Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Alex Sobel
Main Page: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds Central and Headingley)Department Debates - View all Alex Sobel's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Sobel Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
We now come to the shadow Minister and welcome him to the Dispatch Box in his new position. I call Alex Sobel.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
On Boxing day 2015, many town and city centres were devastated by floods. Spending on national flood defences is, in fact, 10% down on what it was in 2015. With increased storm events, how will the Minister defend residential and business properties with adequate climate adaptation this winter?
George Eustice
First, may I apologise for my oversight in not welcoming the hon. Gentleman to his place at the beginning of this session?
We have made available £5.2 billion, and this is a significant increase in the capital programme over the next few years. Included in that is some dedicated work on property resilience, where we are working with communities and flood forums locally to identify how we can improve the resilience of individual properties and, when there is a flood incident, to make grants available to them so that they can replace some of their doors in order to be more flood-ready in future.