Speeches by Gardiner.

“Minister, Baroness Brown came before this Committee as the chair of the Committee on Climate Change’s adaptation sub-committee, and said that the UK is not adequately prepared for flooding and the public are largely unaware of Government targets or what they mean for individual households. Do you recognise that?”

“I want to drill down on this because the Public Accounts Committee was driving at this. Information should be clearly available from DEFRA about the number of properties in England as a whole that are at risk from flooding. It does not matter whether it is fluvial, pluvial or coastal, but just that are at risk. Then, a…”

“Some repairs have been done at the Wembley Brook and nobody can say who has actually done them. We know it is TfL, but it will not own up to it.”

“Indeed, where we are building homes on floodplains still.”

“It will probably be useful for somebody else who will ask you a question on that, but not for me. You rightly mentioned the mental health impact being devastating on people. That is why the Wembley Brook project—I am grateful to your officers for coming last month to meet me there and to work with local residents—needs…”

“But those are what we need, aren’t they?”

“The Public Accounts Committee said in its report that you as an agency were forecasting that you would provide protection for at least 40% fewer properties than planned. The recommendation in the Treasury minute response was that the agency should include a robust forecast of the number of properties that will be bette…”

“If we can just disaggregate for a minute, can you give us the percentage for the high consequence assets and for the assets as a whole?”

“Thank you. I want to look at the capital funding programme for flood defence that you touched on in your remarks to the Chair at the beginning. Severe weather from climate change is impacting on flood defences, and defences that were deemed adequate in the past are increasingly not as we go forward, because of storm su…”

“Does that not mean that you should be going for soft green engineering rather than concrete and steel wherever possible?”

“Mr Duffy, when will we be getting formal clarification of the funding for the flood alleviation scheme for the Wembley Brook in my constituency?”

“But you will do shortly, I am sure, and you will write to me to tell me.”

“It will probably be useful for somebody else who will ask you a question on that, but not for me. You rightly mentioned the mental health impact being devastating on people. That is why the Wembley Brook project—I am grateful to your officers for coming last month to meet me there and to work with local residents—needs…”

“Just on that, Mr Duffy, neither you nor local authorities actually have the power to find out who is responsible for those flood defences and who owns them. Would it be helpful to have a recommendation from this Committee that gave you and local authorities the authority, the power, to know who actually has those?”

“I understand it has been approved in principle, but the funding has not yet been formally allocated. I want to ask you about assets, and you touched on this already in your response to the Chair. The EA-managed high consequence assets were not at the required standard. The 94.5% that was agreed last year was down to 92…”

“I understand it has been approved in principle, but the funding has not yet been formally allocated. I want to ask you about assets, and you touched on this already in your response to the Chair. The EA-managed high consequence assets were not at the required standard. The 94.5% that was agreed last year was down to 92…”

“I think that Members on the Government Benches appreciate the concessions that the Minister has already made. When he is talking about whether measures will be put in primary legislation, he must understand that Members will not be able to amend things if they are not in primary legislation. That is a key concern when …”

“I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work that she has put into the changes that have been made to the Bill. She spoke of cost shunting—the way that cuts in one area have forced people to claim in other areas, and those costs have risen. Does she not therefore think that it is important that the Government address t…”

“Given that the EU is seeking to apply the essential use concept to regulation, how should critical and necessary use in industry be determined? In a sense, as I asked earlier, what is essential use, and how do we weigh up the competing interests? Is there a framework for that, or should we be recommending that there is…”

“What could the UK learn from the EU’s safe and sustainable design framework? How can we avoid regrettable substitution? I know these are used as technical terms, but, Professor Depledge, can you put them in layman’s language for us?”