El Niño

Debate between Lord Sharma and Lord Katz

Tuesday 8th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharma (Con)]

My Lords, given the increasingly challenging impact of climate change on households, public services and business, have the Minister and his department given any consideration to ensuring that the UK’s national adaptation plan is a dynamic document that is regularly updated, rather than something that is static and updated every five years? Could he also update the House on any representations that he and his department have made to the new Chancellor to protect long-term funding, for instance for flooding, at future fiscal events?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

We are very clear that although there is no clear evidence that climate change is making El Niño events more frequent, it is certainly the case that they are taking place against a backdrop of rising global temperatures and increasingly extreme weather, so they can indeed intensify existing risks. On the noble Lord’s point about the Treasury, we are committed to investing in improvements to water infrastructure and resilience. Indeed, I believe I am right in saying that we expect more than £100 billion in investment to come in to improve the water infrastructure system, which will go some way to help improve the country’s resilience.