Flood Control

(asked on 19th January 2021) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he has to convene an emergency flood summit before a major flood event to ensure that adequate resources are available to (a) local authorities and (b) the Environment Agency in order to protect communities.


Answered by
Rebecca Pow Portrait
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 25th January 2021

There are currently no plans to convene an emergency flood summit before a major flood event. As part of our ongoing preparedness work for flooding, the department engages across Government to understand and mitigate risks that flooding may pose.

In anticipation of a major flood event, Defra facilitates continuous cross-Government situational awareness and rapid coordination of the central Government response. This aids effective decision making in a significant flooding emergency.

To ensure adequate resources are available, we have committed to review local government funding for local statutory flood and coastal erosion risk management functions to ensure it is fair and matches the needs and resources of local areas. We want to make the funding framework for local government funding simpler, more up to date and more transparent.

Flood funding is part of the overall local government settlement and 2020-21 saw the biggest year-on-year increase in the overall settlement for over ten years, an average 4.4% real terms increase. As set out at the Spending Review, we will be making an additional £2.2 billion available to local government to deliver local services.

The Environment Agency (EA) is prepared to take action this winter wherever it is needed. The EA has 40 kilometres of metal frame temporary barriers, which can be delivered anywhere in the country within 12 hours, providing additional protection to locations where there are no permanent defences or where forecast river levels could overtop existing defences. The EA also has 250 high volume pumps available and 6,500 trained staff across the country, including 314 trained flood support officers. In addition, the EA has trained its contractors to be on hand to support local incident teams preparing for and responding to flooding across England. The EA routinely trains the Army civil contingency battalions as they rotate to ensure additional trained support is available to help deploy barriers should a major incident occur.

Through its communications, including social media, the EA has been encouraging residents and business to sign up to its free flood alert service so they can Prepare, Act and Survive. As of 8 January 2021, there were over 1.52 million properties in England signed up to the EA's free flood warning service, which sends a message directly by voice message, text or email when a flood warning is issued.

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