Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to provide financial support for communities affected by storm Franklin.

My sympathies are with those communities, householders and businesses who have been affected by these storms but thankfully the overall reported impacts following the recent named storms were far lower than predicted.

Following severe weather events which have significant and wide area impacts, it will be for Ministers to collectively determine whether support should be made available to impacted areas through the activation of the Bellwin Scheme and, where there has been flooding, the Flood Recovery Framework (Framework).

Before activating these, Government considers many factors - such as the severity, duration, and the extent of reported impacts.

To date there have not been any formal local authority requests for financial support for the response or flood recovery efforts.

We will continue to monitor the scale of the impacts and consider support as appropriate.