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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of the recommendations of the Mayor of London's London Climate Resilience Review to levy charges on households that pave their front gardens.

On 13 March 2024 the previous government published its response to the National Infrastructure Commission’s study into Reducing the risk of surface water flooding accepting four recommendations and partially accepting five.

This included the recommendation to undertake a review of the effectiveness of all available options to manage unplanned increases in impermeable (or hard) surfaces, and their costs and benefits. Defra, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and other key stakeholders will be taking this review forward in due course.

The Mayor of London's London Climate Resilience Review expanded on the impermeable surfaces review and recommended that “the government consider introducing stormwater charges for people who pave over gardens and incentives to remove paving”. We will consider whether to include this as part of the review during the scoping phase.