Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 3 February 2025 to Question 26375 on National Highways: Flood Control, whether she plans to ask National Highways to increase the granularity of their spending record-keeping to allow an estimate to be made of the cost to the public purse of maintaining their balancing ponds in the 2025-26 financial year.

Decisions regarding categorisation of spending at this level fall within National Highways’ delegated authority. There have been no discussions with National Highways on its spending on the maintenance of balancing ponds and there are no plans to ask National Highways to change the granularity of its financial reporting in 2025/26.