Flood Detection and Prevention: Technological Assistance

Baroness Grender Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right to point to the potential for natural flood management to improve the environment in a holistic way while providing sustainable flood defences. That can be through a variety of approaches, including restoring riverbeds, changing the way in which land is managed, as the noble Baroness says, to absorb more water, or creating salt marshes in coastal areas to absorb wave energy. That is why this Government have pledged to invest at least £300 million in natural flood management over the next 10 years—the highest figure to date for the floods programme—as well as work for other programmes, including environmental land management schemes, to ensure that farmers are properly part of the flood defence picture.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

What additional steps are the Government taking to ensure that the benefits of new flood technology reach people in rented, social and low-income housing and are not confined to owner-occupiers who are better able to afford private resilience measures?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

It is worth pointing out that a fair amount of work has been done, particularly by the Environment Agency, to improve community outreach and engage with the kinds of households that the noble Baroness describes. For instance, more than 1.5 million users are signed up to receive EA flood warnings in advance of flood incidents. The Environment Agency provides the online “check for flooding” service, which has recorded 2.2 million users and 30 million page views since September 2024. There is some great work going on around education. Together with Microsoft, the EA has worked in partnership to develop three national award-winning Minecraft game suites designed to teach key stage 3 pupils about flood risk.