Speeches by Gardiner.

“It is in consultation at the moment. Are you going to be making representations to that consultation?”

“These are two ways in which any authority body can wriggle out of things. One is to say, “Well, it was a long time ago,” and that is the point of delaying the response for so long: you just say, “Oh, well, of course what we are talking about was two years ago. It has all changed now.” The other is, instead of dealing w…”

“I am sure she will.”

“Finally, I want to ask how you think the land use framework could best support flood resilience.”

“It is.”

“Could we have a debate on Thames Water, which provides water disservices to 20 million people in this country? We now know that the company received from bill payers money that was supposed to be spent on environmental measures such as stopping illegal discharges, and that that money has been used to pay bonuses and di…”

“Absolutely, in the hills. You have diversified, gone from dairy to sheep and beef.”

“In Mississippi it was the MRGO channel, in fact, wasn’t it? It was desalination in the MRGO channel that caused the loss of the tupelo swamp, which then overtopped the city because of the swell. It was the loss of the tupelo swamp and the trees there that allowed the ingress. Sorry, I am side-tracking, but I love it—it…”

“The words at the beginning of the session were music to my ears. You said it is all about catchment planning, yes.”

“Let’s think of recommendations that this Committee could make here, then. Would it be sensible for this Committee to make a recommendation that, when work is being done on an asset, it should be brought up to the standard, say, expected in 2050 or 2100 or whatever the level is, but not simply that it is being restored …”

“Can I pick up on what you were saying? What is the percentage of the stock of assets that the Environment Agency has that are below the original specification? Is the £2.65 billion going to bring them back up to the original specification or is it going to bring them up and raise the assets to the specification we are …”

“It was a great question—I just thought she should get an answer.”

“Was Julia not going to get an answer to that?”

“Are they insurable?”

“Are you a riparian landowner?”

“We need to ensure that people know what their obligations are. We perhaps need to see the enforcement body enforcing them properly where they are not being done, but we also need to be providing the support to farmers and land managers to make sure that they can fulfil their obligations and go further to run their busi…”

“I think you and I are pretty much agreed on this.”

“And concern about how to implement it.”

“Ignorance of the law is no justification.”

“It is probably zero.”