Dominic Raab MP secured today’s debate from the Backbench Business Committee. MPs will debate a motion that notes the Environment Agency’s estimate that 570,000 properties in England and Wales are at significant risk of flooding.
The insurance industry is calling for cross-party agreement on a strategy.
The cross-party Commons motion “recognises the efforts of the insurance industry and past and present governments to reach agreement to ensure flood insurance will be made available to all homes and small businesses beyond June 2013 and calls on the insurance industry to negotiate in good faith to conclude those arrangements”.
The motion says the Government should acknowledge the need to provide some support for those arrangements and ensure that resilience and adaptation to flood risks and other natural hazards are amongst its highest environmental priorities.
At a flood summit last month the
Association of British Insurers(
ABI) said cross-party political support is needed to ensure that the UK gets on top of the flood risk.
Last year was the wettest on record in England, and only just short of being the wettest ever across the UK. Four of the five wettest years on record have been since 2000.
Nick Starling, the
ABI’s Director of General Insurance, said flooding is the greatest natural threat facing the UK and the risk is rising.
“Political consensus on how we effectively adapt to it is essential,” he said.
“Insurers know the traumatic and devastating impact of flooding, through helping their customers recover after a flood.
“Political commitment in the key areas of investment in flood defences, sensible planning decisions and working in partnership with the insurance industry will ensure that flood risk communities get the protection and reassurance they need.”
The
ABIsaid the political parties must agree on a “rigorous planning system” that prevents developments in high flood risk areas and with sustained, long-term flood defence spending that keeps pace with the threat, targeted to those areas of greatest need.
“Before the last spending review, the Environment Agency estimated that an additional £20 million a year was needed every year between 2011 and 2035 just to keep the flood risk at current levels,” Mr Starling said.
“Recognition that flood insurance can only continue to remain widely affordable and available with some form of government support, as happens in other countries. The
ABIand the Government are continuing in talks on a scheme that could ensure this.”
Writing for PoliticsHome, Mr Raab said the debate will seek to break the deadlock in the negotiations, define the proper role for government in flood protection, and highlight the need for greater emphasis on adaptation and resilience as part of UK environmental policy.
“A totally free market would result in insurance companies refusing to cover flood risk for some properties, whilst requiring exorbitant premiums from others,” he said.
“The current system rests on a cross-subsidisation: high risk home-owners pay higher premiums, but also benefit from a subsidy levied from lower risk properties, currently around £8 per property per year.
“The insurance industry wants to enshrine that basic model in law and make it sustainable, by increasing the subsidy (by £1 for every low risk policy) and a capped increase in premiums for higher risk properties.
“Their proposed scheme – known as Flood Re – would raise a non-profit fund that would pay out to cover damage to high risk properties on a (severely) rainy day.
“In return, the insurance industry wants government to make a clearer commitment to strengthen flood defences, provide access to local flood risk assessments, and enforce more planning regulation on flood plains more rigorously.”