Comment: Storm Bert – flood resilience

Reacting to the widespread flooding following Storm Bert, Public Accounts Committee Chair, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, said:

“Storm Bert has caused a tragic loss of life and misery to families and businesses across the country. Such devastating floods are becoming an annual feature of our national life. They are a symptom of our changing climate, and as such there is no excuse for the Government to not tighten its grip in tackling such a predictable risk. 

“Our predecessor Committee’s report on resilience to flooding in England identified that the Government had not determined the appropriate balance between building new defences with maintaining existing ones. It is very important that we maintain existing flood defences. We found earlier this year that this put 203,000 properties at increased risk due to poorly-maintained defences – more than the 200,000 which had had better protections put in place. In response, the Government said in March 2024 it needed a full year to take action on this – its response is still awaited. 

“In terms of the broader impacts of climate change, our predecessor Committee’s report on Government resilience and extreme weather found that, for most of these risks, the Government had not set out what level of resilience it wanted to achieve. This meant that it could not make informed decisions about investment and priorities, and progress could not be tracked or evaluated. This Committee will continue to closely scrutinise whether its specific concerns on extreme weather are being addressed, along with the overall approach to ensuring resilience is at the heart of Government’s thinking in these challenging times.”  

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