Richard Benyon

Much Parliamentary business is done away from the Commons Chamber on the Committee corridor. Here techy matters are decided in mini debates which are carried out in the same style as happens in the Commons. Often they have cross party support but do offer bored MPs the chance to duff up an over confident or under prepared Minister. My first such outing was to put in place something the last Government had mooted which changed the bureaucratic method fishing boat skippers were required to use to register their catches. Fascinating stuff, I am sure you will agree. Despite the fact that it was a universally popular move for fishermen and had cross party support, Labour MPs put me through the mill with interventions about the “Big Society” and trying to catch me out on geeky technical points. I was also blind-sided by a Conservative who used the occasion to vilify the EU and the Common Fisheries Policy. We got the measure through and it was a good experience for times when measures before us will be more contentious.

Its clear that Labour MPs are adjusting to Opposition in different ways. Former Ministers are clearly bored with the amount of time they have on their hands. They snipe at the coalition and use weird Parliamentary procedures to keep us there late arguing footling points in hour long rambling speeches. Such tactics are not only being used by Labour MPs. A hardy few of what one might call the more robust element of Conservative MPs kept us up until late deciding whether or not members of the youth Parliament could use the Chamber for their annual debate. I can’t see the problem with this and was happy it went through.

I have a great job in Government. Last week I went to see the Avon Gorge near Bristol. I was being shown a highly successful project to protect this unique landscape. I sat in the sun with people from the local authority and the Government body Natural England, watching two peregrine falcons flying around sometimes not 30’ from us. They have successfully bred for many years close to where half a million people live. Truly breathtaking. More importantly it showed me how almost impossible challenges can be overcome to manage the natural environment. Local knowledge and enthusiasm is the real reason such places thrive.

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.

Last week Lord Prescott of Hull parked his ample haunches on the red leather benches in the House of Lords. From all the reports I read there was no hint of the inner turmoil that he must have been suffering. Not that long ago he had more or less vowed that he would rather chew his fingers off one by one, than don ermine and join their Lordships. I wonder if this dramatic U turn will now see him giving an impassioned defence of a totally appointed House of Lords as the Parliamentary reform process gets going.

His name came up in the House of Commons in a debate I was replying to on behalf of the Government. We were debating the future of British Waterways and our wonderful canal network. Apparently when he was Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott went around the country sloshing money about like some munificent Maharajah. He allocated £15 million towards some piece of waterways engineering that is much valued by waterway lovers in the east of London. Most politicians will be forgotten almost as soon as they leave office. Not so Prezza. The Prescott Sluice will ensure that his name lives on. I have no ambition to achieve such a degree of immortality which is probably just as well with the looming expenditure cuts.

However, I am ambitious for the future of our canals. With a good degree of cross-party consensus I am hoping to be able to transfer British Waterways from being a Government quango to being a charitable trust. A version of the National Trust for our canals. Our canals are havens for recreation and wildlife. They support tourism and enhance our quality of life. In our towns they provide the focus for regeneration. Wherever they are they are part of our heritage. I know from first hand the passions waterways arouse in so many users. I want to harness that enthusiasm in a structure that is owned by them and that puts our waterways on a solid long term financial footing. If Lord Prescott helps me in this endeavour I will push for him to be made a Duke.