Private Members' Debate: Wednesday 7 May 2.30pm
David Cameron MP: Flooding in Whitney
Mr David Cameron: I am well aware that these debates are predominantly introduced by Back Benchers, but there are times when a particular issue dominates a particular constituency. That is true of west Oxfordshire, my constituency and the floods of last July-not only the problems and clear-up that took place, but the fear that flooding could happen again. In fact, in villages such as Clanfield, Bampton, Kelmscott, it has already happened again. I went back there to see people and businesses that were affected by floods all over again in January. I must say to the Minister that every time that there is hard, big rainfall in west Oxfordshire, the fear starts all over again that rivers will burst their banks, that there will be flooding, and that businesses will be hit again. There is a large-scale concern about that.
What is more-the real reason for having this debate today-is that there is an element to the local concern that I do not believe is automatically covered by the general debates about flooding that we have in the House. I want to major on the concern about rural communities. In a nutshell, our concern is that because rural communities inevitably have fewer homes-even if there is wide-scale flooding, fewer homes are actually flooded-and a relatively sparse population, we will miss out on the help, the flood defences and the compensation.