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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of long-term flood resilience strategies.

To assess how the country can be better protected from future flooding and extreme weather events the Government established the National Flood Resilience Review (NFRR). It identified a number of actions to strengthen our resilience. Good progress is being made on the implementation of these recommendations. All infrastructure companies have completed initial assessments of their vulnerable sites for suitability for temporary flood defences. As a result companies have invested heavily in resilience measures to prepare for this winter.

The Government is working with utility companies to improve permanent defences in the longer term. This is being overseen by an inter-Ministerial group which has been established to oversee flooding policy, including the implementation of the NFRR recommendations.