§ Mr. McNultyTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what progress has been made on the review of the funding arrangements for flood and coastal defence and development of high level targets for flood and coastal defence operating authorities. [85731]
§ Mr. MorleyIn response to last year's Agriculture Select Committee Report on Flood and Coastal Defence, the Government agreed to review the funding mechanisms for flood and coastal defence. As a first step in the review process, a consultation letter was issued to interested parties on 7 May. A copy has been placed in the Libraries.
A consultation paper seeking comments on substantive high level targets for flood and coastal defence from March 2000 will be issued to a wide range of interested organisations later this week; a copy will be placed in the Libraries. The Environment Agency will be consulting separately on further elaboration of its flood defence supervisory duty, and reporting to me in the autumn.