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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make it her policy to ring fence funding for local authorities to manage climate-related incidents.

Councils are best placed to make decisions about local priorities. To enable this the Government made available £59.7 billion for local government in England in the Local Government Finance Settlement 2023/24. This is an increase in Core Spending Power of up to £5.1 billion or 9.4% in cash terms on 2022/23. In addition to overall local government funding there are other support mechanisms for climate resilience that the Government offers. These include devolution deals, forthcoming strengthening of Local Resilience Forums’ powers, and the Community Resilience Development Framework.