By Richard Johnstone | 7 January 2014
A committee of MPs has warned that cuts to Whitehall environment funding could leave government agencies unable to respond to emergencies like the flooding seen across England over the last month.
In a report today, MPs said the planned £300m funding cut for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs over the next two years would lead to reductions for bodies such as the Environment Agency. It has already been announced that the EA is set to lose 1,700 jobs in the next 12 months.
Anne McIntosh, chair of the environment, food and rural affairs committee, said the floods over the Christmas and New Year period had reinforced concerns about the impact lower spending could have.
She called for the government to set out more details of how these cuts will be managed.
‘Defra is a small ministry facing massive budget cuts and which relies on a large number of arm’s-length bodies to deliver many significant areas of policy,’ she said.
‘Ministers must clarify how further budgets cuts of over £300m over the coming two years will impact on the funding provided to these agencies and the ability of the department to respond to emergencies.’
In its annual departmental report, the committee also called on ministers to demonstrate the effectiveness of the government’s preferred partnership funding model for flood defences.
Since April 2012, the Environment Agency has operated a flood and coastal erosion partnership scheme, which is intended to encourage developers to pay for flood defence schemes.
The committee stated it had previously supported the principle that beneficiaries should help to fund new flood defence schemes. However, MPs said they were now concerned about the small amounts of private sector funding that have been secured to date.
‘We have asked the department to confirm the amount of contributions received from external sources under the partnership funding approach and to demonstrate how the partnership funding model for flood defences will deliver much greater private sector funding in the future,’ McIntosh said.
‘This will allow the drainage boards to do more of the essential maintenance work of main watercourses using their own resources.’
Responding to the report, a Defra spokeswoman said the department's budget would be around £2.2bn in 2014/15 and £2bn in 2015/16, which means it would have almost £40m a week to spend.
'We’re currently spending over £2.bn on tackling the risk of flooding and coastal erosion,' she added. 'Together with contributions from other partners, this is more money than ever before. We’ll also be making record levels of capital investment and will be spending over £400m by 2020/21.
'Like all departments we have to make efficiency savings, but we are confident that our ability to respond to emergencies remains as strong as ever.'
