MPs have today criticised the Government for missing opportunities to act on its report on improving flood protection for communities at risk across England - describing its response as "disappointing" and "deficient" on the issues of insurance, resilience and sustainable drainage.

The Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s Future flood prevention report published in November 2016 recommended action to tackle fragmented, inefficient and ineffective flood management. MPs were disappointed with the Government's cursory response which failed to address fully its calls for improvement.

The Committee had called upon the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to provide greater safeguards and assurance to local communities through stronger planning rules and improvements to flood insurance coverage. It also found that the Government needs to develop robust long-term plans and to fundamentally overhaul governance and streamline delivery of flood risk management.

However, Defra has not committed to taking forward key recommendations, including those calling on the Government to:

• Implement a statutory duty on developers to provide redress where development not meeting planning conditions causes increased flood risk.
• Require local authorities to publish annual summaries of planning decisions approved against Environment Agency advice.
• Give water and sewage companies a statutory role in consultation on planning applications to prevent new development adding to flood risk.
• Commit to a timetable to amend building regulations, if a voluntary approach cannot be agreed, to ensure that homes in flood risk areas are more resistant to flood damage.
• Give the Fire and Rescue Service a statutory duty to provide emergency flood response with guarantees of sufficient resources.
• Appoint a new National Floods Commissioner for England to bring greater co-ordination between the Environment Agency and local and regional bodies.

The Mps report says:

“We are therefore disappointed that the Government’s response addresses a number of our recommendations in only a cursory manner.”

“In particular, the response provides little insight into the assessment Defra has made about the merits of our recommendations on promoting catchment-wide approaches and on new governance arrangements.”

The Committee has now requested that Defra provides it with additional information on how much of the £2.5 billion flood risk management programme for 2015–16 to 2020–2021 includes natural flood management approaches, beyond the £15 million referred to in the response, it by the end of February. It also wants Defra to provide an update by the end of 2017 on progress on those recommendations where actions will not be completed in the timescales we recommended.

The MPs are also seeking a fuller response by the end of February to their proposals for improving local governance and partnership working at catchment level to address the concerns about fragmented and inefficient flood risk management structures.

The Committee said it also considers the Government justification for its rejection of a number of other recommendations, including on insurance, resilience and sustainable drainage, to be deficient. 

 Jim Fitzpatrick MP, Acting Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, said:

 "People living in areas of flood risk need to be reassured that the Government is acting to improve our disjointed flood management system. Defra has failed to give sufficient justification for its rejection of our recommendations for important new measures to improve flood protection.”

“ Ministers must give us more detailed information on how the Government is using its £2.5 billion flood defence budget to slow the flow of water across river catchments so as to stop communities flooding in future. Ministers must also update us on their actions to ensure that the insurance, planning and building regulation regimes reduce flood risk and improve property resilience.”