Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is planning to take in response to the National Audit Office report on Managing the risks of flooding and coastal erosion in England, published November 2020; if he will make it his policy to deliver greater certainty in future funding for flood management programmes to enable longer term planning; and if he will make a statement.

The NAO report on Managing Flood Risk was published on Friday 27 November and follows on from a 2014 study on the same subject. Following the Public Accounts Committee hearing on this report, the Government will respond later this year in the usual way by publishing a Treasury Minute.

The report confirms that the Government’s current investment programme of £2.6 billion of capital investment which will conclude on 31 March 2021 is on track to deliver 300,000 homes better protected, to time and budget, which represents strong performance for a major infrastructure programme.

The Government has committed to invest a record £5.2 billion in a further six-year capital investment programme which will commence in April 2021. This investment will better protect 336,000 properties including 290,000 homes from flooding and coastal erosion by 2027. This will enable long-term planning. The Government also provided an additional £170 million in economic recovery funding to accelerate 22 shovel ready schemes that better protect businesses and jobs.

Given the significant increase in Government investment in the flood defences and the changes already made to our partnership funding rules, the new six-year flood defence programme will require less in wider partnership contributions compared to the current programme. We are confident that the scale of the remaining contributions can be found and this will help deliver more schemes and therefore better protect more properties.