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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to her oral contribution of 24 November 2016, Official Report, column 1004 if she will publish a list of projects including their locations that will be supported by the £15 million investment.

Natural flood management solutions are an important part of our approach to reducing flood risk. The recently announced £15m investment specifically for natural flood management schemes across England presents an important opportunity to further develop the evidence base around working with natural processes to reduce flood risk. We are, therefore, thinking carefully about where these schemes are based, and so have not yet announced specific locations that will be supported by the fund.

The Environment Agency will be administering the £15m investment, and have already been working with Natural England, Forestry Commission and local partners to identify project proposals. Following the announcement of the fund they can now begin to work with partners to fully scope these opportunities, which will then need to be robustly assessed against a set of agreed criteria. Further details of the process for confirming projects and their locations will be announced in due course.