Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the time taken by insurance companies to compensate those affected by the current year's floods.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
Defra has funded a number of studies to investigate the potential for the absorption of contaminants by organisms that consume plastics. These studies are published in scientific literature. Defra is also currently conducting an analysis of the costs and benefits of the carrier bag charge, including on the marine environment.
In addition, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) has been monitoring seabed litter since 1992 through fisheries stock assessments and marine litter surveys.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress has been made on the Lower Thames Scheme.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
Further to my answer to the hon. Member for Windsor on Monday, 24 February 2014, Official Report column 83W, the Environment Agency is continuing to work with partners to develop the River Thames Scheme (Datchet to Teddington). This includes flood channel capacity improvements, property level protection measures and the construction of three new channels.
Preparatory work, which is under way, includes establishing appropriate consents and approval needed with planning authorities, undertaking surveys needed to gain consents, and the development of a funding package with other risk management authorities. The Environment Agency is planning to submit its Strategic Outline Case for this project to Defra as part of the HM Treasury and the Cabinet Office's Major Projects Authority approvals process.
The Environment Agency aims to start the work on improving weir capacity in 2016.
Full appraisal and outline design of the flood channel and capacity improvements will commence this summer. It is expected that this will take three to four years to enable the proposal for the new flood channels to be submitted for planning consents and authorisations. It is estimated that the construction of the flood channel will commence in 2020 and will take five to six years to complete.