Region’s flood victims hung out to dry by Environment Minister George Eustice - The Yorkshire Post says

After all, he’d been appointed Environment Secretary in February, replacing the ineffectual Theresa Villiers, just hours before Storm Ciara wreaked devastation across this region and the country.

He did, in fairness, travel to flood-hit York and backed The Yorkshire Post’s front-page call for a new strategy to protect homes and businesses – including a summit of key stakeholders – which Prime Minister Boris Johnson first promised in the aftermath of the South Yorkshire floods the previous November.

“I think it is right there will be such a summit and I can understand the concerns that have been raised,” said Mr Eustice. He went on: “After these incidents I do want to better understand the concerns.”

Our trust now appears misplaced – and misguided – after Mr Eustice demonstrated the level of contempt now being shown by other Ministers when it comes to the Northern Powerhouse and ‘levelling up’ agendas.

First, the long-awaited summit will take place next Thursday – 11 months after Mr Johnson maintained, wrongly, that the floods in Doncaster and surrounding area were “not a national emergency”. Why the delay? Householders are already fearful of this winter; some have yet to return to their ruined homes.

Next, the Defra-led event will only deal with South Yorkshire. Yet the original call by this newspaper, and MPs from all parties, was for a Yorkshire-wide summit so river catchment areas could be considered in their entirety. Mr Eustice knows this – he confirmed this in a letter to Halifax MP Holly Lynch in April because of multiple flooding calamities in the Calder Valley. So, too, does the PM and his colleagues. What’s changed?

And now the Secretary of State did not even have the courtesy to attend Wednesday night’s debate in the House of Commons, called by Sheffield City Region Mayor and Barnsley MP Dan Jarvis, to set out the concerns of the whole county.

Mr Jarvis recalled his visit, with Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick and Doncaster North MP Ed Miliband, to the devastated home of a 83-year-old widow. “Her insurance had been cancelled through no fault of her own. She had lost her husband not long before, and now she was faced with losing much of what was familiar and precious to her,” he said.

Eloquent and heartfelt words, they went to the heart of his call for a region-wide summit. Again – for the Minister’s benefit – we repeat them: “It will be an important way of focusing minds and bringing the Government and stakeholders together to co-ordinate a coherent long-term response.”

Yet it was the pernickety, patronising, response of Rebecca Pow, the Flooding Minister, which left as much to be desired as Mr Eustice’s own dereliction of duty.

Yes, more money is being made available, and she maintains that the Government has been “investing more in Yorkshire than elsewhere in the country”, but there was little clarity on how this funding is being used.

She hoped Mr Jarvis had read her department’s “long-term flood policy statement” because “a great deal of effort went into it” and – contemptuously – that “he needs to learn a lot more about what we are doing in Defra”.

It was the final insult. Mr Jarvis, and his colleagues, are amongst the most respected – and committed – in the country. They know how Defra works and they do not share the Minister’s confidence.

And nor does this newspaper, hence our commitment now to redouble our efforts, on behalf of Yorkshire communities prone to flooding, to press Defra, the Environment Agency and others to answer our SOS call before we’re left to drown by the London Government. Again.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson