Coastal Erosion: Suffolk and Norfolk

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Robbie Moore)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Angela. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) for securing this important debate. It is good to see so many colleagues joining him in the House to make their very valid cases. I am particularly pleased to hold the role of Minister with responsibility for flooding, having worked as a rural practice surveyor before entering this House and having visited many of the locations that have been mentioned, not only in Norfolk, but in Suffolk, and particularly the Holderness coast; I am very familiar with some of the challenges there. I am very interested in this brief and very keen to take it forward.

I recognise the challenges that many of my hon. Friends’ constituents—households and businesses—face, and, of course, this is deeply concerning to all who experience coastal flooding and erosion events. Events like the storms this autumn put into focus the need for many of us to adapt to the threats that we face from climate change and the resulting impacts, such as coastal erosion. I understand the impact that those experiences have on people, whether that is through damage to or loss of property or through the impact on their businesses and livelihoods and how that can affect their wellbeing.

As climate change leads to sea level rise and more extreme rainfall, the number of people who are at risk from flooding and coastal erosion is, unfortunately, likely to grow. That is why it is absolutely important that we have debates such as this, where specific cases can be raised, in addition to the conversations that my Department and I are involved in.

The impact of the recent storms on coastal communities such as those at Lowestoft, Pakefield and Kessingland on the Suffolk coast, as well as—as has been mentioned—on communities on the Norfolk coast, such as at Hemsby, has brought this issue into sharp focus. That is why the Government are acting to drive down flood risk and to support those who are at risk from coastal erosion from every single angle.

I will come to some of the specific points on which we are focusing. Our long-term policy statement, published in 2020, sets out our ambition to

“create a nation more resilient to future flood and coastal erosion risk.”

It includes five ambitious policies and a number of actions that will accelerate progress to 2027 and beyond to better protect and prepare the country against flooding and coastal erosion in the face of more frequent and extreme weather events, as right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned. That is why we continue to invest public money in this important area.

As part of our commitment to ensuring that the country is resilient to climate change, including flooding and coastal erosion, we are now two years into a significant package of investment—£5.2 billion has been specifically allocated to flood and coastal erosion for a six-year investment programme. In that time, we have already invested £1.5 billion to better protect more than 67,000 homes and businesses in England alone. That takes the total number of properties protected to more than 380,000 since 2015, and more than 600,000 since 2010. That £5.2 billion of investment is double the £2.6 billion investment from the previous funding round, which ran from 2015 to 2021.

With double the investment, we will continue to build on past achievements and experiences, and improve resilience, specifically on coastal erosion. We recognise that there are still specific challenges ahead for some of our communities. Coastal erosion is a long-standing process, which is a natural event. From my experience on the Holderness coast, we see coastal erosion happening constantly. As we have heard, that also occurs along the coastal communities of Norfolk and Suffolk.

Coastal erosion is the natural way that coasts evolve over time. That is why it is right to have specific conversations about better protecting particular communities. Local shoreline management plans have a vital role in managing our coastline. Importantly, they are locally developed by coastal protection authorities and coastal groups, which agree on the approach to managing each section of the coastline in their areas. Based on evidence, they decide whether we hold the line or manage realignment of the coastline, where it is appropriate to do so.

The Environment Agency supports those authorities to update and strengthen the plans by early 2024 through technical refresh projects to ensure that they are up to date, use the best evidence in their recommendations and focus attention on priority areas for investment and adaptation. More than £2 million will be used for that project, which includes the development of new digital, online tools to assess access, understanding and use of the plans, which will launch early next year.

The SMPs will be supported by the most up-to-date evidence on coastal erosion, through the Environment Agency-led national coastal erosion risk map, which provides a consistent assessment of coastal erosion risk around England. The Environment Agency is working with coastal authorities on updating that risk mapping, which will be published by mid-2024, to inform coastal erosion management planning and investment decisions.

We are supporting local communities who wish to test and trial new approaches to manage the impact of coastal erosion around the country, through our £200 million flood and coastal innovation programme. Through that programme, DEFRA has provided £8.4 million of funding to East Suffolk Council and Great Yarmouth Borough Council for the resilient coasts project.

My hon. Friend has some specific challenges in his constituency, as he mentioned, which is why the rapid deployment plan for Lowestoft has recently been scoped out, as he will be aware. Not only has he secured this debate, but he has caught me in the House, since I have taken on this role, specifically to talk to me about the projects that are being rolled out in Lowestoft and the other communities he mentioned. The resilient coasts project will offer a complete suite of planning, engagement, technical and financial tools to support coastal transition for communities. The learning will be shared with other coastal authorities and could also be applied to the rest of the UK. DEFRA has allocated £38 million from the £200 million flood and coastal innovation programme to the coastal transition accelerator programme to trial opportunities in a small number of areas significant to coastal erosion.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) specifically picked up on that point because, as the first Conservative Member for a significant period to hold that constituency, he has successfully managed to secure his constituency shoreline as one of the two places where the project is now under way. I commend his efforts in doing that, because as he mentioned, Coastwise offers a unique opportunity to support adaptation and the transition from a reactive, unplanned approach to coastal management challenges. Importantly, these approaches involve trials that will provide new evidence of how coastal adaptation can be achieved, in order to truly inform national coastal management policy.

Like my hon. Friend, I pay tribute to Mr Goodliffe and Councillor Angie Fitch-Tillett for the work they have been doing on this issue. The aim of the programme is to act as a catalyst for strategic long-term planning and to test out innovative practical actions to support the coastal communities at risk from coastal erosion. I expect coastal authorities to use this opportunity to plan for and enable co-ordinated transition activities that take a proactive approach to meeting their immediate and future needs, in advance of coastal change.

Let me pick up on some of the other points that my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney made. I want to reassure him that some parts of the Lowestoft project are already under way, as he will know. Of course, there is further work to do, and further discussions are taking place in the Department about that project. I know that he has written and raised this not only with me, but with the Secretary of State. Further discussions will take place about this issue, and I will be happy to meet with him on it.

My hon. Friend made the point that green finance, flooding and climate change are split between portfolios. However, I want to reassure him that all Ministers in the Department work closely together. There is no silo mentality in DEFRA.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk rightly referred to a letter that I wrote to Councillor Terry Parish recently. If he wishes, I would be happy to pick that up with him. I also want to reassure him that the Environment Agency is working with me and the Department to ensure that these schemes are rolled out in the right way.

Let me be clear: we will continue to improve the resilience of our villages, towns and cities to ensure that future flooding and coastal erosion is addressed, which will be helped by the outputs of our flood and coastal innovation programme. I commend the work of Coastal Partnership East, which hon. Members have mentioned, and also the good work of my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney in securing this debate, because this is an incredibly important issue that needs to be raised. I look forward to working with him to address it further, not only in his constituency but across Norfolk and Suffolk.