Storm Chandra Flooding

Alison Taylor Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Dyke]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I wholeheartedly agree. Every flooding incident is different and sometimes it is difficult to dictate where flooding incidents will happen, but there is certainly a lot more we can do. The Minister and I talked about the trigger points with the Environment Agency yesterday, which it has committed to looking at. I also agree that communication with local authorities and a collaborative, joined-up approach should be better.

I also feel that communities should have better real-time information on flooding. There is a really good example of that in the River Cam catchment, where flood monitors have been put on bridges and an app tracks the flow of water so that communities within the catchment are aware of any significant increase in the water levels. I hope that that can be rolled out so that our communities can be better protected and can better protect themselves in these instances of terrific rainfall.

[Alison Taylor (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is making an exceptional speech. There was an excellent debate this afternoon in Westminster Hall on tree planting, with thoughtful contributions from a number of Members. Does the hon. Lady agree that tree planting is essential not just to biodiversity, lowering temperatures and carbon capture, but for preventing flooding?

[Sarah Dyke]

In a previous life, before being elected to this House, I was the lead member for climate change and environment on Somerset council. Somerset has a lower-than-average tree canopy cover at 8%, compared with the national average of 14%, so we committed in our 10-year tree strategy to plant more trees. There are lots of community groups doing that across Somerset, including Reimagining the Levels, which brings together volunteer networks to plant trees. I was out on Ham Hill a couple of months ago planting 3,000 trees for exactly that reason: once those trees become established, they can soak in more moisture and play their part in slowing the flow through those catchment areas. I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Lady.

According to the Environmental Audit Committee’s report into flood resilience,

“the UK is not on track to be fully…flood resilient by the time”

the Flood Re programme ends in 2039. It further states that without clear standards, flood resilience is just

“a vague ambition rather than a deliverable goal.”

I would appreciate the Minister’s comments on what she means when she talks about resilience, especially at community level. Some communities have spent time and money putting in place property-level mitigations but still face flooding. How can they better understand what it means to be flood resilient?

The memories of the devastating 2013-14 floods are still painfully vivid in the minds of those who experienced them. Following those floods, the Environment Agency carried out what was, at the time, the single largest pumping operation ever undertaken in Somerset. Following flooding in January 2023, the EA once again put in place another large temporary pumping operation on the levels and moors.