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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of climate change on flooding in the UK.

The Government’s long-term flood and coastal erosion risk management Policy Statement, published in 2020, sets out our ambition to create a nation more resilient to future flood and coastal erosion risk.

The Policy Statement recognises that climate change will lead to sea level rise and more extreme rainfall, with an increase in the number of people at risk from flooding and coastal erosion.

It includes five ambitious policies and a number of actions which will accelerate progress to better protect and better prepare the country against these risks.

For example, the government announced in March 2020 a record £5.2 billion investment over 6 years in flood and coastal erosion schemes to better protect communities across England.

The government published the National Adaptation Programme 3 (NAP3) in July 2023. The NAP sets the actions that government and others will take to adapt to the impacts of climate change in the UK between 2023 to 2028. This forms part of the 5-yearly cycle of requirements laid down in the Climate Change Act 2008.