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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to match revenue spending on flood defence and protection measures to capital spending, and whether they plan to move towards a total expenditure budget for such measures.

We are investing £2.3 billion in 1,500 flood defence improvement schemes over the next six years. This will provide better protection to at least 300,000 households, up to 420,000 acres of agricultural land, over 200 miles of railway and 340 miles of roads. The Government has confirmed that flood maintenance funding will be protected in real terms for the duration of this Parliament.

There are no plans to move towards a total expenditure budget for flood defence and protection in this Parliament. The Environment Agency have advised us that the current funding is an optimal mix of resources funding (for maintaining defences) and capital funding to rebuild and improve defences as set out in the 6 year investment programme. We do not believe that there would be significant additional benefits from this flexibility at this stage.