Speeches by Hardy.

“The previous Government had a straightforward funding formula based on numbers of properties protected. The difficulty with that particular formula is it made it hard for natural flood management, because it was hard to evidence that you had moved from one risk band to another. If you put a wall up or you do an enginee…”

“The consultation—and, as I say, it is a consultation at the moment—is on looking to fully fund the first £3 million. Lots of smaller projects that are happening up and down the country, under the current system, have to find partnership funding. It is quite difficult to find partnership funding for smaller projects, es…”

“I have a huge amount of respect for Flooded People UK and the trauma that they faced as a flooded community. I am interested to talk to them about their experiences and how we can better support people recovering from flooding. However, do I stand by the figures we are using? Absolutely.”

“We will consider those major projects separately to the rest of the flood budget and the rest of the projects that we are looking at. When you are looking at what is happening with what would need to be done with the Thames, you are talking billions. They need to be considered away from the rest of the budget that we a…”

“No, this is genuinely about me looking at the best way to do this. You are right, this piece of legislation was written 15 years ago. It is right that we look at the best way to do this now. Are we looking at doing it with partnership projects? As I say, water companies are hugely interested in this because it helps th…”

“We are investing a record amount of money, the most money that has ever been invested by any Government into flood defences. We are investing £2.65 billion over the next two years. We have put money into maintenance, the most money, again, that has ever been put into maintenance. We are investing £4.2 billion over the …”

“No.”

“Not at this moment but, as soon as I have something more definite, of course I will inform the Committee.”

“I definitely agree with you in that local people are not always clear about what they need to do. A few things came out from the lessons learned work we did through the taskforce from the flooding that we had over Christmas. One was local response arrangements and people. One acknowledged that the flood emergency respo…”

“We are looking at whether they need a statutory responsibility. I went to see them in Liverpool at their training centre, which was amazing and incredible. The fire service was showing me some of the work they do with rescuing people from flooding, the boats that they use and the dog, Luna, who was very sweet and went …”

“The EA’s strategic overview role is different, as Phil said, from its operational role managing flooding from rivers and seas. As Phil also explained, it does not have the operational role for surface water flooding; that is done by the lead local flood authorities and the councils, because they should be responsible f…”

“What is the phrase? You might say that but I could not possibly comment.”

“Forty-three were implemented, 40 were implemented with work ongoing in 2012, six were ongoing with work on track, and only one was not completely implemented or taken forward.”

“As Phil mentioned, you are quite right, the Pitt review said that there should be an overview role. The Environment Agency was given that strategic overview role over all the different types of flooding. The EA interacts with all the different bodies that are responsible for looking at flooding. As Phil mentioned, they…”

“The short answer is that you can either enact schedule 3 or you can achieve the same outcome in a different way. We are genuinely looking at whether the same outcome could be achieved for SuDS rather than enacting schedule 3. I have been a huge fan of SuDS for a long time, recognising how crucially important they are, …”

“You can almost see that by what the previous Government did in creating these separate pockets of funding, because the formula was not working. We know that the formula was not working for natural flood management because they had to create a separate fund. We know it was not working for people who were frequently floo…”

“With the new data we have from the national flood risk assessment, the mapping that the EA has done shows us for the first time the surface water flood risk. Previously it was only looking at risk from sea and from river and so now we have surface water risk. In the evidence we have done on the money that we are puttin…”

“I am happy to go away and see if we can work that out for you because we would have to reset the baseline based on the new mapping and the evidence that we have. Otherwise, you would be comparing apples and pears because we have never before measured the risk of surface water flooding. If you take the surface water flo…”

“Climate adaptation is a feature of the infrastructure strategy and what we are doing for the next 10 years and looking at the impact of climate for everything, which is not just flooding of course but what we do if everything is hotter and various other things. We need to be thinking about where we have our schools. I …”

“Yes, which is why I am saying the evidence that we have had from the Environment Agency is so important. If you are going to set a baseline for how many properties are at risk, that is what it is mapping. What it has done is crucial. As I said, previously that did not include surface water risk. Some people are saying …”