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577504

	registered interest
	date	07/09/2016
	answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept id	13
	answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	hansard heading	Flood Control
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the potential of rewilding to reduce the risk of flooding in the UK.
	tabling member constituency	Brighton, Pavilion
	tabling member printed	Caroline Lucas
	uin	45440
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 13/09/2016 answer text <p>Rewilding techniques, such as woodland creation, leaky debris dams and peatbog restoration can have an impact in slowing the flow of flood water downstream. The Government’s natural flood management demonstration projects, including those at Pickering in Yorkshire and Holnicote in Somerset, have demonstrated that these types of measures can be effective in helping to manage flood risk at a catchment scale, slowing the flow of water and reducing local impacts when carefully incorporated into a wider suite of catchment measures</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>The Government’s long term plan for the environment will look at how to deliver benefits across wider landscapes and whole water catchment areas through more integrated catchment management. Incorporating natural flood management measures is at the heart of this.</p> answering member constituency Suffolk Coastal answering member printed Dr Thérèse Coffey question first answered 13/09/2016 13:43:01 answering member 4098 label Biography information for Dr Thérèse Coffey
	tabling member	3930 label Biography information for Caroline Lucas

636190

	registered interest
	date	14/11/2016
	answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept id	13
	answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	hansard heading	Flood Control
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what funding her Department has allocated specifically for natural flood management projects; what proportion of the additional funding referred to in paragraphs 1.242 and 1.301 Budget 2016, HC 901, for flood risk management has been allocated to natural flood management projects; and which Department will have lead responsibility for the dispersal of that funding.
	tabling member constituency	Brighton, Pavilion
	tabling member printed	Caroline Lucas
	uin	52818
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/11/2016 answer text <p>Between 2009 and 2015 Defra and the Environment Agency contributed some £4.1m to natural flood management demonstration projects at Holnicote (Somerset), Pickering (North Yorks) and Upper Derwent (Derbyshire). In addition, natural flood management measures are integral to many wider Flood and Coastal Risk Management schemes.</p><p> </p><p>Defra has the lead responsibility for the £2.5bn committed to the Flood and Coastal Risk Management Capital programme, which includes the £150m announced in the 2016 Budget to be invested in flood defence schemes in Leeds, Cumbria, Calder Valley and York, which will better protect 7,400 properties.</p><p> </p><p>Defra Grant-in-Aid for Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Capital projects is available for any project that meets the objectives of reducing flooding or erosion risk based on the economic benefits and damages avoided. Payment rates are based on outcomes not methods, an approach designed to avoid discriminating against any particular approach to reducing risk.</p><p> </p><p>Defra delegates the dispersal of this grant to the Environment Agency, with oversight from the Regional Flood and Coastal Committees.</p><p> </p><p>Whilst there is no funding yet allocated from the 2016 Budget announcement specifically for Natural Flood Management (NFM) projects, both the Cumbria and Calderdale Flood Action Plans include actions to explore how to manage the landscape to slow the flow of water using NFM solutions, including, for example, peatland and bogland restoration, tree planting and woody dams.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Suffolk Coastal answering member printed Dr Thérèse Coffey question first answered 21/11/2016 12:04:47 answering member 4098 label Biography information for Dr Thérèse Coffey
	tabling member	3930 label Biography information for Caroline Lucas

636193

	registered interest
	date	14/11/2016
	answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept id	13
	answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	hansard heading	Flood Control
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what contingency funding was made available by her Department for flooding in each of the last five years; and if she will make a statement.
	tabling member constituency	Coventry South
	tabling member printed	Mr Jim Cunningham
	uin	52825
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/11/2016 answer text <p>While Defra does not hold contingency funding specifically for flooding, the Environment Agency’s incident response capability ensures we are prepared to respond effectively to flooding when it does occur. Where more funding is required, Defra and the Environment Agency will reprioritise its activities in the first place to meet costs. In case of extreme events, like the flooding we saw last winter and in 2013/14, we work with the HM Treasury to ensure that funding is available to support our response and recovery activities.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Suffolk Coastal answering member printed Dr Thérèse Coffey question first answered 17/11/2016 15:27:25 answering member 4098 label Biography information for Dr Thérèse Coffey
	tabling member	308 label Biography information for Mr Jim Cunningham

647160

	registered interest
	date	28/11/2016
	answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept id	13
	answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	hansard heading	Flood Control
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the potential effect of a changing climate on flood defences across the UK; and if she will make a statement.
	tabling member constituency	Coventry South
	tabling member printed	Mr Jim Cunningham
	uin	55096
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 01/12/2016 answer text <p>The Environment Agency has made an assessment of the likely increased flows in river and rise in sea level and the impact these changes could have on defence standards. Guidance has been provided to ensure that when building or improving defences the risk management authorities take account of climate change and make allowances in the design of defence structures.</p><p><a href="http://www.gov.uk/government/publications/adapting-to-climate-change-for-risk-management-authorities" target="_blank">www.gov.uk/government/publications/adapting-to-climate-change-for-risk-management-authorities</a>. This guidance was updated in 2016 and will be kept under review as new information or projections of climate change emerge.</p><p> </p><p>The Environment Agency has taken account of the impacts of climate change in developing its long term investment scenarios, including the increased costs of building and maintaining defences.</p><p><a href="http://www.gov.uk/government/publications/flood-and-coastal-risk-management-in-england-long-term-investment" target="_blank">www.gov.uk/government/publications/flood-and-coastal-risk-management-in-england-long-term-investment</a></p><p> </p><p>The Environment Agency monitors water and sea levels, tide and wave heights to ensure that these are consistent with expected changes due to climate change. This allows for the assessment of whether defence structures continue to provide their designed service level.</p> answering member constituency Suffolk Coastal answering member printed Dr Thérèse Coffey question first answered 01/12/2016 12:57:20 answering member 4098 label Biography information for Dr Thérèse Coffey
	tabling member	308 label Biography information for Mr Jim Cunningham

705583

	registered interest
	date	27/02/2017
	answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept id	13
	answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	hansard heading	Flood Control
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	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.
	tabling member constituency	Coventry South
	tabling member printed	Mr Jim Cunningham
	uin	65667
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 02/03/2017 answer text <p>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.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member constituency Suffolk Coastal answering member printed Dr Thérèse Coffey question first answered 02/03/2017 14:42:21 answering member 4098 label Biography information for Dr Thérèse Coffey
	tabling member	308 label Biography information for Mr Jim Cunningham

647704

	registered interest
	date	29/11/2016
	answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept id	13
	answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	hansard heading	Flood Control
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the implications for her policies on flooding and land use of the Green Alliance Policy Insight of November 2016, entitled Smarter flood risk management in England.
	tabling member constituency	Newport West
	tabling member printed	Paul Flynn
	uin	55376
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 05/12/2016 answer text <p>The Government notes the Green Alliance report’s focus on flood prevention, including the use of natural measures and the whole catchment approach.</p><p> </p><p>A combination of measures are needed to manage flood risk, including upstream activities to store or slow flood waters. The current Countryside Stewardship Scheme includes land management measures that help to prevent flooding. Our exit from the EU provides an opportunity to consider how best future agriculture and environmental policy can contribute to flood risk management. The Government recently announced £15m specifically for natural flood management schemes across England. This builds on demonstration projects at Pickering in North Yorkshire, Holnicote in Somerset and Upper Derwent, Derbyshire.</p><p> </p><p>They demonstrated that natural measures can be effective in helping to manage flood risk at a catchment scale, slowing the flow of water and reducing local impacts when carefully incorporated into a wider suite of catchment measures, but were unlikely to offer an alternative to conventional defences in areas of greatest risk.</p><p> </p><p>However, we refute the assertion that twice as much is spent on dealing with the after-effects of a flood than is spent on hard flood defences. In 2014/15, the year the report is referring to with respect to hard defences, of the £802.6m spent on flood risk management, £145m was for flood response and repair costs and £657.6m for routine flood risk management measures.</p><p> </p><p>Moreover, in our current 6-year capital programme, we are investing £2.5 billion over six years on flood defences (up until 2021). This is a real terms increase in capital investment. We are exceeding our manifesto commitment by building 1,500 new flood defence schemes that will better protect 300,000 more homes.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Suffolk Coastal answering member printed Dr Thérèse Coffey question first answered 05/12/2016 11:38:29 answering member 4098 label Biography information for Dr Thérèse Coffey
	tabling member	545 label Biography information for Paul Flynn

670214

	registered interest
	date	09/01/2017
	answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept id	13
	answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	hansard heading	Flood Control
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department has (a) taken and (b) plans to take as a result of the floods of 2015-16 to prevent further flooding across the UK.
	tabling member constituency	Ribble Valley
	tabling member printed	Mr Nigel Evans
	uin	59055
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 12/01/2017 answer text <p>In 2016, we completed 130 new flood schemes, protecting over 55,000 households. Of the 660 repair projects undertaken to reinstate defences damaged last winter, 99% have been restored with a contingency plan in place for the one remaining defence.</p><p> </p><p>In September we published the National Flood Resilience Review which tested our understanding of the fluvial and coastal flood risk in England and assessed the resilience of key local infrastructure to that risk. As part of the review we have committed to investing £12.5 million for temporary flood defences and have purchased an additional 20 miles of temporary barriers, bringing the total up to 25 miles located in 7 strategic depots alongside 250 pumps and 500,000 sandbags.</p><p> </p><p>We have been working with utility companies to improve resilience planning for infrastructure and the water and telecoms sectors have committed to increase flood protection of key local infrastructure to extreme flooding. We extended the Flood Warning Service to cover more communities and simplified the process for requesting military assistance. Last October we launched the Property Level Resilience Action Plan on how householders can protect their homes from flooding.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Suffolk Coastal answering member printed Dr Thérèse Coffey question first answered 12/01/2017 11:47:30 answering member 4098 label Biography information for Dr Thérèse Coffey
	tabling member	474 label Biography information for Mr Nigel Evans

652322

	registered interest
	date	05/12/2016
	answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept id	13
	answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	hansard heading	Flood Control
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding has been allocated to (a) St Helens, (b) Merseyside and (c) the UK for flood prevention and remediation in each year since 2010.
	tabling member constituency	St Helens North
	tabling member printed	Conor McGinn
	uin	56073
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/12/2016 answer text <p>The Government has invested £2.5 billion over six years on improving flood defences to better protect over 300,000 homes. This is a real terms increase in capital investment – up from £1.7 billion in the last Parliament and £1.5 billion between 2005 and 2010.</p><p> </p><p>The table below summarises the total capital investment on flood and coastal risk management for St Helens, Merseyside and England for each year since 2010.</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td rowspan="2"><p> </p></td><td colspan="3"><p><strong>Total capital investment on flood and coastal risk management (£k) </strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>St Helens (Metropolitan Borough) </strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Merseyside</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>England</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2010/11</p></td><td><p>318</p></td><td><p>4,501</p></td><td><p>363,985</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2011/12</p></td><td><p>188</p></td><td><p>1,329</p></td><td><p>321,900</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2012/13</p></td><td><p>377</p></td><td><p>466</p></td><td><p>323,219</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2013/14</p></td><td><p>10</p></td><td><p>78</p></td><td><p>380,217</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2014/15</p></td><td><p>0</p></td><td><p>206</p></td><td><p>507,884</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2015/16</p></td><td><p>0</p></td><td><p>0</p></td><td><p>412,952</p></td></tr></tbody></table> answering member constituency Suffolk Coastal answering member printed Dr Thérèse Coffey question first answered 08/12/2016 17:01:19 answering member 4098 label Biography information for Dr Thérèse Coffey
	tabling member	4458 label Biography information for Conor McGinn

652323

	registered interest
	date	05/12/2016
	answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept id	13
	answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	hansard heading	Flood Control
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding for flood prevention her Department has allocated to each local authority in 2016-17.
	tabling member constituency	St Helens North
	tabling member printed	Conor McGinn
	uin	56074
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/12/2016 answer text <p>The Department provides funding for flood risk management projects through Grant in Aid to Risk Management Authorities, which include the Environment Agency, local authorities and internal drainage boards. Please see the attached table which shows Grant in Aid funding allocated to Risk Management Authorities in 2016/17. This is a snapshot for the current year and reflects the bids made by authorities for specific projects.</p><p> </p><p>In addition funding for local authorities’ ongoing flood prevention responsibilities is provided through the Local Government Settlement. Local authorities have freedom to determine their own priorities and so there is no specific flood allocation by authority.</p><p> </p><p>Funding for two ongoing flood responsibilities, the Lead Local Flood Authority role and local authorities’ role as statutory consultee on surface water for major developments, was previously provided through Defra and DCLG grants but as of 2016/17 has been fully rolled into the settlement. The visible lines show a notional amount for each authority for these two purposes. The lines indicate the priority central government gives to these two services but do not affect authorities’ freedom to set their own priorities locally.</p> answering member constituency Suffolk Coastal answering member printed Dr Thérèse Coffey question first answered 08/12/2016 15:00:59 answering member 4098 label Biography information for Dr Thérèse Coffey attachment 1 file name Grant in Aid funding allocated to Risk Management Authorities.pdf title Grant in Aid funding allocated to Risk Management
	tabling member	4458 label Biography information for Conor McGinn

595644

	registered interest
	date	07/10/2016
	answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept id	13
	answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	hansard heading	Flood Control
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the conclusion in the Flood Resilience Review, published in September 2016, that a 20 to 30 per cent increase in winter rainfall is possible over the next 10 years.
	tabling member constituency	Upper Bann
	tabling member printed	David Simpson
	uin	47112
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/10/2016 answer text <p>The National Flood Resilience Review identified that over the next 10 years we could see extreme rainfall events that could be up to 20-30 per cent higher than recent past extreme rainfall events.</p><p> </p><p>The Environment Agency will use 20 and 30 per cent extreme rainfall scenarios with local detailed models used to design new flood risk management schemes.</p><p> </p><p>The scenarios will also be considered for wider flood incident planning and operational readiness that might be needed by relevant responders.</p> answering member constituency Suffolk Coastal answering member printed Dr Thérèse Coffey question first answered 14/10/2016 15:10:01 answering member 4098 label Biography information for Dr Thérèse Coffey
	tabling member	1597 label Biography information for David Simpson