Richard Benyon

It is three years since the devastating floods of 2007. Floods then, drought now. Our weather seems to fluctuate between increasing extremes. Most of the houses flooded in West Berkshire were the victims of surface water flooding rather than the case of towns like Tewkesbury and Worcester, which all too frequently fall victim to rivers bursting their banks. Unfortunately, insurance brokers tend to take a rather simplistic view of flood risk: a house has been flooded, therefore there is a chance it will happen again. Flood risk forecasting is, in itself, risky but I would be prepared to say that such were the exceptional factors in 2007 and, taking into account all the work that has been done since, the 2000 homes that were flooded in Thatcham are at no more risk of flooding than anywhere else outside a floodplain. Unfortunately, too many of my constituents have seen premiums and excess charges rocket. The Environment Agency and West Berkshire Council have spent a lot of money, and done a great deal of work, to minimise the risk of a reoccurrence of those devastating floods, and I am doing my best to make sure this information is understood by insurers.

As the Minister responsible for flooding, I am conscious that floods will happen on my watch. I am taking my experience from my own constituency and applying it to other areas. After the July 2007 floods, I contributed to the inquiry set up under Sir Michael Pitt. I now have responsibility for making sure the recommendations in his excellent report are implemented across the country. One area is emergency planning. In West Berkshire I saw good working between the Local Authority and the Emergency Services, but this is not always the case. Next year we will be holding a national exercise called Watermark. This will test resilience to flooding across the country and ensure that Government, local communities and Emergency Services are able to work together effectively.  We must also remember that the floods had a wider effect. The stress of being displaced from homes, in some cases for a year; the loss of treasured possessions and the fear of it happening again all combine to have a lasting effect on a community. The 2007 floods were devastating for so many households but, as we have seen in Cumbria and elsewhere, other parts of the country will be flooded in the future. We just have to make sure that we have minimised the risk as best we can.