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…”

“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.”

“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…”

“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 …”

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

“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, …”

“I have seriously looked at businesses, because I know that that is a point that gets raised. As you know, Flood Re works by everybody paying a bit more on their insurance to cover people who otherwise would not get insurance. If you were to involve businesses in this, you would be putting up premiums for businesses. It…”

“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…”

“It is definitely true to say that most of the people who I have seen involved tend to be retired people who have the time, and of course it is easier to think about the constituencies that we represent and the people there not having the time to be able to involve themselves in that. You are right on that, which is why…”

“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…”

“For example, if we were to put in a new flood defence somewhere, it would be shown through the modelling to reduce the risk for that area. The EA has done an important piece of work there.”

“Yes, I agree with you. As I was saying, at the moment people can look at this NaFRA2 document. It is publicly available. They can put in their postcode and find out the exact flood risk for their property. That information is now available. It came out at the end of March. People can put it in and they can see what lev…”

“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.”

“Yes, you are again totally right. One of the lessons learnt was how to protect the most vulnerable from a flooding event. There are lots of different definitions of vulnerable, and some people who are vulnerable in the event of a flooding might not be classified as vulnerable in other ways.”

“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 …”

“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…”

“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 …”

“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…”

“The councils and the district councils are the lead local flood authorities and, as Phil was explaining, they liaise with the Environment Agency. The Environment Agency has been supporting them with training, upskilling and understanding so that they are planning in their local area for what needs to happen or does not…”