Norman Baker MP Member of Parliament for Lewes constituency
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Norman Baker,
23 East Street,
Lewes,
East Sussex,
BN7 2LJ.
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Fax: (01273) 480287.
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MP blasts government for inaction on flood threat
Local Lib Dem MP and Chair of the All Party Flood Prevention Group, Norman Baker, has renewed his calls to the Government to provide more funding for flood prevention in the wake of a damning report published today which says that the scale of the threat posed by flooding in the UK is on a par with that of the risk of terrorism or a flu pandemic.
The Pitt Review, instigated after the summer floods which destroyed 48,000 homes and 7,000 businesses across the UK, has in its interim report today put forward 87 recommendations and 15 urgent proposals to prepare Britain to cope better with future flooding. These include calls for greater public preparedness, for more flood-resilient buildings, and for greater leadership from local authorities.
The Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, MP, has accepted the recommendations and pledged to work with all of the organisations involved in responding to the summer floods in order to take forward the report's proposals.
Commenting on the report, Norman said:
"The awful flooding of Lewes in 2000 and the events in other parts of the country this summer demonstrated the immense destructive power that can be wrought by flooding. This interim report from the Pitt Review simply reinforces what we already know, that the prospect of flooding in the future due to climate change is greater and that, the Government must start taking flood management seriously.
"It is all very well for the Government to pat themselves on the back for accepting the Pitt Review’s recommendations but they are also the ones who cut the Environment Agency’s budget for flood defences. The Prime Minister’s claim that flood defence spending is going up by £800 million a year is a mere half truth. It isn’t £800 million now, it is £800 million in 2010 and that is just not good enough. This amounts to little more than an inflationary increase.
"The cost of the floods this year alone is estimated at at least three billion pounds. False savings now and a failure to tackle the causes of climate change mean that tomorrow we’ll have higher costs, higher bills and higher insurance premiums. The Government must now give flooding and the battle to tackle climate change the priority it deserves, or we will pay a horrible price for our lack of preparation."