Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he has to convene an emergency flood summit before a major flood event to ensure that adequate resources are available to (a) local authorities and (b) the Environment Agency in order to protect communities.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
There are currently no plans to convene an emergency flood summit before a major flood event. As part of our ongoing preparedness work for flooding, the department engages across Government to understand and mitigate risks that flooding may pose.
In anticipation of a major flood event, Defra facilitates continuous cross-Government situational awareness and rapid coordination of the central Government response. This aids effective decision making in a significant flooding emergency.
To ensure adequate resources are available, we have committed to review local government funding for local statutory flood and coastal erosion risk management functions to ensure it is fair and matches the needs and resources of local areas. We want to make the funding framework for local government funding simpler, more up to date and more transparent.
Flood funding is part of the overall local government settlement and 2020-21 saw the biggest year-on-year increase in the overall settlement for over ten years, an average 4.4% real terms increase. As set out at the Spending Review, we will be making an additional £2.2 billion available to local government to deliver local services.
The Environment Agency (EA) is prepared to take action this winter wherever it is needed. The EA has 40 kilometres of metal frame temporary barriers, which can be delivered anywhere in the country within 12 hours, providing additional protection to locations where there are no permanent defences or where forecast river levels could overtop existing defences. The EA also has 250 high volume pumps available and 6,500 trained staff across the country, including 314 trained flood support officers. In addition, the EA has trained its contractors to be on hand to support local incident teams preparing for and responding to flooding across England. The EA routinely trains the Army civil contingency battalions as they rotate to ensure additional trained support is available to help deploy barriers should a major incident occur.
Through its communications, including social media, the EA has been encouraging residents and business to sign up to its free flood alert service so they can Prepare, Act and Survive. As of 8 January 2021, there were over 1.52 million properties in England signed up to the EA's free flood warning service, which sends a message directly by voice message, text or email when a flood warning is issued.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans the Government has to ensure that UK fishing can restart in (a) the Norwegian Exclusive Economic Zone and (b) around the Barents Sea; and what the timeframe is for securing those fishing agreements.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The UK has a Fisheries Framework Agreement with Norway. The annual bilateral negotiations with Norway for opportunities during this year will begin shortly, however some UK vessels already have access and will sail imminently. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for agreements to not conclude by December; it is important agreements are met which are balanced for the whole industry.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plan does the Government has to ensure that UK fishing can restart in the Svalbard Exclusive Economic Zone; and what the timeframe is for securing that fishing agreement.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The UK fleet continues to benefit from fishing opportunities in the waters around Svalbard as a result of arrangements between the UK and Norway. The Marine Management Organisation has now received the relevant information from the operators involved and the relevant licensing processes are complete.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans the Government has to ensure that UK fishing can restart in the Greenland Exclusive Economic Zone; and what the timeframe is for securing that fishing agreement.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The UK signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Greenland on 9 November 2020. This agreement provides a platform for cooperation on fisheries issues but does not at this stage provide for annual negotiations or exchanges of fishing opportunities.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans the Government has to ensure that UK fishing can restart in the Icelandic Exclusive Economic Zone; and what the timeframe is for securing that fishing agreement.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The UK signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Iceland on 11 November 2020. This agreement provides a platform for cooperation on fisheries issues but does not provide for annual negotiations or exchanges of fishing opportunities. The UK has not had fishing opportunities in the Icelandic Exclusive Economic Zone since 2008.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which areas will receive funding from the £200 million announced in July 2020 for innovative projects to improve flood resilience.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We are investing £200m in a new Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme to pilot new and creative approaches to improve resilience to flooding and coastal change in 25 areas across England. On 9th November 2020, we invited Lead Local Flood Authorities (LLFAs) and Coast Protection Authorities (CPAs) to work together with partners to develop their expressions of interest by 15 January 2021. Areas will then be selected based on a range of criteria, including repeated significant flooding in the past. Some initial funding will be used help the areas selected to develop their project proposals into more detailed plans during spring 2021, before the projects formally begin from summer 2021.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which areas will receive funding from the £170 million announced in July 2020 for shovel-ready flood defence schemes.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In July, £170 million capital funding was announced to accelerate work on shovel-ready flood defence schemes that will begin construction before the end of 21-22. 22 areas across the country will benefit from this immediate boost to jobs supporting the local economy as communities recover from the impact of coronavirus.
The schemes, which were shortlisted and approved based on their economic growth and recovery potential, will together better protect more than 10,000 local businesses and safeguard around 100,000 jobs.
The following table provides a breakdown of funding by scheme for each area:
Project | Funding |
Severn Valley Flood Risk Management Scheme | Up to £30,000,000 |
Leeds FAS | Up to £21,000,000 |
Sheffield Upper Don Valley coastal& the Upper Don Catchment NFM Programme | £16,000,000 |
Lowestoft Flood Risk Management Project (LFRMP) Tidal Walls and Barrier | £43,486,439 |
Hebden Bridge | £12,000,000 |
Derby OCR | £10,000,000 |
Team Valley | £6,000,000 |
Severn Valley NFM and carbon offsetting | £5,400,000 |
Lowdham | £5,000,000 |
Tenbury Wells | Up to £4,895,000 |
Benacre and Kessingland Flood Risk Management Scheme | £3,297,660 |
Bude, The Crescent | Up to £2,140,000 |
Brighton Marina to River Adur | £2,000,000 |
Padiham | £2,000,000 |
Lancaster, Caton Road | £1,400,000 |
Leeds FAS, Natural Flood Management | £1,320,000 |
Hexham | £1,000,000 |
Peak District, peatland restoration | £960,000 |
East Cowes | £500,000 |
Falmouth IUDM inc Tidal Prince of Wales Pier | £500,000 |
Penketh & Whittle | £480,000 |
Ponteland FAS | £450,000 |
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which stocks of interest to the UK had Total Allowable Catch limits set above the scientific advice in the last 12 months.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
For stocks which the UK has an interest in, and that have assessments advising on their maximum sustainable yield (MSY), 36 (67%) Total Allowable Catches (TACs) were set at MSY out of a total of 54 in 2020. A full list is set out in the “Analysis of the outcomes of the 2019 December EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council & EU-3rd Country Negotiation” report submitted to the Select Committee on the European Union on 1st April 2020.
The UK advocates an approach to TACs setting for 2021 founded on the best available scientific advice and which aims to deliver sustainability improvements.