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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what flood risk assessment she has received from the water telecommunications industries since the publication of the national Flood Resilience Review in September 2016; how many key local infrastructure assets have been identified by those industries as vulnerable to flooding; and how many such assets have had temporary improvements made to increase their resilience to flooding.

Good progress is being made on the implementation of the National Flood Resilience Review recommendations. All infrastructure companies have completed their initial assessments of their vulnerable sites for suitability for temporary flood defences and as a result companies are investing heavily in resilience measures to ensure continuity of supply this winter. This includes putting in place or having deployment plans for temporary defences, and other contingency measures such as rezoning of water supplies and the use of mobile telecommunications cells to reduce the risk of disruption of services. Further to this, the Government is working with utility companies to improve permanent defences in the longer term.