Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne MP has announced a £700 million increase in flood defence spend in today’s Budget speech to be financed by an increase in the standard rate of Insurance Premium Tax.
“To respond to the increasing extreme weather events our country is facing I am today proposing a further substantial increase in flood defences.” he said.
He went on to say that this would not be affordable within existing budgets. In order to fund the increase, he plans to increase the standard rate of Insurance Premium Tax by half a percentage point and commit all the extra money raised to flood defence spending, describing the measure as “a £700 million boost to our resilience and flood defences.”
Environment Secretary Elizabeth Truss and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Oliver Letwin, who is leading the urgent National Flood Resilience Review which is currently underway, will determine how the money is spent. The Review was established in January following Storm Desmond in December to assess how the country can be better protected from future flooding and increasingly extreme weather events.
The review is focusing on four key areas: updating climate modelling and stress-testing the nation’s resilience to flood risk; assessing the resilience of important infrastructure like electricity substations; temporary defences; and future investment strategy.
Ahead of that however, George Osborne announced that the government is giving the go-ahead to flood defence schemes for York, Leeds, Calder Valley, Carlisle and across Cumbria.
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