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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of peatland recovery on the level of flood risk in Mid Bedfordshire constituency.

The improvement of peatlands brings multiple benefits for biodiversity, reduction in carbon emissions and also flood-risk management.

In the Mid Bedfordshire constituency, Defra is currently funding a Lowland Agricultural Peat Water Discovery Pilot project in the Flit Valley. It is one of a series of projects supporting local partnerships to understand how water can be better managed to rewet and preserve peat soils and to collaborate on development of costed water plans, and this project includes flood risk within its scope.

Defra is also funding research to investigate the relationship between rewetting peat and flood-risk mitigation in lowland peat areas.

Both projects are due to complete in March 2026.