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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the tenth special report of the Environmental Audit Committee, published on 24 October 2018 on Heatwaves: adapting to climate change: Government Response to the Committee's ninth report, HC 826, whether the Government plans to reinstate the regional climate change partnerships.

The Government works closely with an extensive set of stakeholders to build resilience to climate change risks across the whole country, including with the Local Adaptation Advisory Panel (LAAP), the Local Government Association, the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport, and Core Cities. In particular we support the LAAP, the forum on climate change adaptation at a local level, which brings together central and local government and agencies to promote and deliver adaptation in the local government sector.

In November last year we launched a new set of UK Climate Projections 2018 (UKCP18), commissioned from the Met Office. UKCP18 is the first major update to the UK’s national climate change projections for nearly ten years, and this time it includes global and regional scenarios. The Government will use UKCP18 to inform its adaptation and mitigation planning and decision making, and the projections will also help local authorities, businesses and communities to take action to improve resilience.

This year we will be releasing a new addition to UKCP18 in the form of local projections on a similar resolution to that of operational weather forecast models (i.e. 2.2km). This will provide locally relevant information to inform decision making on future climate change to enhance resilience.