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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much his Department spent on flood defences in the Thames Gateway in each of the last 15 years for which figures are available.

The annual totals fluctuate depending on local need for investment in particular projects and the level of funding available. The table below shows capital expenditure on flood and coastal erosion risk management within the Thames Gateway area between 2008/09 and 2013/14. Figures for earlier years are not available.

The figures in the table include Government flood defence grant in aid, local levy (raised by Regional Flood and Coastal Committees from councils) and contributions from other public and private sources spent on projects carried out by the Environment Agency and by local authorities in the area.

The figures in the table do not include revenue costs, such as staff salaries and the routine river maintenance programmes or region-wide projects and programmes, such as flood and coastal erosion risk management strategies and reservoir inspection programmes.

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The Thames Gateway area in this table includes expenditure in on tidal defences in Barking and Dagenham, the outer Thames estuary in Essex, the Thames and Southern Regional Flood and Coastal Committee's area, including Kent, the Environment Agency's Thames Barrier team areas.