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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department makes of the appropriateness of the relative priority given to major flood defences and routine riverbank maintenance measures by the Environment Agency.

We are investing £2.5 billion over six years on capital flood defences (including major flood defences) up until 2021.

In the Autumn Statement 2015 we confirmed that we would protect the flood asset maintenance budget (this includes funding for riverbank maintenance), in real terms, until the end of the Parliament. We also stated that we would find 10% efficiencies in maintenance by the end of the Parliament and reinvest that money in more maintenance. In the Budget 2016 we announced that we would spend an extra £40 million per year on maintenance until the end of the Parliament. These commitments mean that we are spending over £1 billion on maintenance this Parliament. This is an increase of 29% above spending on maintenance in the previous Parliament.

We have assessed that this spending achieves an optimal balance between capital and maintenance spending.