Flood and Coastal Erosion Resilience and Investment

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Hardy)]

I wish to update the House on actions we are taking to strengthen resilience to flood and coastal risks in England, including investment and reforms to the Government’s flood investment policy.

Over the last year, this Government have made significant progress by committing record investment in flood and coastal erosion defences; introducing the most significant change in flood and coastal erosion funding policy for nearly 15 years; and building partnerships to improve flood preparedness and resilience.

The Environment Agency’s annual Flood Action Week is running this week (13 to 19 October 2025). The objective is to build public awareness of all sources of flood risk and promote action to increase community and property flood resilience. I ask all parliamentarians to actively promote flood preparedness and encourage their constituents to join the 1.6 million users who have already signed up to receive Environment Agency flood warnings via gov.uk. This will ensure that they receive timely alerts to help them decide how to act. Taking action to prepare and knowing what to do in a flood can significantly reduce the short-term and long-term impacts.

There will be a range of events during Flood Action Week. Yesterday the Environmental Audit Committee published its report focusing on how flood resilience can be strengthened in response to increasing risks. The Government will consider its report and recommendations and will reply in due course. Also yesterday, the Secretary of State attended the Flood Re reception launching the new FloodMobile, ahead of its tour across the country this week to help communities understand their flood risk and how to prepare. Today I am attending the Environment Agency’s reception, where parliamentarians can discuss the new flood awareness toolkit. This sets out who to contact in a flood and the actions to take to support communities before, during and after a flood. Parliamentarians will also be able to meet with their Environment Agency area director to learn about work being undertaken in their constituency to manage flood risk.

Economic growth is the No. 1 mission in the Government’s plan for change. Increasing resilience to flooding and coastal erosion plays an important role in delivering this by protecting communities and farmland from billions of pounds of damages.

Despite a challenging fiscal context, we are making a record £10.5 billion investment, and delivering the largest flood and coastal investment programme in history. Communities across every region of England are benefiting from greater resilience. This includes:

investing £2.65 billion between 2024-25 and 2025-26, to build and maintain flood and coastal defences;

as part of that, redirecting £108 million into urgent flood and coastal defence maintenance to halt the decline of flood asset condition following years of under investment;

and committing a record £7.9 billion in capital funding between 2026 and 2036 to build and maintain flood and coastal defences, as part of the Government’s 10-year infrastructure strategy.

This investment is making a difference now, ahead of the winter. Since July last year, the Environment Agency has delivered 151 flood defence schemes, better protecting over 24,000 homes and businesses. It is poised to deliver more, across all of England, benefiting thousands of homes, supporting economic growth and unlocking new land for development.

We need to use our record investment programme as effectively and efficiently as possible. Today, the Government are therefore announcing major reforms to the flood funding policy, following a public consultation over the summer. The reforms will make it quicker and easier to deliver the right defences in the right places by simplifying flood funding rules. The new approach is more agile, allowing the Environment Agency to respond to both current and future flood risk through its investment.

The new rules will apply from the start of the new flood and coastal investment programme in April 2026. The new rules provide more assurance on the level of funding flood and coastal schemes will receive, increasing investor confidence, closing funding gaps and reducing the administrative burden on local communities. New flood and coastal defence schemes will be eligible for the first £3 million of costs, and 90% of costs above this amount. We will encourage public, private, and charitable contributions, making every pound of Government investment go further.

We need to address the condition of flood and coast defence assets, reversing their declining condition. The funding rules will optimise funding between new flood projects and maintaining existing defence assets. An integrated set of outcome metrics will support allocation of funding towards the most beneficial interventions. Furthermore, we will make capital refurbishment of existing flood defences eligible for full funding. We will put the Environment Agency and other risk management authorities on an equal footing for accessing funding.

The funding rules will ensure best value for taxpayers’ money. All flood and coastal defences, new, improved, and refurbished, will be prioritised based on value for money and delivery of the Government’s new strategic flood and coastal erosion investment objectives. These include guaranteeing that deprived communities receive investment, unlocking additional partnership contributions, and increasing the use of natural flood management. This includes a commitment to invest over £300 million in natural flood management between 2026 and ’36.

Alongside this, we are supporting increased use of property flood resilience, equipping property owners with the knowledge to take practical action that can help reduce damage from flooding. This week sees the launch of Professor Peter Bonfield’s property flood resilience review, Flood Ready, an action plan to build the resilience of people and properties. The actions partners have committed to taking will increase confidence in property flood resilience measures and help to grow the market. The Government welcome this important review and its recommendations.

Internal drainage boards deliver essential work to manage water levels, reduce flood risk and enhance biodiversity, predominantly in rural areas. The Government are supporting them, including through their internal drainage board fund. In the past year, we provided an additional £16 million, bringing total funding to £91 million, the largest ever one-off funding for internal drainage boards. This investment is helping to modernise and upgrade assets, providing benefits to over 400,000 hectares of farmland and over 200,000 properties to date, while reducing annual charges for farmers and local authorities.

It is only through partnership that we can tackle challenges such as flood and coastal risk, which are on the frontline of experiencing the impacts of climate change. As set out in the manifesto, the Government set up their floods resilience taskforce to provide oversight of national and local flood resilience and improve preparedness, especially ahead of the autumn and winter flood season. The taskforce brings together experts and decision makers from across national Government, including the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Cabinet Office, the Environment Agency, the Met Office and the Flood Forecasting Centre. Other taskforce members include representatives from local and regional government, including lead local flood authorities, local resilience forums, and English regional mayors. The National Fire Chiefs Council and National Police Chiefs Council, and representatives from industry, civil society, and the devolved Governments are also members.

In the last year, taskforce members assessed the national and local response to autumn and winter flooding, following 2024 being one of the wettest years on record and including five named winter storms. They also improved national flood modelling, simplified the system of weather and flood related warnings, exercised national coordination arrangements, and raised awareness of flood recovery schemes.

The Flood Forecasting Centre helped deliver significant improvements to the flood forecasting service, including by giving rapid updates on flood risks from surface water, which helped first responders in their decision-making to protect lives. My thanks to the Met Office and Environment Agency for their excellent work.

I am grateful to the Cabinet Office, which developed the risk vulnerability tool in partnership with the Office for National Statistics, as well as national guidance for local resilience forums on identifying and supporting persons who are vulnerable in an emergency. These will both help to improve flood resilience.

Taskforce members established three member-led action groups, on flood warnings, flood recovery, and flood insurance, building long-term momentum on these critical issues. They assisted partners in understanding the changing risk picture in the new national flood risk assessment, and made corresponding improvements to flood forecasting capabilities, making us all safer.

The personal impact of flooding is immeasurable. Insurance plays a key role in enabling recovery. Flood Re has provided cover for over 340,000 household policies over the past year, meaning 650,000 properties have benefited since the scheme’s launch, and 99% of householders at high risk of flooding can obtain quotes from 10 or more insurers because of the scheme. This week, I met industry partners for a second flood insurance roundtable. We focused on how the sector can better support households at flood risk, examining access to affordable insurance, future challenges, and practical steps to promote property resilience while maintaining mortgage availability.

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