The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has published a paper providing an update on and correction to figures that were reported in April 2013 in order to clarify levels of Defra funding for flood and coastal erosion risk management in England.

The paper says that Defra is on course to invest more than £2.3 billion in flood and coastal erosion risk management over the current four year spending period, which runs from April 2011 to March 2015.

Going forward, Defra is committed to investing £370m capital in 2015/16 and then the same in real terms each year, rising to over £400m in 2020/21. Defra will also be providing an above-inflation increase of £5m for the Environment Agency’s floods maintenance work in 2015/16.

Environmental NGO Friends of the Earth said that Defra’s newly updated figures challenged the Prime Minister and Environment Secretary’s recent claims on flood defence spending.

Commenting on the update, FoE said that both David Cameron and Owen Paterson had repeatedly claimed that the Government is spending more than the previous but following FoE’s questioning of their interpretation of the figures, the correction from Defra revealed the cuts made by the current Government.

 Friends of the Earth Climate Campaigner Guy Shrubsole said:

“Defra’s corrected figures are humiliating for both Paterson and Cameron who have been trumpeting how the Government has increased spending on flood defences when the reality is that the budget’s been cut.”

“The new figures raise difficult questions about the misleading information that the Prime Minister and Environment Secretary have provided to soothe both Parliament and the public.”

“With millions of homes and business at risk from flooding they need to increase the budget and tackle the causes of climate change, which will increase the likelihood of more flooding.”