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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department plans to provide additional funding to local authorities for the installation of gullies for flooding and excessive rainfall.

Flood risk management is a devolved matter, and in England surface water flood risk management is the responsibility of lead local flood authorities (LLFAs) to manage and mitigate. They do this in partnership with highways authorities who are responsible for highway and gully maintenance and water companies who have a duty to maintain their sewers to ensure that their area is effectually drained.  It is for LLFAs to determine the best approach to mitigating the risk.

The government has taken steps to change partnership funding rules that apply in England to enable more surface water schemes in our new £5.2 billion flood defence programme. Around half of the schemes funded by the programme will be delivered by risk management authorities, such as LLFAs, who apply by using the Partnership Funding rules.

The Local Government Finance Settlement for England in 2023/24 makes available up to £59.7 billion for local government in England, an increase in Core Spending Power of up to £5.1 billion or 9.4% in cash terms on 2022/23. The majority of this funding is un-ringfenced in recognition of local authorities being best placed to spend according to local priorities.

The devolved administrations receive funding through the Barnett Formula when changes are made to UK Government departments’ Department Expenditure Limit (DEL). Changes to the local government DEL therefore have an impact on devolved administration funding through the Barnett Formula. Spending Review 2021 set the largest annual block grants of any spending review settlement since the Devolution Acts in 1998. Over the Spending Review 2021 period, the UK Government is providing the devolved administrations with over 20% more funding per person than equivalent UK Government spending in other parts of the UK.