11:15 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)

My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that we are reviewing the guidance. I do not know whether she has seen a copy of it, but I have. It is thick and highly technical. She is right that the independent assessors from the Institution of Civil Engineers who make these judgments are singularly liable. Once the asset is built, it will be the Government who are liable through the Environment Agency. At the moment, however, liability for the level of comfort that has to be achieved rests with individuals, so they want to get it right. There is undoubtedly an incentive for them to be precautionary, but the Government have to ensure that, in our desperate desire to see comfort given to communities such as Pickering, we do not rush measures through that in years to come, with the climate changing as we know it is, may pose catastrophic risks for many people.

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