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

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the £5.2 billion investment in flood and coastal defence programmes, announced in the Budget on 11 March, has been affected by subsequent spending announcements in other areas.

At the Budget in March, the Government confirmed that it will invest £5.2 billion over six years to create around 2,000 new flood and coastal defence schemes to better protect 336,000 properties in England by 2027. This was further confirmed in the Chancellor’s Spending Review, which was published today.

In addition, it was announced that a further £200 million would be provided for local innovative resilience projects which reduce flood risk. This summer, a further £170 million of capital funding was announced to accelerate work on shovel-ready flood defence schemes that will begin construction in 2020 or 2021. 22 areas across the country will benefit from this immediate boost to jobs supporting the local economy as communities recover from the impact of coronavirus.

By spring 2021, Defra will publish further details of what it expects to achieve from the £5.2 billion invested over the next six-year programme and how it is to be managed. The Environment Agency will publish an updated programme of specific flood and coastal defence capital projects annually.