YP Comment: New farce over flood insurance as Calder Valley betrayed

AT least Rory Stewart, the Floods Minister, had the humility not to defend the indefensible when Calder Valley MP Craig Whittaker exposed the extent to which the Government and insurance industry are both betraying flood-hit businesses in an expose which showed the importance of backbenchers putting their constituents before their party.

Small Business Minster Anna Soubry visits flood hit Mytholmroyd.

To his credit, the Minister said the Tory backbencher’s critique was “a serious forensic analysis that tore the Defra report to pieces” – reference to the extent to which the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, headed by one Elizabeth Truss, had under-estimated the scale of the problem because of fundamentally flawed research.

The reason? This report, which led the Government to erroneously conclude that insurance cover is not a serious issue, was based on a small survey of just 25 firms and which predominantly “were not in high flood-risk areas”. Most were only small firms with just one manufacturing business included in the sample.

No wonder the position of Ministers is so at odds with all those employers in the Calder Valley, and across Yorkshire, who can no longer obtain insurance at any price because the Government’s Flood Re scheme does not extend to private business.

The consequence, said Mr Whittaker, is firms being forced to close because they have no cover and the strong likelihood of the river Calder bursting its banks before the Government concludes its hastily announced review of flood defences in this particular catchment area.

It should not be like this as Calder Valley residents attempt to shame the Government into action with their own fundraising and campaigning. David Cameron visited Todmorden in the wake of the 2012 floods and promised to do everything within his power to help local residents and businesses. He has failed to do so. Perhaps he can begin by getting rid of those inept advisers at Defra whose worthless calculations have made a further mockery of the Government’s shamefully inadequate response to this crisis, one which appears to be going from bad to worse.