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.