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Flood and Water Management Bill

I have an Environment Agency that is pragmatic and is out there working right this moment, looking at Canvey Island's defences. It is led by Daffyd Davies, the area manager. He is a fantastic man and I congratulate the Environment Agency warmly, as it is helping to defend my constituents. I shall discuss that in a moment, but first I must congratulate the Government on this Bill. In particular, I must congratulate the Minister, who has driven the Bill through in his characteristically courteous style. I shall ask the Minister to go a little further tonight on new clause 20, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) and which I support strongly. I particularly ask the Minister to provide help, because of what the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said about this perhaps being our last chance for a number of years to put the role of the fire service on a statutory basis. Such an approach is necessary, and it is what new clause 20 and the other new clauses seek to do. It would enable the fire service to get proper training, equipment and clothing—we have heard about those things tonight—so that it can carry out its flood rescue responsibility, which it does assiduously and extremely well and for which we are all very grateful. The proposal would also give greater protection to certain fire stations, such as the one on Canvey Island, which I have fought to save on two occasions since I first came to this House in 1992—thankfully, I fought successfully. I hope that I do not have to fight again, but if I did, a statutory duty in respect of flood rescue would make my task that much easier. I am sorry if I misrepresent the Conservative Front-Bench team when I say that my feeling was—they will correct me if I am wrong—that they did not seem fully supportive of new clause 20 and its proposal to put the fire service's flood rescue responsibilities on a statutory basis. I am sorry if that is their position, and I know that my constituents will be sorry too. I hope that the Minister will indicate a willingness to help the House. If he does not do so, I hope that we can put the matter to a vote and see where everybody stands on it. I shall certainly be voting for new clause 20. Let me set the issue in context. Canvey Island was a victim of the big flood of 1953, when 58 men, women and children were drowned. They died in that flood; this is not an academic matter for my constituents. Almost 10 times as many people are now living on the island, and they still have totally inadequate access arrangements. An evacuation in an emergency situation would be problematic. We see the probability of emergency situations arising and of extreme weather events and flooding increasing. The 1,000-year flood defence that was put in for Canvey several decades ago might now need to be carefully managed. That is why I am so grateful to the Environment Agency for keeping a sound weather eye on this matter. That brings me to the next issue, which is my final point, as you will be pleased to hear, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is addressed by new clause 9, which was tabled by the Conservative Front Benchers. I support the new clause and think that it is extremely sensible. I congratulate them on it. It goes to the heart of the effectiveness of the Environment Agency. It provides it with staffing, resources, equipment and clout—as it was put a moment ago. It would make the Environment Agency more effective in controlling and minimising flood risk if Environment Agency advice to local planning authorities was put on a statutory basis and made binding on those local authorities. At the moment, the Environment Agency is a statutory consultee when there is a proposal to develop on the floodplain, but Environment Agency advice objecting to that development does not have to be followed by the planning authority. It sometimes is not—too often it is not. We end up with development on the floodplain that is dangerous not only for the people who will eventually occupy that development, but for everyone else. It removes flood storage, increases concrete instead of drainage and displaces flood water so that the flood levels in other areas of that community are higher than they would be if the floodplain had not been developed. That is why I introduced a private Member's Bill to make the Environment Agency's objection to building on the floodplain binding in law. If that were done, it would help me to stop my local council's plans to put hundreds more houses on Canvey Island's floodplain, even without proper access for people to be evacuated, putting everyone else on Canvey Island at greater risk of increased flood levels—