To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of page four of the National Audit Office’s report entitled, Resilience to flooding, published on 15 November 2023; and for what reasons the Environment Agency has reduced its forecast of the number of additional properties that will be protected from flooding due to the capital programme.

Defra’s Permanent Secretary and the Environment Agency’s Chief Executive provided oral evidence at the Public Accounts Committee hearing on 27 November 2023, discussing the National Audit Office’s findings and recommendations. The Committee will publish a report in the new year, to which the Government will formally respond.

The investment programme has faced delivery challenges which the Government is taking action to mitigate. The effects of inflation have increased the cost of materials and labour to build flood defences, and impacts from Covid-19 delayed mobilisation of construction activity. These events were unforeseen when the programme was developed ahead of the funding being announced in March 2020. These issues have been felt across the entire construction sector. The Environment Agency therefore now forecasts the number of properties to be better protected by 2027 will reduce from 336,000 to 200,000, with the number of new flood defence projects reducing from approximately 2,000 to around 1,500. Ministers are considering this new forecast with the Environment Agency.

Despite challenges, at the end of March 2023, the Environment Agency estimated that approximately £1.5 billion of the current £5.2 billion programme for flood reduction has been invested. Over 67,000 properties have already been better protected from flooding since the start of the programme and projects are being delivered in every region, providing flooding protection across the country.