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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what funding they will make available in 2019–20 for nature-based solutions to reduce future flood risk in the UK, as recommended in the United Nations report Nature-based solutions for water, published on 19 March.

Natural flood management (NFM) measures are often integrated alongside more traditional approaches in flood and coastal risk management schemes. This includes within the Government’s £2.6 billion six year capital flood and coastal erosion risk management investment programme.

The six year programme is focused on reducing flood risk to at least 300,000 homes, regardless of the type of flood risk management intervention, and the Environment Agency therefore does not hold a separate figure for annual natural flood management spend.

In November 2016, the Government announced £15 million to test natural flood management measures on catchment scale projects that:

• reduce flood, or coastal erosion risk, to homes;

• improve habitats and increase biodiversity;

• contribute to research and development of NFM techniques and interventions; and

• support and promote partnership working with and between communities.

The £15 million will be spent over the remainder of the six-year programme ending in March 2021, with £4.7 million of this Flood Defence Grant-in-Aid (GiA) funding forecast to be spent in the financial year 2019-20 on NFM.