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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions his Department has had with the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government on updating building regulations to include resilience standards that must be met when properties that have been flooded are being reinstated.

Defra and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (MHCLG) are in regular contact.

MHCLG keeps Building-Regulations under review. Approved Document C includes a reference to potential damage from flooding and states that buildings should be designed to mitigate this flood risk. Defra worked with MHCLG in 2015 on the development of a British Standard (BS85500:2015) on flood resilient construction for new buildings and retrofits for existing buildings, which complements building regulations.