Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

As I have already mentioned, this Government have in fact committed £2.5 billion to new flood defences in the six years to 2021. Just this year, since January 2016, we have had 130 new flood schemes completed, protecting a further 55,000 homes. We have also enormously increased our temporary flood defences and all our infrastructure capabilities. including incident control vehicles, light towers, pumps, sandbags and so on, to try to deal with the unpredictable nature of these extreme weather events, but we are committed to doing more.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

2. What progress she has made on publishing the 25-year great British food and farming plan.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

We remain committed to publishing a 25-year food and farming plan. However, the context has changed significantly following the decision to leave the EU, which creates many new opportunities to do things differently and better. We will therefore develop the 25-year food and farming plan alongside our plans for leaving the EU, and we will consult with both industry and the public.

[Liz McInnes]

I thank the Minister for that response, which fills me with concern. I hope that he will bring the report forward as soon as possible, given that the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs recommended that it be published in April this year. Can he give me some indication of when we will see this important report?

[George Eustice]

The hon. Lady is wrong to be concerned, because as I have made clear, we are committed to publishing the plan. It is a manifesto commitment. There was no commitment to publish it in April; there is a commitment to do so in this Parliament, and as I have said, the context has changed significantly. It is right to develop the plan alongside our plan to leave the European Union, so that it bears relevance to the context.