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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the (a) adequacy of flood warnings and (b) potential merits of steps to ensure they are as (i) timely and (ii) accurate as possible.

There are 1.6 million users in England signed up to the free flood warning service by the Environment Agency (EA) which sends a message directly by voice message, text or email when a flood warning is issued. In November and December 2024, the EA issued over 1,500 Flood Warnings (977 Flood Alerts, 543 Flood Warnings and two Severe Flood Warnings), two million messages were sent directly to the public via email, phone and text. The EA is developing the next flood warning system, ready for launch by the end of 2025. This will deliver a new flood warning capability that is more resilient.

The EA issues Flood Warnings ahead of flooding so that the public can take action to protect their safety and their livelihoods. The EA undertakes reviews on Flood Warnings issued and makes appropriate improvements to the service, this includes improvements to the forecasts and processes to ensure Flood Warnings are as accurate and timely as possible. As a resilience measure the EA has developed an automated warning system to make sure that communities receive Flood Warnings at all times, even for example when there is significant flood risk across the country.