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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of flood warning systems in the UK.

This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only.

Approximately 1.4 million people in England are signed up the Environment Agency’s free flood warning service which sends a message directly to people by voice message, text or email when a flood warning is issued. On average, over 99% of messages sent are received within 15 minutes.

The Environment Agency is continually reviewing the adequacy and improving its warning service to enable people to take timely and appropriate action. These improvements mean that by 2022 the flood warning service will be expanded to all places at a high risk of flooding from rivers and the sea.