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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what funding her Department has allocated specifically for natural flood management projects; what proportion of the additional funding referred to in paragraphs 1.242 and 1.301 Budget 2016, HC 901, for flood risk management has been allocated to natural flood management projects; and which Department will have lead responsibility for the dispersal of that funding.

Between 2009 and 2015 Defra and the Environment Agency contributed some £4.1m to natural flood management demonstration projects at Holnicote (Somerset), Pickering (North Yorks) and Upper Derwent (Derbyshire). In addition, natural flood management measures are integral to many wider Flood and Coastal Risk Management schemes.

Defra has the lead responsibility for the £2.5bn committed to the Flood and Coastal Risk Management Capital programme, which includes the £150m announced in the 2016 Budget to be invested in flood defence schemes in Leeds, Cumbria, Calder Valley and York, which will better protect 7,400 properties.

Defra Grant-in-Aid for Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Capital projects is available for any project that meets the objectives of reducing flooding or erosion risk based on the economic benefits and damages avoided. Payment rates are based on outcomes not methods, an approach designed to avoid discriminating against any particular approach to reducing risk.

Defra delegates the dispersal of this grant to the Environment Agency, with oversight from the Regional Flood and Coastal Committees.

Whilst there is no funding yet allocated from the 2016 Budget announcement specifically for Natural Flood Management (NFM) projects, both the Cumbria and Calderdale Flood Action Plans include actions to explore how to manage the landscape to slow the flow of water using NFM solutions, including, for example, peatland and bogland restoration, tree planting and woody dams.