New Housing: Flood Risk

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I had heard about that very interesting concept. We need to make sure that all steps to mitigate flood risk are taken, even in areas that are not subject to traditional flood risk. The increase of surface floodwater is an issue and we need to make sure that, where possible, permeable surfaces are laid down. It is very helpful that both the building guidelines and the National Planning Policy Framework direct as much attention as possible to make sure that applications mitigate the flood risk when they come forward and that buildings are built with that mitigation built in.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, the Government’s White Paper A New Vision for Water gives a case study on page 40 of how a housing development was stalled on a habitat site with protected species. The Government’s water delivery taskforce was able to unblock it, resulting in 4,000 houses being built. Unblocking challenges could result in additional flooding, endanger protected species and ultimately result in new home owners being refused access to Flood Re, which has only 15 years left to run. How will the Minister ensure that this does not happen?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I do not accept the premise of the noble Baroness’s question that we cannot protect the biodiversity arrangements at the same time as dealing with flood risk. Defra established the water delivery taskforce to make sure that water companies delivered on their planned investments to provide water and wastewater capacity. The Government have worked hard to secure £104 billion of private sector investment into this and, in partnership with water companies, investors and communities, we will introduce a new water reform Bill to modernise the whole system. That will make it fit for decades, leading to clean rivers, stronger regulations and greater investment. We are focusing on both the provision of good water supplies as we build the homes that we need and protecting biodiversity. These things go hand in hand; they are not mutually exclusive.