Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate River Habitats: Protection and Restoration.
15:15 Ellie Chowns (Green)
I will speak first about flooding. That affects my constituency of North Herefordshire horrendously frequently and it is only going to get worse. I have already spoken numerous times in the House about the fact that climate change is increasing the severity and frequency of flooding incidents. If we make space for water, if we give room to our rivers, we will of course enable ourselves as communities to be more resilient. We saw the devastating effects of the floods last November in Monmouth and Skenfrith, just over the border from my constituency. We know that if we invest in Making Space for Water and looking after our rivers, that will have numerous protective benefits for us all as an economy.
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15:49 Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat)
Turning to other causes of harm, water abstraction has risen sharply, reducing river flows and placing ecosystems under severe stress. Many rivers now run perilously low, especially during dry periods. Moreover, centuries of physical modification—straightening, damming, embanking, diverting and disconnecting—has fundamentally altered the natural character of our rivers. Those changes have inevitably disrupted fish migratory patterns, fragmented habitat connectivity and in turn diminished resilience to climate change. A river that cannot move, meander or naturally flood is a river that simply cannot thrive. Restoration efforts should focus on allowing our rivers to re-wiggle—I love that word, which means to return to their natural meanders—reconnecting them with flood plains, and rebuilding the diverse physical habitats that sustain life. In many cases, the best thing that we can do is to step back and let mother nature take her course—in essence, to rewild herself. That would include removing barriers such as weirs and small dams to aid fish passages, creating riffles, pools, wetlands and woody debris to enhance biodiversity, establishing nature-rich corridors along river banks and expanding natural flood management systems.
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16:06 Emma Hardy (Labour)
However, communities see the problems that rivers face every day, through reduced water quality, declining biodiversity and rivers that are no longer the thriving ecosystems that they should be. Rivers are under pressure from multiple sources, as has been mentioned, including business activity, agriculture, waste water treatment, urban development, recreation, transport and, of course, the growing impacts of climate change, which have quite rightly been mentioned. These combined pressures have directly contributed to declining water quality and the loss of freshwater biodiversity across many catchments.
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