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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans the Government has to incentivise the installation of flood (a) resistant and (b) resilient measures to help improve protections for properties from future flooding.

The Government launched a Policy Statement in July 2020 setting out how we want to boost uptake of Property Flood Resilience (PFR) in homes and businesses across the country. We want to encourage a faster transition to a market place for property flood resilience, including advice, service provision, products, and incentives.

We want the right incentives and financial products in place to encourage uptake of property flood resilience. We are considering options to remove barriers through the operation of the Flood Re scheme. This will include encouraging insurers to price policies in ways that reflect risk reductions as a result of PFR and enable the scheme to support insurance pay-outs covering the additional cost of recoverable repairs. This winter, we will be consulting on these changes and publishing a Call for Evidence on PFR policy.

£2.9 million funding from the 2018 budget is already supporting 3 pathfinder projects up to September 2021 in Yorkshire, the South West and South Midlands. The funding is creating demonstration centres, engaging with suppliers and developing advice portals to promote uptake of PFR by homes and businesses. These innovative schemes will provide useful learning for other local authorities.

In addition, we are investing £200m to drive and test innovation at a local level to improve resilience to flooding and coastal erosion. There will be a PFR action as part of this. We will be inviting expressions of interest later this year.