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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to prevent flooding in rural communities in Runcorn and Helsby constituency.

In just five months in Government, we have introduced a series of measures to better protect Runcorn & Helsby from flooding including:

• Investing £2.4 billion over the next two years to maintain, repair and build flood defences to protect communities across the country.
• Setting up a new Floods Resilience Taskforce bringing together representatives from central and local government, Local Resilience Forums, emergency responders and the National Farmers Union, among others, to discuss how they will speed up and co-ordinate flooding preparation and resilience.
• Consultation to review the existing funding formula, ensuring the challenges facing businesses and rural and coastal communities are adequately considered.
• Invested £50 million to Internal Drainage Boards (IDBs) to better enable them to manage water levels for agriculture and environmental needs.
• Supporting farmers impacted by flooding through a £60 million Farming Recovery Fund, which provides grants of up to £25,000 to return their land to the condition it was in before storm damage.