Flood Prevention: Sleaford and North Hykeham

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Jeff Smith.)

14:46:00

Before I start my remarks, I will make a declaration of interest: my husband is a farmer, and we have a small stipend to pay to the internal drainage board in relation to flood risk. My constituents in Sleaford and North Hykeham enjoy some of the most beautiful countryside that the United Kingdom has to offer. Our hard-working farmers reap the benefits of some of the best agricultural land in the country for their crops. Unfortunately, living in this area brings some environmental risks. Many Lincolnshire MPs centuries ago held the office of commissioner of sewers in the county. The job sounds unglamorous but was very important, bringing with it responsibility for managing the county’s waterways and drainage and for protecting lives and livelihoods from the risk of flood damage. I am not suggesting that I take on that role myself, but that historical flood risk has only become more acute in recent years. Land usage has intensified, our climate has become more volatile and greater pressures have started to affect our natural resources. Our county has suffered from flooding caused by overwhelmed drainage systems and excessive river levels. The effects on people have magnified too. Some people whose homes were flooded lost not just possessions, but the ability to live in their home for a long period of time; some did not return home for more than a year. Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting Heighington Millfield primary academy as it formally reopened following significant flood damage last year. The closure had major effects on the children there, who had to be bused to different schools around the county within the trust, and significant measures had to be taken to restore the school. I put on record my thanks to everybody involved in that work. The community really pulled together for those children, and the Department for Education and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs worked very hard together to ensure not just that the school was repaired, but that flood measures were put in place to try to prevent those things happening again. The school now has flood doors in place so that it can prevent flooding coming in through the doors, and it is having work done over the summer in preparation for the autumn rain to protect the outside environment, which includes bunding around the playing fields and a special garden at the back of the school on higher ground, which will absorb some of the water if the rain overtops the back again. Unfortunately, at the same time that that great work has been going on, new councillors under the direction of Reform have chosen to abolish the county council committee dedicated to managing flood risk. I will have more to say about that later. In opening this debate, I want to make a simple point. My constituents deserve to live in safety and to go about their work and education without severe disruption from climate events. We need to ensure that we are doing everything we can to protect their lives and livelihoods, and that recommendations are being followed up and maintenance work is being done on time. We also need to make the most of local expertise and experience, and not undo the good work started under the previous Government towards fostering collaboration between agencies and local people. Many communities across my constituency have been affected by flooding in recent times, and they deserve to have their experiences shared. In North Scarle, for example, residents faced huge disruption in 2024 when heavy rainfall on to already wet ground caused flooding at Mill Dam dyke. The local authority report on the event found that poor maintenance of the local watercourses had contributed to the flooding, as did problems with the surface drainage system. As I saw when I visited North Scarle in December that year, co-operation among different agencies is key in tackling these kinds of events. Lincolnshire county council is responsible for cleaning gullies and maintaining drainage, while the Environment Agency has responsibility for ongoing maintenance at Mill Dam dyke. Meanwhile, local groups such as Flood Action North Scarle contribute valuable local knowledge and experience. The EA has upheld its end of the shared responsibilities set out in the flooding report, and has engaged the local community by providing maintenance updates. It spent around £71,000 on maintenance in 2023-24. However, since the spending review published this week revealed a 2.7% cut in the DEFRA budget over the review period, can the Minister assure my constituents that the EA will still have the money to continue maintaining these dykes going forward? And what will the Minister do to ensure transparency from councils? Updates from the EA are relatively easy to access, but Lincolnshire county council’s flooding project website simply lists its own actions following each flood report as “ongoing”. My residents need more clarity than that. In Sleaford, residents faced similar problems when Field beck was overtopped in October 2023 and drainage systems again became overwhelmed. I welcome the work that the EA has done here too, with the business case for a major capital scheme approved on 2 June. I am pleased about this investment, which is projected to avoid £188 million in economic damage, deliver £74 million in people-related benefits and protect 604 properties from repeat flood damage. In Leasingham, more work needs to be done. Residents suffered flooding twice in quick succession, including in the school, in October 2023 and January 2024, when agricultural ditches overtopped and Leasingham beck exceeded its capacity. The council’s flood report recommended that the EA and Lincolnshire county council work together to carry out channel condition assessments at Leasingham beck, with the results to be reported back to the Lincolnshire flood risk and water management partnership. However, the inspections have not yet happened. Worse still, even as reports into historical flooding are calling for closer collaboration, the Reform council is undoing the successful partnerships already established. The Lincolnshire flood and water management scrutiny committee did vital work in bringing together key agencies involved in flood management and prevention: the EA, internal drainage boards, Anglian Water, district councils and other key experts. Three weeks ago, Reform abolished the committee, folding it into the generalist environment committee, which does not have the same specialist remit to cover the most important and complex environmental issue facing the county. By rejecting the valuable contributions of IDBs, district councils and local experts, Reform councillors are saying that they know better than local people who have tended the land for generations. All the main parties have opposed the committee’s abolition and have seen it for what it is: politicking with people’s livelihoods. If the Government see these reckless actions being wrought on local communities in Sleaford and North Hykeham and elsewhere in Lincolnshire, what can they do to ensure that councils uphold their responsibilities to residents? Instead of cancelling initiatives, we should be creating new ones. I was encouraged by the excellent work done under the previous Government to advance the water maintenance pilot scheme, which was designed to foster collaboration between farmers and the National Farmers Union, local drainage boards and the EA. The scheme enabled greater co-ordination and common-sense flexibility in the management of waterways—for example, by training local landowners in how to manage watercourses, and then allowing them to carry out their own minor channel clearance and maintenance work for themselves. The scheme helped to avoid the ludicrous, heartbreaking situation in which local people can see a problem with a local watercourse, are aware it is going to flood their farm, land or their home, and have the equipment and the know-how to do something about it, but the law prevents them from doing so. It is illogical. Public sector co-operation agreements already exist to help streamline those schemes and place participants on a clear legal footing. One of the great local successes under that framework was the 2018 silt dredging of the South Forty-Foot drain, a farmland drainage channel dating from the 17th century, under a PSCA between the Black Sluice drainage board and the EA. Why have the lessons of those schemes not been applied more widely? Since the last election, the scheme in my own constituency has ground to a halt, and with it have gone the benefits that were already accruing. Will the Minister commit to supporting those schemes and encouraging their wider roll-out? As she looks to her budgets, it is worth recognising that it is much cheaper for the IDB to clear drains and ditches than for the EA to do so, since the EA’s procurement process is so cumbersome that it becomes significantly more expensive. One of the things that frustrates many local people in my constituency is that they could do the job and get it done much quicker. They are waiting, and places are flooding while it is not getting done. Another thing that the Minister could discuss with the Treasury is that the IDB has been prevented from using red diesel in its pumps. The IDB has told me that the problem is that the pumps are placed in isolated places, and believe it or not, people are stealing the diesel. It is white diesel—it is expensive, so it is worth something—and people are stealing it from the pump, which is putting everyone at risk. The IDB feels that if it were red diesel in those pumps, theft would be much less likely. Brant Broughton is an area in which a number of houses flooded. We have had a less promising update from the Environment Agency in that respect; it says that it was expecting to receive a model of the river system around the summer of 2025.

The Minister is nodding—I do not know whether she has an update on what the Environment Agency means by “the summer”. We were expecting the health plan in the spring, and that has been and gone, so if she could help with that, that would be really great. There is some concern about the overall cost-benefit ratio, given the number of houses. I encourage the Minister to remember that although the people who live in rural areas may live in areas that are less densely populated, they have as much right to a safe environment as anybody who lives in a more densely populated part of the country. There are more examples of communities in my constituency that have suffered the impacts of flooding and are crying out for a joined-up and proactive approach that will protect them from repeat occurrences in the future. In Washingborough and Timberland, a familiar story happened in recent floods: heavy rain, overwhelmed drainage and excessive water runoff led to communities being left to suffer. While the EA has carried out some channel clearance and vegetation management, flood reports make clear that responsibility falls between central agencies, the county council, landowners, and stakeholders such as Anglian Water. Once again, it is vital that open communication is at the heart of the strategy, and that politically motivated meddling is not allowed to get in the way. I took the chair of the Environment Agency and the former Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), to visit the Delph at Washingborough when it was full. It was very clear that the EA’s priority had been to protect the small creatures living in the dyke by not clearing the vegetation out, but of course, once the floods came, those small creatures were no more anyway. It would have been much better for the creatures, the environment, and the wider countryside and the people who live there if those dykes had been cleared properly in the first place. Trees were literally growing in that dyke when we went to see it. There are two final communities facing specific future threats that I would like to highlight. In Ruskington, residents endured flooding in 2023 and 2024 caused by the overflow of Ruskington beck. I understand that the Environment Agency has been conducting bimonthly maintenance and debris removal, and is investigating a capital programme for defences in Ruskington as part of the next five-year funding period. Any scheme will have to meet economic viability criteria and defined cost-benefit metrics, despite future house building plans that will see more land covered, more people in at-risk areas, and more demand on drainage systems. As of December 2024, under the Government’s new targets, the central Lincolnshire partnership—of which North Kesteven forms a part—faces a house building target of 1,552 houses per year over the course of this Parliament, an 47% increase on the previous target. Can the Minister assure me that the cost-benefit analyses deciding the fate of future flood defence schemes will take account of the Government’s rampant house building plans, and will account for all the ways in which flooding impacts a community such as Ruskington, from work hours lost to home damage, insurance claims, watercourse repairs and drainage clearance? Finally, Anwick suffered in the floods of 2023, when the River Slea and its tributaries experienced very high water levels. The EA and Anglian Water have been engaged in positive liaisons to manage risks at the River Slea, Farroway drain and Anwick catchwater, but residents in Anwick contacted me in September 2024 when a sewage processing plant flooded, causing discharge and polluting smells across the area. I met Anglian Water to discuss those constituents’ concerns, but their bigger concerns are now about a biogas digester that may be built immediately next door. In this case too, it is vital that lessons are learned and that we avoid repeating mistakes that will lead to more disruption for local people in the future. Addressing the risks requires the careful allocation of money. A glance at the most recent funding allocations under the flood and coastal erosion risk management grant in aid scheme shows that many dozens of projects appear in the bidding process but receive no funding. The allocation data for the Upper Witham internal drainage board in my constituency shows 15 intended projects listed for completion between 2023 and 2040, but none has any grant funding at all allocated this year. Lincolnshire county council, meanwhile, is due to receive £103,500 in grant funding over 2025-26 for year one of the property flood resilience project. Two smaller projects will receive a total of £52,500 from non-grant public contributions, but 19 other projects will receive no funding at all. The Government have made much of the £2.65 billion in funding for flood defences that was announced in February, but as I have said before, governing effectively is about making choices. Can the Government clarify for my constituents how the EA is expected to prioritise its funding among the many equally important projects that need support, especially in light of cuts to the DEFRA budget? How much money is spent on developing schemes that subsequently do not come to fruition? What is the estimated cost—in household damage, lost output and broader economic terms—of deciding not to act? As I mentioned earlier, the hard-working farmers in my constituency do so much for our local and national economy and for this country’s food security, and it is vital that we remember them. What will become of agricultural productivity in areas left with inadequate flood defences? What will happen to food security when some of our best-quality agricultural land is lost to frequent inundation, and how are farmers meant to prepare for this uncertainty–—in economic and practical terms—when they already face such a heady mix of threats to their livelihoods? Just as farmers have been left to face the family farm tax instituted by the Labour party and have suffered the sudden loss of the sustainable farming incentive, they will also face the threat of flooding, without the help and support they need, if this Government fail to act in the long-term interests of rural communities. We have reached the time for action on flood prevention and resilience. As I noted earlier, the way to manage the risks is with local knowledge, collaborative and long-term management strategies, and proper funding—essentially, with basic common sense. First, we must keep the valuable expertise of local people within the decision-making system. IDBs, local farmers and expert local committees know their land best, and we must give them the tools and authority to manage their own environments. Secondly, we must build on projects such as the water maintenance pilot to foster long-term planning and inter-agency working. We can do more: the creation of a Lincolnshire rivers authority, for example, would provide a structured platform for long-term flood planning that could be tailored to the needs of local people, rather than to the nationwide EA or DEFRA frameworks. Finally, we must ensure that vital projects receive the necessary funding, without being held up by central agencies’ cost-benefit frameworks. Local authorities should hold budgetary power as well as decision-making power to make sure that interventions are made where they are needed most, and in a timely and efficient way. With these measures, we can make sure that local people have control over their own local environment and give them the tools they need to prevent the devastating impacts of flooding, which have blighted some areas of Lincolnshire for too long.

15:03:00

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this debate and on raising these very important issues, which I will endeavour to address in the time remaining. Protecting communities, homes, businesses and farmland from flooding is a priority for this Government, and I am delighted to hear that Heighington Millfield academy students are now safely back at school. I am sure that there has been a lot of disruption, particularly for those taking public exams. I am grateful to the hon. Member for her generous comments about the Department for Education, DEFRA and EA officials who have been working at pace to minimise the impact, and I pay tribute to all the people involved in that—not least the parents and the students themselves. I am very pleased to hear that there are flood-resilient repairs, and I am interested in ways in which nature-based planting around the school can potentially help with flood mitigation in the future. May I say how incredibly disappointed I am to hear that the Reform-led county council in Lincolnshire has taken the very short-sighted and unwelcome decision to abolish the flood risk and flood protection committee? This shows the danger of pandering to reactionary rhetoric and then leaving local homes and local communities unprotected. I shall be watching the council very closely to ensure that it is fulfilling its duties under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. I am aware that the hon. Member’s constituency has been badly affected by flooding from Storms Babet and Henk during the winter of 2023-24. Sadly, more were flooded this January after heavy rainfall, and my thoughts are with those affected. As the former MP for Wakefield, I had 1,000 properties flooded in 2007, and I can tell her that the psychological impact on residents is very long lasting. I totally understand her desire to raise these matters on behalf of her constituents and the local communities she serves. Engagement and collaboration are a key component of managing and mitigating flood risk, and I am pleased to hear that the hon. Member is in contact with the Environment Agency on these matters. I can confirm that her constituency is receiving £9.3 million from the Government’s flood investment programme this financial year, which is funding the repair and maintenance, as she said, of a number of crucial flood defences. As she mentioned Lincolnshire’s section 19 reports, I can say that officials tell me that they have been completed and that any decisions arising from them will take place in future funding years. Work has started this month on phase 1 of the Lower Witham flood resilience project, which will support embankment assets. Phase 2 of the project, which is planned, will bring further investment in sustaining legacy assets while implementing adaptation measures to improve the resilience of the area to flooding. The Environment Agency is working with partners to build an up-to-date model of the Lower Witham, to be completed this financial year, and it will be used to test future adaptive approaches and accurately assess flood risk. I will ask the Minister for Water and Flooding, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy), to write to the hon. Member if there are any things that we cannot get through in the time available. The River Slea flood resilience project is exploring a new, more sustainable solution to flood risk management in Sleaford. Public engagement has been undertaken with organisations and other stakeholders on this project. Ruskington is also being considered for a flood resilience project. As set out by the Chancellor this week, in order to support the Government’s growth mission and plan for change, we are investing a record £4.2 billion over the next three years, from April 2026, to build new flood defences and to maintain and repair existing ones across the country. That is £1.4 billion each year. This is a 5% increase in our annual average investment compared with our existing spend of £2.65 billion over the past two years—2024-25 and 2025-26. Our current investment programme is supporting 1,000 projects, which will help to protect 52,000 homes and businesses by March 2026. And through essential maintenance, a further 14,500 properties will have their expected level of protection maintained or restored. That is a total of 66,500 properties that will benefit, helping to secure jobs, deliver growth and protect against economic damage. We have also unlocked £140 million from this investment to get 29 stalled projects moving. This is targeted at schemes that were ready to go, so that protection can be delivered faster for those who need it the most, and we have published the full list of funded schemes for this financial year. The Government inherited flood assets in their poorest condition on record following years of under-investment, leaving 3,000 of the Environment Agency’s 38,000 key flood defence assets below the condition required. This Government are taking decisive action to fix the foundations, giving communities confidence that flood defences will protect them. We are prioritising, over the current two spending years from 2024-25 and 2025-26, £108 million in repairing and restoring those critical assets. Last year, £36 million focused on damage from recent storms and flooding, with a further £72 million this year to ensure that defences are resilient, reliable and ready. In addition, environmental land management schemes present a valuable opportunity for supporting flooding and coastal erosion risk management, through direct funding of actions and providing a revenue stream to support landowners working with EA capital schemes, and through indirect actions that will lead to reduced watercourse maintenance requirements, increasing the lifespan of our assets. The hon. Lady mentioned red diesel and I just wanted to make a quick point on that. The previous Government removed most red diesel entitlements from April 2022, but there are some exceptions. Risk management authorities, which include internal drainage boards, may use red diesel for drainage ditch clearance, including work relating to agriculture, horticulture and forestry. I hope that is a useful clarification. Watercourse management responsibilities fall to different bodies. Riparian landowners whose land adjoins a watercourse, such as a drainage ditch, are required to keep those watercourses clear of anything that could be an obstruction. The EA has permissive powers to work on the main rivers, and lead local flood authorities or internal drainage boards have permissive powers for ordinary watercourses. The EA focuses on those activities that will achieve the greatest benefit in terms of protecting people and property from flooding. That, of course, can include dredging and clearing channels. In Lincolnshire, that often involves using the local IDBs. The EA spends an average of £40 million a year on these activities to improve water flow in around 3,000 km of main rivers. The need for dredging is assessed on a location-by-location basis. The EA will work with local communities, IDBs and through public sector co-operation agreements to assess whether dredging is technically achievable and cost-effective, ensuring that it does not significantly increase flood risk downstream and that it is environmentally acceptable. The hon. Lady asked about future funding reforms. The current approach to floods funding, introduced by a previous Government in 2011, neglects more innovative approaches. To address that, we have reviewed our approach and last week launched a consultation on proposals to reform the way we allocate funding to flood schemes. Our proposals will make it simpler for all risk management authorities to calculate their funding, benefiting all councils, including those that have less resource to commit to the application process. This should speed up the delivery of vital schemes and ensure that money is distributed more effectively across the country, including for rural and coastal communities, and poorer communities that have previously struggled to secure funding. We will make it easier to invest in natural flood management schemes that also give benefits for nature, water resources and the fight against climate change. We are considering how communities can make better use of property flood resilience measures. Changes to the current approach to floods funding will be launched in time for the new floods investment programme, which will start in April 2026. The consultation is open to all and we encourage everyone with an interest to respond and help shape our future approach to flood funding. This issue is at the very top of the Secretary of State’s priorities, which is why we set up a flood resilience taskforce to provide oversight of national and local flood resilience and preparedness. That taskforce represents a new approach that brings together representatives from national, regional and local government, the devolved Administrations, the emergency services, charities and environmental interest groups. We need to know what works and we are learning where we need to make changes. We have established action groups led by members to deliver progress on areas, including flood warnings, awareness of recovery and insurance schemes. The Government fully support the vital role that internal drainage boards play in managing water and flood risk and in protecting the environment.

When I went around looking at the different areas of flooding in my constituency, I got a consistent message: that the EA had not performed as well as the IDBs and that it was costing more money per activity. In her final few minutes, can the Minister touch on how the IDBs can do more of the work and engage more local people in doing it for themselves?

The previous Government had allocated £75 million to the IDB fund; I am happy to say that in March we announced an additional £16 million boost to the fund. That creates a total of £91 million, which should enable IDBs to modernise and upgrade their assets and waterways so that they are fit for the future, improving water management for more than 400,000 hectares of agricultural land and about 91,000 homes and businesses. That includes three IDBs in the hon. Lady’s constituency: Black Sluice, Upper Witham and Witham First, which have received Government funding of about £10.4 million in grants from the IDB fund since 2024-25, to help with pumping station repairs and watercourse embankment repairs. I am in my final minute. I encourage the hon. Lady’s constituents to sign up for flood warnings on gov.uk. It is vital that communities are in the communications chain so that they are aware of flood events, especially given that intense rainfall is expected this evening. I will endeavour to write to the hon. Lady about any other issues she may have. Question put and agreed to.

15:16:00