Flood Detection and Prevention: Technological Assistance

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

It is worth pointing out that a fair amount of work has been done, particularly by the Environment Agency, to improve community outreach and engage with the kinds of households that the noble Baroness describes. For instance, more than 1.5 million users are signed up to receive EA flood warnings in advance of flood incidents. The Environment Agency provides the online “check for flooding” service, which has recorded 2.2 million users and 30 million page views since September 2024. There is some great work going on around education. Together with Microsoft, the EA has worked in partnership to develop three national award-winning Minecraft game suites designed to teach key stage 3 pupils about flood risk.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for clearly illustrating that the Government are already on top of this subject, but want to encourage him a little further along the way. With changing weather patterns that have resulted in persistent rainfall in winter periods over several years, and droughts now characterising our summer period, can he have discussions with his ministerial colleagues in Defra about a technologically innovative solution involving the storage of this water, which would help promote better land use management and food security?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for raising that interesting example. I will certainly go back and talk with colleagues about how we make sure that we adapt to changing environmental factors. We say that local flood risk management planning should follow this sort of adaptive approach over time, which takes account of climate change and other needs, such as demographic change and food security, and ensure that climate change protections are built into the design of new flood defences.