Speeches by Hardy.

“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…”

“Yes. The Cabinet Office led on this, because the taskforce is joint chaired with me and the Minister for Resilience from the Cabinet Office. It has led an initiative to map vulnerable groups and provide a clearer definition of what vulnerable means. It has created an incredible tool, which can be used not just for floo…”

“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…”

“Not at this moment but, as soon as I have something more definite, of course I will inform the Committee.”

“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. I met an amazing man called Peter who ran a flood action group. I was so impressed by him. One of our colleagues, Michelle, took me down to meet him. There is an amazing role that volunteers play, and he showed me what he does in a local flood action group to convene everyone and get everyone together. He is an ex…”

“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…”

“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.”

“I have a huge amount of respect for Flooded People UK and the trauma that they faced as a flooded community. I am interested to talk to them about their experiences and how we can better support people recovering from flooding. However, do I stand by the figures we are using? Absolutely.”

“You can almost see that by what the previous Government did in creating these separate pockets of funding, because the formula was not working. We know that the formula was not working for natural flood management because they had to create a separate fund. We know it was not working for people who were frequently floo…”

“Thank you, and thank you, Chair. If I may, before I answer the questions, I would like to acknowledge the devastating news coming from Texas and offer the people in Texas my sympathy and support for the appalling flooding that they are facing. My heart goes out to everybody impacted by that. We have all seen the scenes…”

“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…”

“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.”

“We are looking at whether they need a statutory responsibility. I went to see them in Liverpool at their training centre, which was amazing and incredible. The fire service was showing me some of the work they do with rescuing people from flooding, the boats that they use and the dog, Luna, who was very sweet and went …”

“The EA’s strategic overview role is different, as Phil said, from its operational role managing flooding from rivers and seas. As Phil also explained, it does not have the operational role for surface water flooding; that is done by the lead local flood authorities and the councils, because they should be responsible f…”

“I definitely agree with you in that local people are not always clear about what they need to do. A few things came out from the lessons learned work we did through the taskforce from the flooding that we had over Christmas. One was local response arrangements and people. One acknowledged that the flood emergency respo…”

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

“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.”

“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.”