Government cuts have played a key role in recent UK flooding chaos.
Cuts of over £115 million in flood management have led to over-stretched safety services and a country vastly unprepared to deal with natural disasters such as the storms that have plighted the north of England.
Kerry McCarthy, the shadow environment secretary, announced that cuts made by the Conservative government have led to a country wholly “unprepared for extreme weather events”. The government has removed over £155 million from risk management and flood defence services, leaving a vulnerable country in its wake.
Liz Truss, the environment secretary, supported the government’s austerity budget, and argued that as the government has funded over £2.3 billion worth of brand new flood defence projects over the past 6 years, the Conservative party has hardly been naïve about the risk flooding poses o the UK. She also went on to reassure MPs that the current £171 million budget to maintain and upgrade existing defense systems would be protected and ring-fenced; not party to George Osborne’s eager eye for cuts. However, if the government is spending a record amount of the taxpayer’s money on building new and more effective methods of flood prevention, why do disasters, such as the trauma that has hit Cumbria, still occur?
Truss admits that she must review the “way we invest in flood defences”; this perhaps suggests that the safeguards put in place are simply not enough. This point could not be much clearer than following the revelation that many of the worst affected areas, including Carlisle; currently bearing the brunt of the damage, were in fact proclaimed safe from flooding, with newly built flood defences simply overflowing as rainfall reached an all-time high.
Despite this, many Labour ministers have highlighted the fact that the overall flood and coastal erosion management budget has seen a huge slide in funding. The current budget of £695 million for this actually fell by 14% this year. This is lower than 2014, and when adjusted for inflation, still less than 2009 and 2010.
Flood management is all about prevention. Defences need must be in place before floods hit, otherwise they are useless. It is therefore, according to McCarthy, exasperating to watch David Cameron speak about flood management. She said: “It is not enough for David Cameron to promise that money is no object after serious floods happen… The government needs to do everything it can to protect people’s homes and businesses before flooding occurs.”
Political figures in Carlisle, and the surrounding Cumbria area, are desperate to avert potential disaster as this becomes an increasingly political issue. The most recent instance of a similar event was in January 2014 on the Somerset Levels, when local MPs were accused of not doing enough to help local people. At the time, Labour butted heads with the government over which cuts had been made; which services had been affected the worst; and to what extent those cuts had caused the chaos in Somerset. Unfortunately, a similar response seems to have been triggered; it will be interesting to see how Cameron and his party reply when the effects of their harsh and unnecessary cuts are placed before them.
