A committee of MPs has criticised the government for failing to act on recommendations for improving flood defences. Flooding is set to become more frequent and more severe in the UK as climate change progresses.

On Tuesday, MPs on the Efra Committee slammed the government’s “Cursory response” to a November 2016 report by the committee which outlined actions to tackle Britain’s “fragmented, inefficient and ineffective flood management” schemes.

The Committee had called on the environment department to commit to stronger planning rules, more support for natural flood management schemes and improvements to flood insurance coverage. Its investigation concluded that the Government needs to develop new long-term plans for risk management and oversight of flood risk with the appointment of a ‘floods commissioner’. The recommendations to government included:

• Implementing a statutory duty on developers to provide redress where development not meeting planning conditions causes increased flood risk
• Requiring local authorities to publish annual summaries of planning decisions approved against Environment Agency advice
• Giving water and sewage companies a statutory role in consultation on planning applications to prevent new development adding to flood risk
• Committing 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
• Giving the Fire and Rescue Service a statutory duty to provide emergency flood response with guarantees of sufficient resources
• Appointing a new National Floods Commissioner for England to bring greater co-ordination between the Environment Agency and local and regional bodies

In its response, Defra didn’t commit to taking forward any of the above recommendations. In response to a number of points raised in the Efra report, Defra said its agencies are already taking action in the relevant area. On natural flood management, the government said it is already involved in a £4m research programme with the Natural Environment Research Council to assess the effectiveness of different natural flood management measures, had unveiled “£15m specifically for Natural Flood Management schemes” in last year’s Autumn Statement and added that natural flood prevention options are already available as part of the Countryside Stewardship scheme. With a nod to Brexit, officials said, “We agree that it will be important to link future agricultural support to sustainable land management practices.”

In response to Efra committee recommendations around using farmland to store floodwaters, the government said this is already “an important part” of its approach to flooding, adding that a flood alleviation scheme in Morpeth “includes a number of farmers and land owners who are compensated for allowing flood water to spill over onto their land.”

Defra officials said “We do not agree that there is a need for substantial change to the existing national and local governance provisions for flood risk management,” and did not respond to calls for a Floods Commissioner to oversee different public and private bodies.

Having received the government response, Efra Committee MPs demanded further information from Defra. By the end of February this year, they want more information on how much of the £2.5 billion flood risk management programme for 2015 – 2020 is going to be spent on natural flood management approaches (beyond the £15m mentioned in the Autumn Statement). Also by the end of next month, Committee MPs want a “fuller response” to proposals for improving local governance and catchment level partnerships to address concerns about fragmented and inefficient flood risk management.

The MPs said they consider the government’s justification for rejecting their recommendations (on issues like insurance, resilience and sustainable drainage) to be “deficient,” claiming the government response largely repeats ministers’ original evidence to the Efra enquiry. They want more information on action in these areas by the end of the year.  

On Tuesday, Jim Fitzpatrick MP, Acting Chair of the 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."