Flood Defence Allocations Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Lord Beith
Main Page: Lord Beith (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Beith's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Richard Benyon
I hope that we will be able to prove at the end of this process that the spending is broadly the same: an 8% cut compared with the previous four years, but with 15% efficiency savings that we think we can get out of the Environment Agency and a greater understanding of how we can deliver. The right hon. Gentleman must agree that what really matters is the outcome: households protected from flooding. I am really confident that at the end of this process we will be able to produce outcomes that are no worse than those in the past and perhaps even better.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Will the Environment Agency continue to work with local organisations and local people on small-scale engineering improvements, which have helped to protect for the future areas such as Glendale and the Ingram valley in Northumberland, as well as considering issues such as those relating to Morpeth?
Richard Benyon
I can guarantee that to my right hon. Friend. I can also tell him that our understanding and the software now available to guide on things such as surface water flooding mean that a small and relatively low-cost building of defences can have an enormous effect in delivering precisely the amount of protection we want. I can assure him that the Environment Agency will continue to work with local people.