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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to ensure farmers receive support for instances of flooding in winter 2025-26.

To support rural communities and farmers, we:

• are funding actions to improve the environment, mitigate flood risk, and boost resilience such as natural flood management, through the Environmental Land Management schemes.
• are investing over £300 million in natural flood management under the Government’s new flood investment programme, the highest figure to date for the floods programme.
• have provided £91 million in funding to internal drainage boards , supporting greater flood resilience for farmers and rural communities already benefiting over 400,000 hectares of farmland and over 200,000 properties, and will avoid around £10 billion of economic damage.
• have established the Rural Flood Resilience Partnership, a collaboration with the Environment Agency and rural stakeholders to support agricultural businesses in adapting to increase their resilience to flood risks.
• have introduced the Flood Resilience Taskforce, where the NFU has a seat at the table, which will enhance coordination between central Government local authorities, local communities and emergency services to better protect communities across the UK.