to address the problem. We have to be very careful about where we build houses.

During the 2007 flooding, there was a development up Bredon road, which is just going out of Tewkesbury. Houses that were being built at that time flooded. Shortly afterwards there was another application from a developer to build even more houses up that road. It is absolutely unbelievable that anyone should want to do that, with total disregard for the people living there, and for anybody who was likely to be flooded as a result of taking up green fields. I want to stress how important the theory of water displacement is. My concern is not only about whether the new houses will flood, although that is an important consideration, partly because of the difficulty there would be in getting insurance—on Second Reading and in the evidence session last week, we heard some examples of how that has become very difficult—it is about the damage that they will cause to nearby houses. I spoke earlier about how building in a place called Longford in my constituency will make the flood problem worse for other people as well. That is the case in many different areas in my constituency. Only yesterday I had a call from a developer who wants to build on green fields that were identified by the regional spatial strategy. They got terribly upset because I was quoted in the local newspaper as saying that the land floods, and that building on the land would cause other houses to flood. Let them be upset; it is a fact. People have seen water on the land and nearby houses flood, and for that reason it would be very inappropriate to build in those areas.

In many cases, the Environment Agency does not object sufficiently strongly or as often as it should. When we were discussing floodwater on or just below the surface, I gave an example of when the agency said to me that it had not objected to a particular planning application because the water was below the surface. However, it should have objected to that application because if it goes ahead it will cause more problems.

Sometimes—it is only a fairly small number of cases percentage wise but the impact is important—the advice of the EA is ignored. The new clause cannot go as far as to correct that because it would be beyond the scope of the Bill, but the EA should carry out an assessment throughout England and Wales to determine which areas of land will flood. Although it can be assisted by local authorities, the job is not as big as it might appear. The EA should designate certain areas as flood risks if they qualify under the items that I have listed. Then it should submit a formal objection through planning applications. I understand that that may not prevent some applications from going ahead, but it will give a very serious message to developers. Quite often, such matters are determined on appeal. If the Environment Agency is objecting and sending in an objection to the planning inspectors it should carry some weight.

I accept that my new clause will not necessarily stop all inappropriate development and that it is difficult to define flood risk, as we saw in an earlier debate. It is difficult to frame in legislation what should really be common sense. People who live in such areas, who are flooded and who have visited those who are flooded know whether building should take place in those areas. It is difficult to write it down. I have spent far longer framing this new clause than I have spent speaking on it, but that is probably the nature of this kind of thing.

Will the Minister treat this new clause seriously and sympathetically because it is a very important matter for the people in my constituency? The Secretary of State was extremely helpful at the time of the floods. I have heard him say of London, “We are in a flood-risk area here, and yet we still have to have building.” I do not think that the analogy is accurate or useful. It is very different in the area in which I live.

The Minister earlier touched on the water table. He said that it was very high and that it did not take a huge amount of rainfall to cause further flooding. Much of my constituency is underwater several times a year to the extent that sometimes we do not even notice it. Such is the danger that one can drive past flooded fields without even noticing. My concern is that if we continue to build on green fields that would otherwise soak up water it will cause a great many more problems for the people who not only buy those houses but already live there.

We suffered terribly in the floods of 2007. It was an absolute nightmare. People were out of their houses for more than a year. Men, women, children, the ill and the elderly had to live in caravans over Christmas and through the winter. It was a terrible situation.

We understand in Tewkesbury—we live where two rivers, the Avon and the Severn, come together—that things will be difficult and that we will have floods now and again, but we are saying, “Let’s not make it worse unnecessarily.” That is the spirit behind the new clause. Thank you.

I am pleased to be following my neighbour the hon. Member for Tewkesbury on this subject. I do not have designs on many parts of his Constituency, but the gentle slopes of Prestbury Park is one part that I might covet. I point out to him that the race course is officially known as Cheltenham race course.

With new Clause 25, the hon. Gentleman raises an important issue that we have addressed in new clauses 7 and 8. I regard the matter as so important that should new clauses 7 and 8 fall—and I will press them to a vote—I will happily support new clause 25 as an alternative, although it addresses the issue in a slightly different way. It tries to define high flood risk, whereas new clause 7 commands the Secretary of State to produce the definition. Either way, we need that definition, because Sir Michael Pitt rightly concluded in his report:

“Development control is a central part of the process of managing flood risk, by avoiding development in risk areas where possible and, where such building does take place, by ensuring that risk is reduced both to the development itself and for those living nearby. Planners and developers must pay proper regard to  the risks, as should those purchasing properties. We believe that the latest Government guidance—PPS25—should deliver this, and that it should be strengthened if it does not.”

The practical experience, to which the hon. Member for Tewkesbury referred, and which is also my experience, is that PPS25 is simply not up to the job. Recommendation 7 of the Pitt report is:

“There should be a presumption against building in high flood risk areas, in accordance with PPS25, including giving consideration to all sources of flood risk, and ensuring that developers make a full contribution to the costs both of building and maintaining any necessary defences.”

That is simply not happening. Given that PPS25 is failing, we need to introduce the presumption against building in high flood risk areas into the Bill by other means. New clauses 7 and 8 are designed to do that.

New clause 7 is designed to provide for the way in which high flood risk areas are defined, to include not simply areas at risk from river flooding, as currently defined by the Environment Agency and its maps, but those at risk from the various forms of flooding that we have already discussed, including ground water and, most importantly, surface water flooding, which was responsible for a great deal of the property flooding in my constituency in 2007.

I shall give a precise example, which neatly illustrates why PPS25 fails so completely. First, PPS25 is far too site-specific, in that it narrows the consideration down to whether net surface run-off and other considerations are being addressed on the specific site of a particular planning application. It does not look at the landscape as a whole or allow for the consideration of flooding being exacerbated elsewhere, especially in an extreme flood event, and it certainly does not do what Sir Michael Pitt asked, which is ensure

“that developers make a full contribution to the costs both of building and maintaining any necessary defences.”

I gave an example on Second Reading of a neighbourhood—which is partly in my constituency but, at the moment, most of it is in the hon. Member for Tewkesbury’s constituency—called Warden Hill. It is downhill of another neighbourhood called Leckhampton, which, again, straddles the constituency boundary between our two seats. There was recently an exercise to examine flood risk in that area and to look at how the 40 or 50 properties that flooded in Warden Hill in 2007 could be protected. Consultants for Cheltenham borough council did a detailed analysis of the whole landscape. They went beyond Warden Hill and looked at Leckhamption, and produced some interesting maps designed to inform possible flood defence options.

Those maps showed an area of Leckhampton that currently consists of green fields and was flooded in 2007. A map was produced with a large area of blue blocked out to show all the places that were inundated. That is exactly the area on which the RSS, to which the hon. Member for Tewkesbury referred, is planning to put 1,300 houses. That is an area, which planning inspectors, who informed what are technically the Secretary of State’s proposed modifications to the RSS, spent roughly five to 10 minutes examining, before concluding that it was an appropriate area for development.

As a result, we have had a succession of planning applications to build on that space, and they were live when the consultants were looking at flood risks. Consequently, the consultants took those applications into consideration and, fearing that that development might actually go ahead, chose a flood defence option that did not use the landscape, the natural features or the natural holding ability of the green fields at Leckhampton, but focused entirely on hard defences in Warden Hill.

So we will now have some £700,000 worth of flood defence work in Warden Hill. In itself, that work is very welcome, but it will be more expensive than the option that should have been pursued, which would have used landscape features. In fact, the overall cost of the work over time will be hundreds of thousands of pounds more than the option that was explored but not chosen, because it was thought that it would prompt Opposition from developers in the area uphill.

The problem is that PPS25 is completely useless in this situation. First, regarding the planning applications that have already been submitted for this green field area, there have been debates about PPS25 and about Environment Agency objections to the development taking place. Those objections have almost always been withdrawn. When I recently asked Environment Agency staff why they were withdrawn, one explanation that they gave was that, once again, it was the wrong kind of water and that actually this was not main river flooding, but generally surface water and inundation of the fields. Therefore, this area was not one of those about which, under PPS25, the Environment Agency was supposed to be giving advice. I must say that, from my reading of PPS25, I was a little surprised by that and there is certainly some confusion here. That led to the Environment Agency’s withdrawing its objection to developments and once it has withdrawn its objection, it is virtually impossible for local campaigners or local authority planners to maintain that there is a flooding risk to the satisfaction of planning inspectors, even though, as we have seen, there is now documentary evidence that there is a flood risk in this area.

So the chances are that, one day, one of those planning applications might succeed. We hope that we will defeat the RSS before that happens and that we can consign the whole glorious thing to the dustbin. Clearly, however, in terms of flood policy, the system is not working at the moment.

Of course, when that extra cost was placed on general taxpayers, because the money will ultimately come from the Environment Agency, there was no suggestion that the developers whose planning applications had caused the increase in price—by moving the defence work to hard defences in Warden Hill—would bear any of that extra cost. Therefore, Sir Michael Pitt’s recommendation that we should ensure that developers make a full contribution to the costs of any necessary defence has failed in this example, too.

PPS25 is not working, and we need to be quite explicit that areas with a high flood risk can be identified and that, as set out in new clause 8, local authorities have an explicit power of citing high flood risk as a reason for refusing planning permission.

Sir Michael Pitt decided, probably quite rightly, against a blanket ban on building on the flood plain. In any case, such a ban would not address surface water flooding  and would probably be too draconian. Nevertheless, we need to give local authorities a clear and unambiguous power to refuse development and stop processes such as the RSS, should they ever appear again, from imposing development, which would make the flood risk worse, on areas that they have identified as high flood risk areas, according to whatever system or definition we agree.

We have known about this problem for years. The Foresight study, which I think was as far back as 2004, certainly identified creeping urbanisation as a major contributor to flood risk and it is time that we tackled that issue and sorted it out. I am afraid that Sir Michael Pitt was too optimistic, perhaps too naive, in hoping that PPS25 was up to the job. It certainly is not.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned Sir Michael Pitt’s report. I think that he was at the meeting that I attended when Sir Michael Pitt admitted, and I paraphrase, that the Government’s 3 million house target had compromised his ability to rule out building in flood risk areas. I paraphrase, but that is very much what Sir Michael Pitt said at quite a large meeting, which I think the hon. Gentleman attended.

The hon. Gentleman may well be right. Certainly, that is an area of policy on which, for all the fine words that emanate from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on wider environmental objectives, we find that other Departments, specifically the Department for Communities and Local Government, seem to go in precisely the opposite direction and pursue their plans pretty well regardless of the environmental consequences locally in many cases.

Giving local authorities the power to say no to inappropriate development which they know, which they can prove, and which consultants have told them, will increase flood risk is crucial. It is crucial for our constituents and people throughout the country. If we do not address the issue, we could end up in a situation whereby new housing estates are built in such areas. The Association of British Insurers, whose tolerance is enormous but not infinite, will eventually say, “Frankly, if the Government had the opportunity to stop those kinds of developments but refused to take action or to address inappropriate development in flood risk areas, why should our members insure those kinds of houses?”

We will be in a situation whereby we have built whole housing estates that are absolutely uninsurable, which will, therefore, become very low quality housing in the end. The price will fall and they will potentially become neglected. We will be in a terrible situation of urban blight in those areas, not to mention the fact that they will, of course, almost inevitably flood at some stage. They, too, will suffer along with the people downhill of places where flooding has been exacerbated.

We have to tackle the issue. I hope that new clauses 7 and 8 will do that. As I said, I will press them to a vote. Should they fall, however, I would happily support new Clause 25 as a very constructive alternative.

Given that my two colleagues have spoken, I do not see why I cannot have a go. Such is the wide wording of new Clause 25, tabled by the hon. Member for Tewkesbury, that I feel I can make a couple of points in response to what both hon. Members said, but I would also like to address a particular problem.

The reality in Gloucestershire is that those of us who live in the vale have come to expect to be the major providers of land for new housing, and, indeed, new employment. Historically, that has always happened. Looking at the balance in the county’s provision, it is increasingly the case. It may be seen as inevitable, given the nature of the evolution of the geography, geology and riverine system of the Severn vale, but it leads to several specific problems.

First, the River Severn is mercurial. We live in the Severn vale because at various times the river has moved its course quite dramatically. It will continue to do so. That causes me some difficulty, because my main point is about not just where we decide to build, but the consequences for other parts of the Severn vale. That is often ignored, which is why new clause 25 is quite cleverly worded: it looks at the consequences of that new development. One of our problems is that, even if we chose—

The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put (Standing Order No. 88).

Adjourned till this day at Four o’clock.