§ Mr. Liddell-GraingerTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what EU funding is available for flood defences outside structural fund areas. [98291]
450W
§ Mr. MorleyNo significant financial assistance is made available by the European Union to assist member states in the provision of flood and coastal defences.
§ Miss McIntoshTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement about how she will deal with future flood alerts. [98065]
§ Mr. MorleyWith Defra funding, the Environment Agency has developed a clear national strategy for developing its flood warning capabilities over the next 10 years in order to deliver the highest practicable quality of flood warning service across England and Wales. It is anticipated that in order to achieve defined performance targets for an effective flood warning service to increase both its coverage and the effective action taken by recipients of these warnings that investment will be focussed on the following specific but inter-linked areas of work:
upgrade and extension of detection and monitoring systems such as telemetry and weather radar to improve the identification of conditions likely to cause flooding;
the delivery of an enhanced national flood forecasting system to improve prediction of the time, location, likelihood, severity and duration of flooding;
developing a multi-media warning dissemination system to communicate flood warnings to "at risk" members of the public and to professional partners who need to respond (eg emergency services, local authorities, utilities, media and weather broadcasters);
targeted public awareness programmes and effective marketing and communication of flood risk, preventative actions and appropriate reactions to warnings to achieve an effective response.
§ Mr. Liddell-GraingerTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the powers of flood defence committees. [98290]
§ Mr. MorleyFlood defence committees, whether regional or local, are executive committees of the Agency.
Section 106 of the Water Resources Act 1991 requires the Environment Agency to "arrange for all its functions relating to flood defence under the following provisions of this Act and the Land Drainage Act 1991 to be carried out by Regional Flood Defence Committees". The exceptions are issuing of levies, making drainage charges or borrowing money.
Regional flood defence committees are permitted to arrange for their functions to be carried out:
- (a) by a sub-committee, or an under sub-committee of the committee or an officer of theAgency; or
- (b) by any other regional or, as the case may be, local flood defence committee.
Statutory local flood defence committees have been established in the Environment Agency's Southern, Wessex and Anglian regions and in Wales.
§ Mr. Liddell-GraingerTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what financial assistance is being given to the Environment Agency to help with flood prevention and relief in the Government's spending assessment for 2003. [98309]
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§ Mr. MorleyThe Environment Agency's flood defence function is funded mainly(a) from local authority levies which in turn are supported by funding from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, and (b) from Defra grant for capital projects for new and improved defences, related studies and flood warning. Additionally, Defra makes contributions to support the cost of agency national initiatives such as for the National Flood and Coastal Defence Database and on Catchment Flood Management Plans. Defra provision for 2003–04 is:
£ million Capital projects 64 National initiatives 5