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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits making flood resilience grants available throughout the year.

Risk Management Authorities can develop local Property Flood Resilience (PFR) grant schemes and apply to Regional Flood and Coastal Committees for a contribution towards their cost through Local-Levy or Grant-in-Aid.

As set out in our Policy Statement, we want to encourage a faster transition to a market place for PFR, including advice, products and service delivery. We also want to ensure the right incentives and financial products are available to encourage property flood resilience installation. This winter, we will be publishing a Call for Evidence on PFR policy.

In addition, we are investing £200m in an innovative resilience programme to drive and test innovation at a local level to improve resilience to flooding and coastal erosion. This includes an action on PFR. We will be inviting expressions of interest later this year.