Flooding

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

People in Brampton in Chesterfield who were flooded in 2007 will have every sympathy with what people who have been flooded in recent weeks are going through, but they are still waiting for the River Rother flood alleviation scheme that the Government boasted about in 2010. In that context, the spending figures are very important. The Secretary of State made some claims that would give the impression that flood spending was going up. Can he confirm that the funding for flood defences in 2010-11 was £646 million, but in 2015-16, in real terms, it will be £100 million less? That is a very significant cut, not an increase, is it not?

[Mr Paterson]

I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but he is wrong. We are going to spend £2.3 billion over the course of this Parliament. The scheme he mentions may be a good candidate for partnership funding, which has helped get a whole number of schemes that were stuck beforehand over the barrier because they depended entirely on Environment Agency funding.