My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, for her introduction to this group. As she and other noble Lords are aware, I have a particular interest in flooding issues because where I live, near Cockermouth in Cumbria, we have had some particularly appalling flooding in recent years. The whole issue of flooding and adaptation resilience is becoming more and more important for the Government to consider, as we start to see the impact of climate change on our weather
systems. It strikes me that the planning section of the Bill is an opportunity to try to build that kind of resilience and adaptation considerations into legislation.
I will first make some comments on the noble Baroness’s amendment on SUDS. She mentioned that surface water flooding is a relatively new risk, mainly because of the way our planning system works and how we build and what we build. This has now resulted in 3.8 million properties in England at surface water flood risk. That is a huge number. In the Government’s plans to boost the supply of new homes, sustainable drainage systems can play a pivotal role in ensuring that new properties are built in a manner that helps to manage surface water flood risk at the local level. The noble Baroness explained this extremely well in her introduction. We absolutely support her amendment on this.
We also believe that there is an urgent need to implement the Government’s policy on floods under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, as the noble Baroness mentioned. We need to ensure that we have mandatory installation in all new-build developments. It does not matter what size they are: this has to be part of the development. We welcome the Government’s recent announcement to make sustainable drainage mandatory in new developments, but they need to urgently progress with the necessary implementation phase. As the noble Baroness said, if they can do it in Wales, why can we not just get on with it here? I see the Minister nodding. With her Welsh connection, she knows what Wales can do.
The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, reminded us just how important this is and what a difference it could make if we just got on with it. It is frustrating that the Government so often come up with really important suggestions and things that we need to do and then we seem to just sit on those. Perhaps the Minister could explain why this has not been introduced. When will we see progression on it?
I have one last point on this. It is essential that the Environment Agency guidance on surface water flood risk is fully considered as part of the planning process. I will be interested to hear from the Minister whether the Government have plans to include this within the progression.
I turn to my amendments in the group, of which I have a number. Amendment 303 would require the Government to set minimum standards for flood resilience, flood mitigation and flood waste management in all building regulations. Amendment 304 would place a duty on the Government and local authorities to make data about flood prevention and risk available for the purpose of assisting insurers and property owners. Data is absolutely crucial if we are going to get to grips with this issue. People need to understand exactly what is what, whether they are looking for insurance or to purchase a property. Amendment 305 would require the Government to establish a certification scheme for improvements to domestic and commercial properties in England made for flood prevention or mitigation purposes and an accreditation scheme for installers of such improvements.
On that point, one of the very frustrating things after the last floods we had in West Cumbria was that when property owners, particularly in the Cockermouth
area, were looking to insurers to replace the damage—whether doors, kitchen equipment, flooring or electricity installations—a certain number of insurers would not look at adaptation and mitigation for the future and would only replace like for like. That is not a sensible way forward. One reason I was keen on this amendment was to ensure that, when a building has flooded and the insurers comes in, the money is spent wisely, to either prevent flooding in the future or to make sure that costs are cheaper. For example, you do not replace a wooden kitchen or floor with the same but look at how you can improve the condition of that building for future risk.
I noticed that Amendment 312K, from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, is quite similar to some of our amendments. We strongly support what she is saying here.
I want to cover the reasoning behind my amendments. The main thing is that we believe we need much more robust planning policy around development in flood risk areas, and we need to increase our resilience to climate-related flood risk. The measures in the Bill to put greater emphasis on environmental outcomes in the planning process, and recognition of the need to protect areas at high flood risk, are very welcome, but we believe that adapting to climate change and managing flood risk is a challenge for the whole of our society.
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We see this Bill as an opportunity to improve the planning system to ensure net-zero alignment. That includes reducing inappropriate development in high flood risk areas and ensuring that new homes are resilient to climate risk. Developers have to get real about this as well. When we had huge floods in Tewkesbury in 2007, there was a huge development called “Water Meadow View” or “Water Meadow Flats” by the river —or something similar, I cannot remember. After the flooding, the name was changed and “Water” had gone. It was cynical and we should not allow that kind of practice. Developers need to be part of these discussions, not just communities and insurance companies.
We also need to make sure that that is underpinned by a long-term funding commitment to investing and maintaining the UK’s flood defence infrastructure. While we welcome the recognition of flood risk in the national development management plan proposals, the legislation could go further to establish environmental protections in statute, rather than just relying on further consultation of the NPPF after the passage of the Bill. A review of the NPPF presents an opportunity for the Government to close the loophole in the current guidance that accompanies the framework. That loophole means that developers can build and sell properties in flood risk areas simply if they leave space for flood defence measures to be installed in the future. This loophole needs to be closed to ensure that the developer is held responsible for any measures necessary to ensure that properties are protected from flood risk to the highest possible standard.
I also have Amendment 306 in this group. It requires the Financial Conduct Authority to make rules requiring insurance companies to take into account flood prevention or mitigation improvements that are either certified or have planning permission requirements taken into account
when setting insurance premiums. This is incredibly important. I live in an old mill house. The only reason that we can get insurance is because it takes into account the fact that we have a proper flood wall defence system. If the insurance company just asked whether the property had flooded before or just looked at the flood maps, it would cause us huge problems. If one has invested to make one’s property resilient, that should be taken advantage of.
Before I move on to further issues, I shall just mention the students from Hull—from Ron Dearing UTC—and Skegness who met me recently. They wanted to tell us a story about what it is like living in Hull under constant flood risk and the impact on young people living with the fear that their town could suffer serious damage from flooding at any time. We need to listen to young people because this is their town and their future. They have a campaign called #WeAreHere if anyone interested wants to have a look. It was very moving listening to them.
My next amendment, Amendment 307, requires the Financial Conduct Authority to make rules requiring insurance companies to take into account certified flood prevention or mitigation improvements or planning permission requirements in setting insurance premiums. The insurance sector is very productive and brings a huge amount of money into the UK economy. However, those companies are on the front line, responding to the physical risks of the climate crisis, particularly the increased risk of flooding. I thank the ABI, the Association of British Insurers, for its briefing on this part of the Bill. The figure that the ABI gave me is that, in response to the damage caused by storms Dudley, Eunice and Franklin that hit much of the UK in February 2022, insurers were expected to pay out nearly £500 million in dealing with 177,000 claims. That gives some feel for the level of damage, insurance and response. This is not going to get better. It is important we look at how we deal with this. The ABI says that that followed on the back of payments of more than £540 million in response to flooding from storms Ciara, Dennis and Jorge in 2020.
The ABI has been calling for the Government to ensure that there are no inappropriate developments in flood risk areas and to encourage a more transparent planning application process with clear monitoring and reporting by local authorities on planning decisions. It believes that to increase resilience the Government should consider clearly linking future residential and commercial developments to building regulations approved documents and has long been calling for greater alignment between Defra and DLUHC on planning and development policy. It would be interesting to know from the Minister what work Defra and DLUHC have been doing, what work they are planning to do and whether she believes they could work together more closely.
My final amendment, Amendment 308, would require the Government to expand the Flood Re scheme to premises built since 2009 that have property flood resilience measures. The noble Baroness opposite mentioned the problems this has caused. When Flood Re came forward, it was incredibly important. For the first time, people who had been struggling to get insurance for their
property were able to get insurance, so I want to say how much we supported Flood Re coming in and the work it has done. It had been very difficult for home owners to get affordable insurance. It is not that insurance was not offered; it was just offered with a £10,000 excess, which made it completely unaffordable if you had a two-bedroom terrace house. If we look at the figures, 94% of the UK home insurance market provides access to policies backed by Flood Re, and we know that many thousands of flood risk properties have benefited from it since it was introduced.
However, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said, Flood Re does not provide cover for properties built after 1 January 2009. I met the head of Flood Re to discuss this with him after our flooding, and he explained that the 2009 exemption is an extension of previous agreements between the insurance industry and the UK Government and that such properties were purposefully excluded from the scheme to ensure that inappropriate building in flood risk areas were not incentivised. In other words, we do not need to include properties built after 2009 because they will not flood. We have seen that that is simply not the case, and—I was going to say it has left a number of properties high and dry but, unfortunately, it is exactly the opposite —it has left people with no cover. We have to revisit this because it simply is not fair.
The insurance industry says that to amend Flood Re retrospectively would send the wrong message on building in flood risk areas. I can see that from the point of view of the insurance company, but if you think about it from the home owner’s side, they need to be properly protected and able to insure their houses. Will the Minister take this back to the department to see whether it will review insurance policies around houses built since 2009?
Finally on that point, we also need to look at how we move forward with insuring businesses because Flood Re does not cover commercial properties, properties in multiple occupation over a certain size or tenants, necessarily. It is working successfully for those for whom it was set up, but there are a number of gaps. It is important that we revisit them because the next time we have huge floods, not only will there be huge costs for insurance companies, but there will be huge costs for people who have been unable to get insurance so far.