Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the cost of flooding was to (a) businesses, (b) home owners and (c) the insurance industry in each of the last five years for which information is available.

The Environment Agency looks at long term national trends, rates of optimal spend, but only calculate the eco-nomic costs of an actual flood in occasional circumstances due to the significant time and cost associated with undertaking the reports. Therefore, the Government does not hold this data.