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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the impact of the recent flash flooding on urban communities.

The Secretary of State and Defra Ministers regularly meet with colleagues and stakeholders to discuss flooding and coastal erosion.

I want to praise the work of the Environment Agency, local authorities, and our blue light services for the response they provided to all the areas which experienced flooding in the summer, and earlier this month.

Policy and funding for flood and coastal erosion is a devolved matter. In England, this Government has doubled investment to £5.2 billion in flood and coastal erosion risk management schemes between now and 2027. This will better protect 336,000 properties, benefiting urban areas as well as coastal and rural communities.

Surface water is one of the sources of flooding in urban areas and the Government is taking action to tackle this. In July we published our update and progress report on our surface water management action plan.

We have already changed our flood defence partnership funding rules to enable more surface water schemes and launched a £200 million innovation fund which includes actions to support surface water flood risk actions. We are putting water company Drainage and Wastewater Plans on a statutory footing through the Environment Bill, to ensure drainage and sewerage systems are resilient to withstand the current and future pressures on them.

In England, Lead Local Flood Authorities (county and unitary authorities) have the leadership role on surface water flood risk management, and are working with those impacted by the recent flooding to help them return to their homes and businesses as quickly as possible.