Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Grahame Morris and Caroline Spelman

Thursday 24th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

17. What estimate she has made of her Department’s expenditure on flood defences in 2010-11.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)]

DEFRA’s estimate of its expenditure in 2010 to 2011 on flood and coastal erosion risk management is currently £664 million. This does not include local authority expenditure, estimated at £87 million, which is funded by Government through the formula grant.

[Grahame M. Morris]

In welcoming the new ministerial team to the Front Bench, may I point out that on 23 March last year the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), the then shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said that it was

“essential that the Government takes a strong lead and implements the key recommendations from the Pitt review”

on flood defences? This was at a time when Labour was committed to protecting flood defence expenditure, which is very important in the north-east—in Morpeth and Carlisle—in view of the recent floods. Will cuts to her Department mean that key recommendations from the Pitt review will not now be implemented?

[Mrs Spelman]

I can give the hon. Gentleman an absolute assurance, because the coalition agreement states our commitment to taking forward the findings of the Pitt review on the 2007 floods. We are considering how best to put this into effect, against the difficult spending background, and as he will have heard earlier from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, this year, because the Environment Agency was ahead of the game with the amount of flood defences it had provided, there is no question of this important front-line service being compromised. In the spending review we will of course give priority to flood defences.