The Government must not neglect maintenance of flood defences and watercourses if homes, businesses and farmland are to gain better protection against future flooding risk, warn MPs today in a report of an inquiry triggered by the recent winter floods.

In its Report on Winter Floods, the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee is warning that it is essential that Environment Agency funding cuts do not lead to unintended consequences where funding is redirected to one operational area to the detriment of another. The Report also calls for a reassurance from Defra that frontline flood jobs at the Environment Agency will not be cut.

The Committee has also identified the current split between capital and revenue budgets as a major barrier to targeting funding according to local priorities, saying that the separate budgets can also create a perverse incentive to defer maintenance work until it creates a need for capital expenditure.

The MPs are recommending that the Government assess the possibility of a transition to a total expenditure classification for flood and coastal risk management funding and publish that assessment.

Launching the Report, Anne McIntosh MP Chair of the Committee commented:

 "We want clarity for everyone when it comes to flood funding budgets. We see no reason why the Government cannot move to a total expenditure approach for flood funding to allow more flexibility to spend in the most effective way".

 “We have repeatedly called on the Government to increase revenue funding so that necessary dredging and watercourse maintenance can be carried out to minimise flood risk, yet funding for maintenance remains at a bare minimum. Ministers must take action now to avoid a repeat of the devastation caused by the winter floods.”

The Committee is calling for fully funded plans to address the current backlog of dredging and watercourse maintenance as well as to maintain the growing numbers of man-made flood defences.

The MPs are supporting the devolution of maintenance activity to internal drainage boards and to local landowners, wherever possible. The Committee is also urging the Government to address the confusion over maintenance responsibilities through a widespread education campaign.

Anne McIntosh added:

"Regular work to dredge and keep rivers clear can be an essential flood prevention measure, yet this is exactly what gets squeezed out when budgets are tight. The Government needs to recognise the importance of regular maintenance work and put it on an equal footing with building new defences."

The Report says that last winter showed that there are lessons still to learn about the capability of the country’s flood defences, the suitability of the Government’s flood risk management priorities and whether sufficient funding is available in the face of this type of increasingly frequent weather events.

Commenting on the additional funding announced by the Government for flood defence, in 2014, the Report says that a large proportion of the funding referred to as “additional” should have been more accurately described as “reallocated”.  If funding is reallocated from within an existing budget, the MPs want Defra to ensure that the process is completely transparent and provide a clear and detailed accompanying explanation which sets out what activities are receiving less funding as a result .

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