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

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of England's coastal flood defences.

The Environment Agency applies the same methodology for condition assessment and allocation of maintenance funding for all flood assets and does not differentiate between coastal and other assets.

At the last Spending Review in 2021 the government increased funding for maintenance of flood defences by £22 million per year. In 2023/24, £25 million was reallocated from the capital programme to fund maintenance, meaning that the total allocation for last year was over £220 million.

The Environment Agency visually inspects its assets to assess their condition. The results inform their expected performance when operated either on a daily basis or during a flood event. Our target based on available funding for 2024/25 is for 94.5% of high consequence assets to meet the target condition.

The Environment Agency plans to publish an updated national flood risk assessment in December 2024.