MPs to quiz DEFRA’s Owen Paterson on flooding
DEFRA secretary Owen Paterson will give evidence to MPs investigating the government’s policy on maintaining flood defences.
Mr Paterson will appear before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee at 3pm on Tuesday (26 March)
The session, which will also take evidence from senior DEFRA civil servant Sonia Phippard, will focus on eliciting a government position on funding levels for defences.
It will also look at the work of the Environment Agency and local authorities on managing flood risk, and on the future for flood insurance provision.
Farmers and landowners have long complained that urban areas are prioritised for flood defence work, while parts of the countryside are left to languish under water.
Last month, the Country Land and Business Association warned that farmland stood to gain little from a £2.3bn government investment in flood risk management.
Most of the investment would go into capital projects to protect towns and cities, with the nation’s farmland left to cope with increasingly frequent flooding, it said.
Farmers have also complained that overzealous red tape prevents them from maintaining watercourses that could prevent flooding.
The government has promised to make it easier for farmers wishing to undertake their own “low-risk” maintenance, such as de-silting watercourses.
The commitment followed a heated NFU council meeting between Environment Agency officials and farm leaders at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire, in January.
Junior DEFRA minister Richard Benyon revealed the plan in a parliamentary answer last month.
The government proposes to use the Water Bill to bring the Environment Agency’s flood defence consents and land drainage byelaws within the Environmental Permitting framework.
But it remains unclear how such an idea would work in practice.