People have lost faith in politics because there is such a gap between what the government says and what it does.

When the floods hit my constitutency (and many others) this summer I complained about the lack of action from the Environment Agency. They spend over ??1,000 million a year of our money yet we find:

1. They do not stop the government ordering the construction of new homes on flood plain
2. They did not keep the drains and ditches in their control free of blockages and overgrowth
3. They did not have an adequate programme of works to improve flood defences before downpours.

I got some attention for these matters in the press. The Prime Minister came across me in the Commons and said I was being unfair on the Agency. I explained why I thought not. He very decently suggested I sent him a list of the things I thought they needed to do to improve the position in the future. I said I would do so, and sent him a letter at Downing Street shortly afterwards with a positive list of suggestions on how to follow up after the floods to make sure the Agency and other public sector bodies did better in future.

I have still not received any reply!

I see no evidence on the ground of a more work being done to keep ditches and drains clear or to deepen ditches that are not big enough. It’s another case of spending massive public money on spin doctors, executives and pen pushers, rather than on some tractors and jcbs to do the job on the ground that needs doing. In one case in my patch a brand new housing estate built following the government overriding the local Council in a planning appeal was badly flooded just weeks after the first owners moved in. They tell me the Environment Agency does not help them. No wonder people are cynical.