Flooding

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rooker]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of preparations against flooding in England in 2021.

[The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con) [V]]

My Lords, alongside our record £5.2 billion investment to better protect 336,000 properties over the next six years, our policy statement sets out plans to accelerate progress to better protect and better prepare against flooding and coastal erosion. We are fully prepared to respond to flooding this winter; this includes £120 million to repair flood defences damaged during last winter’s floods, 6,500 trained staff, 25 miles of temporary flood barriers and 250 high-volume pumps ready to deploy.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

Does the Minister accept that in a car-crash performance at the Public Accounts Committee last week, his department and the Environment Agency failed to answer the criticism in the National Audit Office report on flood risk management? Of the 4,500 homes flooded last winter, a few are a hundred yards from my home in Ludlow, some still empty and with no extra protection. I ask Ministers to visit flood areas, as the one thing they do not get from television and the media is the smell. It is that smell that would wake them up to do even more.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

[Inaudible] —report. I should say that we are pleased that the report highlights that government investment is making a difference by significantly lowering flood risk for thousands upon thousands of homes right across the country, on the back of the Government’s £2.6 billion flood defence programme, which has since been significantly increased. This programme is on time, it is on budget and it has yielded results, as acknowledged by the National Audit Office, but I fully take on board the noble Lord’s comments about the misery involved in having one’s life turned upside down by the horror of flooding. This is of course a priority for this Government.