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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what additional (a) funding and (b) support his Department has provided to (i) communities and (ii) local authorities in Leicestershire to help tackle the impact of recent flooding.

Protecting communities around the country from flooding is one of the Secretary of State’s five core priorities.

To ensure we protect the country from the devastating impacts of flooding, the Government will invest £2.4 billion in 2024/25 and 2025/26 to improve flood resilience by maintaining, repairing and building flood defences.

In addition, the Government’s new Floods Resilience Taskforce sets out a new approach to preparing for flooding by working cross-government and with external stakeholders. It plans to meet again in January 2025 and will discuss the recent flooding.

During the flooding incident, the Environment Agency (EA) has informed the public about flood risk; operated flood risk assets to prevent or reduce the severity of flooding; supported authorities to pump flood water away from properties and infrastructure; and worked with partners to coordinate the emergency response.

Going forward, the EA will contribute to the Leicester, Leicestershire, and Rutland Recovery Cell; continue to deploy officers to affected communities to assess the impacts of flooding to properties and businesses; and continue to work with others to identify further opportunities to reduce flood risk in Leicestershire and support the resilience of communities to flooding.