Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

The hon. Lady will be aware that colleagues in the Wales Office and the Treasury will lead on how the Barnett formula operates, but if she would like to write to me or other Ministers with specific questions, I am sure we will get back to her.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept his Department’s climate change risk assessment that up to 1 million more properties, including 825,000 homes, are likely to be at risk of flooding by 2020? If he does, why is funding for flood protection £63.5 million less in the current year than in 2010, even after last week’s budget changes? What is the implication for the Government’s Flood Re insurance scheme, which the Committee on Climate Change has warned him does not factor in the impact of climate change at all?

[Dan Rogerson]

The view of Lord Krebs’s sub-committee on Flood Re is being debated in another place. I have been ensuring that, as Flood Re goes forward, it takes account of extreme weather events and factors involving climate change. As I have set out, the Government will be investing more in flood defences than any previous Government, given our spending review deal on capital investment. In the first four years of this Parliament, we have spent more on flood defences than the previous Government did in their last four years in office.