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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that schemes funded through the flood investment programme are resilient to climate change risk scenarios.

The Environment Agency’s (EA) flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) Appraisal Guidance factors climate change allowances into the design of all FCERM schemes. This ensures that projects in the EA’s investment programme provide good value for money, are fit for the future, or can be adapted over time to mitigate future increases in flood risk.

The recently published new national flood risk assessment and national coastal erosion risk map account for climate change and underpin all flood risk planning and investment activities.