“Risk management”

Question (this day) again proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

I remind the Committee that with this we may discuss 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.’.

What a delight it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Martlew, with your knowledge of flooding. You will not be calling me to speak too many times, for sure.

I said in the previous sitting that although I am sympathetic to new Clause 25, it is widely drawn, as I think that my hon. neighbour from Tewkesbury would accept. I was making the point that the difficulty with development in the Severn vale is that the River Severn, being such a mercurial river, will inevitably change its course, causing all manner of problems over where to locate housing and employment development. The difficulty is that historically, as my hon. neighbour from Cheltenham will know, the answer always seems to be development in the Severn vale. That might be highly questionable, because we know that it is an increasingly risky place for development, as we have seen from what happened in 2007.

Even if we were to encourage development outside the Severn vale—in the Cotswolds, where I would like to see more development, or the Forest of Dean, both of which are the slowest growing parts of Gloucestershire—the difficulty is that the water will run off the hills and come down into the Severn vale. We are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. We have a real problem over how we develop parts of our countryside, and that is why this is a worthwhile debate.

I will offer some definitive explanation from my Constituency, as both colleagues from Gloucestershire who preceded me in the debate used examples from their constituencies. A number of us in the constituency opposed development in a place called Ebley, which is not far from where I live in the Stroud constituency, on the basis that there was likely to be consequential flooding down the River Frome, which is a tributary of the River Severn. We were pooh-poohed and told that the measures that would be put in place would be such that the loss of greenfield land and of meadow land, which has traditionally acted as a water reservoir by sucking up water in times of surplus, would not be a problem. Modern technology is such, we were told, that we would be able to come up with solutions on development, and so it proved.

The problem is that since that time, downstream in Bridgend and Stonehouse, where I happen to live—no one would pretend that the area has not been flooded in the past, and the mills dotted all around the area show that water has been a crucial requirement of everyday life since the 18th century and even before—the poor people living there have sadly been flooded badly, first in 2007 and then every year since. I cannot prove that that is the result of development, because I am not a water engineer and have no specialist insight into cause and effect, but I refer to consequential flooding, which is what the new clause is all about, as something that really should matter.

I will conclude with two points. First, if there is evidence that a development has caused problems elsewhere, that should be taken as seriously as the development itself being regarded as a causation factor in flooding. Secondly, we must not time-limit this, because often the problems are of incremental duration in the sense that one will not necessarily get an immediate impact from a development—it takes some time. The problem is we have used so many of our important water storage facilities—one could argue that that has been happening  through time—that the matter has become critical. I would always argue that it is not the development itself that matters; it is where the impact of the development will be felt. That is something we should examine.

I welcome what the hon. Member for Tewkesbury said. He has apologised to me for not being in the room—it is not because I am speaking, but because he is elsewhere dealing with the problems of Ethiopia, which are somewhat different from those that we face in Gloucestershire. His new clause is useful.

Will my hon. Friend the Minister say how we can get fairness for people who have not flooded historically, or who have flooded periodically but now face regular flooding? How can they get greater protection and some justice from the system? It might well be that we have to learn some lessons and be much more careful about where we develop. That will cause huge problems, not just in Gloucestershire, in terms of the Severn vale, but perhaps all the way up the country.

I am warming to the hon. Gentleman’s theme. Does he agree with the thrust of new Clause 8, which is that one of the crucial powers that can help to tackle the issue is the clear power for local authorities to refuse planning permission on the grounds of high flood risk so that they can deal with some of the things he is worried about?

I like giving powers to local authorities as long as they use those powers purposely. I would blame my own local authority—Stroud district council—for causing problems because it chose to develop somewhere despite warnings. I am afraid that local authorities cannot have it both ways. If they want that responsibility, they will also have to take the blame when they have chosen a particular site against expert advice. It might well be—the Minister might want to dwell on this—that the powers of the Bill will enable the Environment Agency to ensure that it is listened to and its advice is acted upon. Too often what has happened in that past is that either the Environment Agency has been ignored or it has not been brought into the decision-making process at all.

This is an important debate. I have concentrated on new Clause 25, because that is the most widely drawn of the new clauses, but this is a problem from which we cannot escape, and I hope the Minister will give us some elucidation on how we can take forward sensible development. None of us are against that, but we must ensure that if mistakes are made, people are able to get some protection from the consequences of those mistakes. More particularly, we need to learn from what we have done wrong in the past and prevent undesirable development from occurring in the wrong place.

I welcome you back to the Chair, Mr. Martlew—it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. Despite the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury, I congratulate him on new Clause 25 and his drafting ability. I will later consider its contents.

I was not convinced by the arguments of the hon. Member for Cheltenham about new clauses 7 and 8. My concern with the drafting is that anyone who was deemed to be living in a high flood risk would probably  be incapable of finding any insurance cover or of selling their home. I am very concerned about the purpose of his new clauses in that regard.

I am extremely puzzled by the hon. Lady’s objection to the use of the wording “high flood risk” because it is taken directly from Sir Michael Pitt and is used in the measure proposed by the hon. Member for Tewkesbury, which talks about determining such areas as “flood risk areas”. In fact, our proposal is less prescriptive than his.

I shall move on to the context in which that phrase is contained in new Clause 25, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will agree with what I say.

I believe that PPS25 should be revisited on the basis of whether it was the intention to have a proscription or moratorium on building on areas at risk of flooding, although not necessarily floodplains. Recommendation 18 of Sir Michael Pitt’s review states:

“Local Surface Water Management Plans, as set out under PPS25 and coordinated by local authorities, should provide the basis for managing all local flood risk.”

The progress report published by the Government last December sets out where we are with the most recent editions of those plans. The progress report states that £9.7 million has been allocated to 77 local authorities at risk from surface water flooding. I am sure the Minister will accept that that is a small amount to be divided among 77 local authorities—[Interruption.] He will not escape any earlier even though he is feeling the cold.

That is not an insignificant amount of money and it has been focused, through an open application system, on places at the highest risk. I know the hon. Lady will recognise that it is not the only money that we have put into flooding.

I am most grateful for the Minister’s Intervention.

A lot of the debate over the general aspect of risk management in the Clause comes back to the element of risk and how risk is quantified. The risk of one in 1,000 years in the constituencies of Copeland and Workington is on the scale of an act of God. It would be difficult to prescribe the way in which to cope with that in any legislation.

It is my firm belief, however, that we can do a lot more with regard to new developments putting existing developments at risk. For example, it is inappropriate to build 300 houses in Filey on a field that floods, and is at times of flood permanently waterlogged and saturated, especially as the water flooding off the field has already flooded Filey school and earlier developments. I am surprised that the Planning Inspectorate can agree for that to go ahead.

A number of issues that relate to this matter are not appropriate for consideration here. However, PPS25 could be strengthened. For example, we have established that the Environment Agency should have the status of statutory consultee for major new developments. I believe that PPS25 would be further strengthened if we extended the status of statutory consultee to water companies. We can elaborate on those arguments elsewhere.

In the context of new clause 25, the Environment Agency should carry out the assessment to determine the level of flood risk, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury goes on to establish in his new clause. I wonder if the Minister will be minded to accept some of our arguments. He might want the provisions to be worded slightly differently, but I think that the new clause is well drafted and fits in with the context of clause 3.

I wish to ask the Minister about the impact assessment in the context of the risk management aspects of the clause. We are told that the one-off costs will be negligible although, under existing provisions, local authorities are already investing £27 million a year by means of local levy. The point I put to the Minister is that page 10 of the impact assessment states:

“Any administrative burdens would be borne by RFCCs”— regional flood defence committees—

“which include local authorities and the Environment Agency.”

In terms of funding risk management, I put it to the Minister is that it seems that the same people are being asked to pay every single time. The Minister is on record as welcoming the levy provisions and, indeed, they are extremely important if clause 3 is to work effectively. However, will he share with us some of the concerns that were probably raised at the time of consultation, particularly about what the cost of the administrative burden will be?

I understand that the benefits of individual risk management projects are reviewed constantly by the Treasury through the Green Book, and that the risk can be reduced in certain situations, which are set out on page 14. However, will the Minister respond to my concerns that their preferred option of 2(a) in the impact assessment—

“Extend the scope of the RFDC ‘local levy’ to allow funding to be raised from local authorities for coastal erosion projects”— will put real hardship on those bodies? How does the Minister imagine that clause 3 will be given effect in these circumstances, because I do not believe that the administrative burden is neutral? There is a very real cost to be looked at and, as I say, the same people have to pay it each time. I will be most interested to hear the Minister’s comments about new clause 25 and his response to my concerns about the cost-benefit analysis and the administrative burdens that are placed on those bodies that are already finding it hard to raise the funds required in the Bill.

May I begin by thanking hon. Members for what has been a very good debate on the amendments and Clause? I will deal with the issues roughly in the order they were raised, although some of them overlap.

I shall begin by mentioning the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud and will then come on to the remarks of the hon. Member for Tewkesbury, who started off the debate. My hon. Friend rightly signalled the difficulty of getting the balance right between the needs of business, the need for affordable housing, the need to find the right place for development  and the risk of flood. I noted his comments about the responsibilities of local authorities. In a moment, my comments will echo that and I will also talk about the responsibility for implementing PPS25 robustly and effectively right down the whole chain, what progress has been made and what more needs to be done.

It is undoubtedly the case that development plans need to take real account of PPS25. We need to get the strategic flood risk assessments right and ensure they are robust. Across the whole line of spatial strategies, we need to ensure that flood risk management proves to be part and parcel of development planning in any local area or region. I will come on to how we can do that. If hon. Members will bear with me, in a moment, I want to go into some detail on that.

Let me begin by addressing the issues raised by the hon. Member for Tewkesbury. I have great sympathy with him—indeed, during the floods of 2007, I was in a friend’s house where the water rose through the cellars. He was not affected as badly as most people, but the whole of his cellar was completely flooded and the water came up into the ground floor. At that point, thank goodness, the water stopped. However, I have seen the devastation that happens—one sees it in Cumbria and in Hull—and how people are affected by such a situation. So, getting the balance right is very important.

The clause that the hon. Gentleman has tabled would require the Environment Agency to determine flood risk areas across England and Wales and would oblige it formally to object to any planning application in one of those flood risk areas, where it represents 10 or more houses or covers an area of land greater than half an acre.

Areas at risk from river and sea flooding in England are already found in existing national policy in PPS25, which is based on the annual probability of flooding, and mapped by the Environment Agency. Local authorities undertake local strategic flood risk assessments, which build on and refine information in the Environment Agency’s flood map and identify areas at risk from all sources of flooding, including surface water flooding, and take into account the impacts of climate change.

The effect of the proposed clause would be to compel the Environment Agency to object to all proposed developments above a specified size in a designated flood-risk area regardless of whether the agency was content that the individual proposal took account of the flood risk, that it would be safe and not increase flood risk overall. It is a categoric proposal that we have here that has no flexibility for the Environment Agency to look at the plans, work with them and put forward suggestions.

In determining the planning application, the local planning authority would still be required to take account of all material considerations—social, economic and environmental—including the issue of flood risk, the flood risk assessment prepared by the applicant and proposals for reducing or managing that flood risk as well as representations and objections received from statutory consultees and other interested parties.

I know that hon. Members will be aware of this, but let us refresh memories of how this is set up to work. I will come to how well it is working and what more needs to be done. Planning policy makes it very clear that flood risk must be assessed at all stages of the planning  process—regional, local plan and individual planning applications—to avoid this worry about inappropriate development in areas of risk of flooding and to direct development away from areas at the highest risk. The next stage, regional spatial strategies, should establish locational criteria for regionally significant land uses, including the identification of broad locations, and that should be informed by the regional flood risk appraisal.

The local planning authorities establish specific land use or housing allocations through the development plan documents. They are informed by their own strategic flood risk assessment, and target development to lower flood risk areas wherever possible. The local strategic flood risk assessments—as required to be carried out by local planning authorities in PPS25—in Calder Valley and Isle of Wight are examples that show how our policy approach has played a key role in influencing the core strategies for those local authority areas, so that the most appropriate types of development are at the most suitable locations. In a moment, I will come to an example of where it has gone wrong and what happens in that situation. The core of my argument is not that PPS25 is wrong—we have been reviewing it and improving and will continue to do so—but that we must ensure that the guidance is followed through at all levels. We all have a role to play to push our own local authorities to do that.

People often ask why the Government or Environment Agency allow development to take place in areas of flooding. Why not stop building in those areas? My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud mentioned some of the difficulties with that. If we do it in one area, it impacts on another area and so on. It must be done in a well-considered way. We have very strong planning policy in place that ensures that flood risk is properly assessed and taken into account by local planning authorities. The aim should always be—Committee members can hear me say it now, people can read it in this transcript and it is in our PPS25 as well—to locate new development away from flood risk wherever possible. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury, who cannot be with us for the moment, made the point that Tewkesbury is not the same as London. I know that it is not, but we must accept that significant parts of the country are at risk of flooding. We cannot categorically ban all new development.

Mr. Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con) rose—

Martin Horwoodrose—

Let me just finish my point.

We cannot afford to put that blight on whole communities. MPs come to me and ask, “Minister, why has the Environment Agency objected to this development, as it has just killed the centre of my town?” So there is a counter-argument.

Pretty much the whole of Hull would be included. We do not have any Hull MPs here today, but I do not think that they would want me to say that there should be no development in Hull whatsoever, because the whole city is affected. Two thirds of Portsmouth is affected. We have no Portsmouth MPs here today, but I am pretty sure that they would be telling me the same. They would want to see the rigorous implementation of PPS25 and it being put into the spatial strategies. Most of London  would be affected, including my own flat, as would the east of England. Those are all in areas of high flood risk.

The issue is this: how do we provide the homes and development we need and at the same time reduce flood risk? We need to ensure that, wherever possible, we build where it does not flood, and that when we do have to build in high flood-risk areas, we ensure it is as safe and flood-proof as possible.

Does the Minister understand that we are not asking for the Government to force people not to build, but to force them to consider properly the building, which is a completely different issue? Also, there is not necessarily the desire for the level of building that the Government would like to happen. Some people might feel that less would be proper.

I fully understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. However, the implications of some of the amendments are to make the Environment Agency have to object, not to work with, not to say, “Actually, we can see a way forward here if you will do X, Y and Z”, as it has done in other instances. I will come to an example in a moment of where that did not work and explain the action it took.

The hon. Gentleman and I are aiming at the same thing, but I am explaining how we should do that. We carried out a review last year of PPS25, which I’ll come to in a moment, and it showed what progress has been made and what more needs to be done. We should be focusing our attention on ensuring that, from the regional level to the local level, PPS25 is adhered to. If there is a case for building in a flood-risk area, everything has to be put in place to ensure that the risk of flooding is mitigated, because we simply cannot ban all development in those areas.

The Minister is wrong to say that the amendments are about banning all development on flood plains or in flood-risk areas. Certainly, new Clause 8 would simply give a clear power to local authorities, but it does not say that they absolutely have to ban it. There is clear evidence from the Association of British Insurers and others that many of the houses the Government are planning to build are likely to be built in flood-risk areas. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury and I both mentioned spatial strategies because planning inspectors on the ground amending regional spatial strategies or putting in amendments proposed by the Secretary of State are in practice choosing areas that are quite explicitly flood-risk areas. Once they are in the regional spatial strategy there is a huge impetus towards developing those areas, and the Environment Agency cannot object on the basis of anything outside its own competence for main rivers and sea flooding.

The hon. Gentleman makes my point for me. We need to get this right. In the wide objectives we have at a local and national level, he, like me, wants to see development and affordable homes, but they need to fit within the strategies. We need to ensure that they do, and ask questions when they do not, both of local authorities and also more widely along the food chain.

I will explain what happens when that does not work, because I acknowledge the examples that have been given. In some cases, because it is a localised issue, people will say, “Why on earth was this allowed to happen?” I have an example from my Constituency of an area left over from a coal washeries, which has never been flooded and which people are desperate to develop, but the Environment Agency says that it is on a flood plain. It has never, ever flooded, and a few years ago a big hotelier put in an offer to develop it, in a coal-mining constituency. The argument is that that has to fit with the advice, and the Environment Agency’s advice must be heeded, or good reasons and measures must be put in place. That is my argument.

That is not true.

I have not even addressed the remaining issue. Let me come to it because it might help. My point of reference was the new Clause tabled by the hon. Member for Tewkesbury, rather than that tabled by the hon. Member for Cheltenham, which is slightly different.

I refer the Committee to Restormel borough council, which is part of Cornwall council. It is an example of a local authority whose core strategy development plan documents in 2007 were found to be unsound. One of the grounds for that lack of soundness was that a strategic flood risk assessment was not carried out before the core strategy was submitted. Results from the assessment later demonstrated that there were flood risks in the St. Blazey, Par and Mevagissey areas. It was unclear how the identified rural service centres would function and develop in the future. There are opportunities to say that local authorities and development plans are wanting and to object to them.

There is a final buck-stop, which I can see happening. If there is disagreement with the decision of a local authority or Environment Agency advice is completely overridden, I would want to know about it. Also, people can have a judicial review of the decision to see whether it was sound and whether the full process was gone through. I have seen that happen.

Will the Minister give way on that point?

Let me turn to the new clauses and I will then give way to the hon. Gentleman. I am not sure whether I will be able to persuade hon. Members. The hon. Member for Cheltenham has already indicated that he will press for a vote. However, I will do my best.

New clauses 7 and 8 would require that an area of high flood risk is defined in local development frameworks and provide for a local planning authority to cite high flood risk as grounds for refusing planning permission in a high flood-risk area. That is the gist of the new clauses. It is of course important that flood risk is recognised and properly taken into account in planning decisions. I have tried to explain that that approach is already a central component of existing national planning policy.

The Environment Agency’s flood map shows areas at risk of river and sea flooding based on the annual probability of flooding as defined in PPS25, “Development and Flood Risk”. It requires local strategic flood risk assessments to be done by local authorities to build on and refine the information in the Environment Agency’s flood map, taking into account other sources of flooding. Similar arrangements are in place in Wales under the Welsh Assembly Government’s technical advice note 15.

PPS25 emphasises the strategic approach to flood risk management. It stresses the need to consider flood risk as early as possible in the planning process in an integrated way. The policy makes it clear that flood risk must be assessed at all stages of the process—regional, local and individual planning applications—to avoid inappropriate development.

The SFRA provides the evidence base for preparing local policies in local development frameworks that avoid and manage all types of flood risk to and from development. Those policies should refer to areas of flood risk identified in the SFRA, where relevant. Regulations to implement the European floods directive further strengthen the requirement to produce the SFRA.

If the local authority does not think that it can deliver the housing targets safely, it can take its evidence to the Government office and the regional planning body. The Lincolnshire coast study is a good example of local authorities taking just such a constructive approach.

I have to say that the Minister is simply wrong about how that is working on the ground. I have been in planning inquiries where the local authority has argued against a development, but has constantly had the regional spatial strategy quoted back at it and where planning inspectors have spent a matter of minutes in a local area before allocating an area to housing. The Environment Agency has confirmed to me that it does not have powers to refuse or object to planning applications when the flooding is as a result of surface water flooding. The FRA and PPS25 must include all forms of flooding, but the EA advice does not.

To deal with that point directly, if the hon. Gentleman has been informed that surface water flooding cannot be taken into account, that is incorrect.

By the EA.

That is simply incorrect; it can be. I would be happy to take up that issue. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point that he has been in meetings and has seen that it has not been followed through.

Let me come to where we are and to what more we need to do. The situation is not absolutely perfect, but there has been significant progress. It is not just me saying that. I will come to that in a moment.

Pitt’s recommendation 5 made it clear that there should be a presumption against building in high flood risk areas. I take entirely the Minister’s point that the practice guide has been updated, but I think that in the view of many members of the Committee it simply does not go far enough. That is a point of  difference between the two main parties. Where the Government persist in wishing to build on areas at risk of, or prone to, flooding, how do they answer recommendation 11 of Pitt:

“Building regulations should be revised to ensure that all new or refurbished buildings in high flood-risk areas are flood resistant or resilient”?

On a point of information, I am alarmed that the consultation on the building controls has been pushed back from summer 2009 to summer 2011-12. That sets alarm bells ringing. If Pitt is to be followed through, there should be a presumption that—

Order. Interventions should be relatively short. Thank you. Minister.

I think, Mr. Martlew, that we will turn to resilience in subsequent amendments, and I am happy to debate the matter then. The Pitt review shows good progress across a range of issues, but there are areas in which we need to go faster. I hope that the hon. Lady will acknowledge that the Pitt update recognises that we have not waited around; we have got on with this work at a rate of knots—

Mr. Williamsrose—

Let me make some progress. I want to speak to some of the points being raised, and I will then take the Intervention.

A point was made about the updated planning policy statement. Let me read for the record exactly what the updated guidance, which we constantly keep under review, states in section 5 on key planning objectives:

“The aims of planning policy on development and flood risk are to ensure that flood risk is taken into account at all stages in the planning process to avoid inappropriate development in areas at risk of flooding, and to direct development away from areas at highest risk.”

The matter is in there; the guidance has been strengthened. I understand what the hon. Lady says, that it might not go as far as she or others want, but it has been strengthened. In his review, Pitt agreed that the policy within PPS25 is right and sound and that it is the right approach. He said, however, and I also say, that it needs to be rigorously applied. The point of difference here seems to be whether we take what we have got—what has been reviewed and strengthened—and show how it can be taken from the regional level all the way down to the local, and make it work. We all have a responsibility to do that, and to demand of our local authorities and others that they do it.

The Minister is in a difficult position, and he is trying to have it both ways. I think that understands that we all agree that development should not take place in high-risk areas, but we also know that planning law says that it is difficult for a development plan to say that such and such a development will not take place. The planning phraseology is “there will be a presumption against”. The Minister is trying to defend that when he knows that we all, and the Bill, should be trenchant on the point that there should be no development in high flood-risk areas.

No, I could not disagree more. The approach that the hon. Gentleman has just outlined would rule out economic regeneration in Hull, in much of the east of England, and in Portsmouth and London.  I understand where hon. Members are coming from, but I think that what we are trying to push at is to get the process right. We know that it has not been perfect—far from it. Let me expand, to say where we have got to.

Minister, we are in danger of repeating ourselves a little.

Indeed. I just want to give an update on where we are. Flood risk has to be a key factor in planning decisions, but it is not the only one. That is the important thing. Economic development and local circumstances are important, and the EA acknowledges that it is not in a position to take a view on those things. It is to do with democratic accountability and local accountability. It is for the local authorities, which are democratically elected accountable bodies, to do it. From what has been put to me, it sounds as though people are saying, “We cannot get development happening because the EA has objected.” I hear that and I also hear the opposite, as I have said. Where that is happening I would like to hear more about it, and we need to push on that as Members of Parliament.

Our evidence is that the process is working in the vast Majority of cases and is now working better than when it was introduced. I am not the only one saying that. In more than 96 per cent. of cases where the EA has objected to planning applications on flood-risk grounds, the final decision outcome is in line with the EA advice. Most local authorities—85 per cent. of them in England—have completed the strategic flood risk assessment as required under PPS25, with most others expected to complete soon. Having said that it is not just my saying this, may I mention what Nick Starling from the ABI said last week in the afternoon evidence session? The challenge was put down early on that insurers will walk away from this issue. I throw that challenge back: that is not what the ABI and its members are saying. Nick Starling said:

“Huge steps have been made in terms of planning...we have seen a dramatic reduction in the number of planning permission consents given in high-risk areas, so we want to see that continue.”——[Official Report, Flood and Water Management Public Bill Committee, 7 January 2010; c. 45, Q66.]

I recognise that the process is not perfect and that wrong decisions will be made, or it will not be applied robustly enough. Our job—mine as a Minister and ours as MPs—is to ensure that that happens. But we are going in the right direction when the ABI is saying that it has seen the improvement, when I can quote figures that show an independent assessment, and when I can mention the Department for Communities and Local Government’s review in June last year showing the progress that has been made, which shows what more needs to be done in applying the measure properly and which I will happily send to Committee members.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham mentioned the issue of the wrong type of water. PPS25 covers all types of flood risk and is not just selective. I have also mentioned the updated guidance. I think that I have covered every aspect.

I am fascinated by this debate, but if we are going to make progress, we should have shorter interventions and shorter responses.

I will endeavour to be brief, because we have gone round most of the issues.

I should like to return to the matter of which types of flood risk are included in what. It is clear that PPS25, which I have in my sweaty palm, covers all forms of flooding and it is clear that strategic flood risk assessments and even developers’ own flood risk assessments should address all forms of flood risk. However, it is not clear—certainly not to the Environment Agency, from staff that I have talked to—whether its advice and input into this process has addressed all forms of flood risk. Although it is the expert agency, despite what the Minister has assured me, my strong impression, and its impression at local level, and certainly at regional level, is that it cannot give advice on anything other than main river flooding. For instance, its flood maps are river flooding maps. We do not yet have all the localised data for inundation by surface water.

The area that I mentioned in my opening remarks on the Clause—the green area of Leckhampton uphill from the area of Warden Hill, which flooded in the 2007 floods—was affected by surface water flooding and causing a lot of problems. The EA apparently does not feel that it can object to that in planning appeals. So we end up arguing in planning appeals, with the local authority, despite or because of whatever flood risk assessment that it has done, objecting to a proposal, but with the EA having withdrawn its objections as the definitive expert body on flooding, and with the developers quoting another Government policy—the regional spatial strategy—which absolutely, clearly allocates an area to housing, despite our having maps from consultants showing large parts of it at flood risk from surface water flooding. Clearly, things are not matching up. I accept that the Minister wishes it was not so and wishes that this should not be the way it works and that strategic regional flood risk assessments should stop such things happening, but the bottom line is that it is not being stopped at the moment. We need something that is clearer and stronger in law to make it clear that at the planning appeal stage, a local authority can produce the kind of maps that we have for Leckhampton, which is near my Constituency, and say, “Look at this map. It is clearly a high flood-risk area, which is grounds for us to refuse the appeal. The development will not go ahead because the chances are that those houses will flood when they are built and they will make flooding worse downhill.”

That is what the amendments are designed to achieve. They are not to rule out all development in flood plains. They are not even designed to rule out all development in flood-risk areas. In cases in which it is proven that a development is inappropriate, the amendments will give local authorities a clear power to trump other ill-informed Government policies such as regional spatial strategies coming down from on high and saying, “Regardless of the environmental consequences, this area shall be developed.” On those grounds, when the time comes—I think next week—I will still be pressing the new clauses to a vote.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 3 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.