17:34 Steve Reed (Labour)

Climate change will inevitably lead to more severe weather of the kind we have seen this weekend. As Environment Secretary, I have made it my priority to improve our flood defences and drainage systems to keep people and businesses safe. This Government inherited flood defences in the worst condition on record following years of under-investment by the previous Government. Over 3,000 of our key flood defences are below an acceptable standard. That is why we are investing £2.4 billion over the next two years to build and maintain flood defences.

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17:42 Victoria Atkins (Conservative)

I entirely empathise with my right hon. Friend about what he has inherited. We have had the perfect storm of massive funding cuts to the Environment Agency with increased pressures from flooding as a result of climate change. Notwithstanding that, the need for improvements in our flood defences is urgent and critical. How can communities such as mine in Chesterfield, flooded by the Rother and Hipper rivers, engage with the work he is doing so that we can be more prepared, working with the Environment Agency to bridge the funding gap for the existing scheme on the River Hipper? My heart goes out to all the communities across the country that have been so appallingly flooded. They need to know how we can work with the Government to step up the urgency so that our country is more flood-prepared in future.

Last July, the previous Government issued its third national adaptation plan, and this March the Climate Change Committee issued its independent assessment of NAP3. It said that it falls far short of what is needed, that it lacks the pace and ambition to address growing climate risks—which we are already experiencing—and that it fails to set out a compelling vision for what the Government’s well-adapted UK entails, with only around 40% of the short-term actions to address urgent risks identified in the previous climate change risk assessment.

Will the Secretary of State ensure that the key recommendations of the Climate Change Committee in its assessment of NAP3 are implemented and that an urgent refresh of NAP3 takes place, to strengthen it and avoid locking in additional climate impacts? Key reforms must be implemented over the next year, along with enforcement. Those are the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee. Can he assure the House that he is taking those seriously and moving them forward?

My hon. Friend is right to point to the impact of climate change through the much more frequent severe weather incidents that we are seeing, whether droughts in the summer or floods at this time of year and through the winter. That is why we are reviewing the formula and our approach to managing flooding. We take the reports and views of the committee very seriously as we continue to look at how best to adapt to the challenges that climate change presents to the whole country.

Extreme weather events are on the rise and are becoming ever more frequent as a result of climate change, highlighting the urgent need for proper funding and resources. England is the only part of the UK without a statutory duty for flooding, leaving fire services underfunded and under-resourced to respond effectively. That must change. As the FBU has long called for, when will the Government finally provide a statutory duty for fire and rescue authorities to respond to flooding incidents in England? Furthermore, in our election manifesto the Government committed to developing a national structure to inform policy and standards in the fire and rescue service. When will that be implemented? Finally, will the FBU be invited to the floods resilience taskforce to ensure that the voice of firefighters is heard in shaping flood resilience strategies?

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We need to look at dredging and other means of mitigating the risk of flooding, and he is quite right that that needs to be done across Government. We will have those conversations and will ensure that measures are taken to protect communities as much as possible from the more severe weather events that we are seeing as a result of climate change.

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