Claims flood defence spending up 'essentially meaningless'

Government claims that it increased spending on flood defences ahead of the wettest December on record are “essentially meaningless”, an independent adviser on climate change has said.

Daniel Johns, the head of adaptation at the Committee on Climate Change, urged the government to commit to spending more on defences after weeks of heavy rain caused flooding across the UK.

His comments came as water levels in north-east Scotland reached their highest levels in 45 years, causing further severe flooding in Aberdeenshire, where homes have had to be evacuated in recent days.

The Treasury minister, David Gauke, dismissed revelations last week that the government had been told funding cuts meant flood defences were being abandoned or maintained to only a minimal level.

Responding to a report compiled by the Association of Drainage Authorities (ADA) and published by the Observer, Gauke said the government had increased spending after it was told that a shortfall had weakened preparedness.

He said: “[The report] was written in the run-up to the autumn spending review, when we set out our £2.3bn that we’re spending over six years on flood defences.”

Experts have said, however, that the £2.3bn commitment had in fact been announced in December 2014, almost a year before George Osborne’s autumn statement, and that the ADA report was presented to the government five days after he delivered his statement in the Commons.

Johns also said that the money Gauke had drawn attention to was “not the part of the flood defence budget that pays for the maintenance of ongoing defences”.

“The £2.3bn covers new and improved flood defence structures over the next six years, but the government is yet to announce how much funding they will put into the maintenance of existing defences, which you need to do on an ongoing basis, otherwise they don’t protect communities, and they are more likely to fail in flood conditions,” he said.

He also expressed caution about the government’s boasts of spending more money than Labour and the coalition government on flood defences. At prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, David Cameron said that more would be spent on defences in this parliament than in the last.

Johns said Cameron’s statement was “only true because they cut the flood defence budget in 2010 by quite a significant amount”, while the coalition government only spent more than Labour because “the government had to find £270m at short notice after the winter storms of 2013-14 to put assets back into good condition.”

His concerns were echoed by John Gummer, who was environment secretary between 1993 and 1997. Gummer, who was made a life peer as Lord Deben in 2010 and now chairs the Committee on Climate Change, said that if the government failed to maintain adequate flood defences it was failing to defend the nation.

“The defence of the realm isn’t just about deterrence, or having a standing army,” he said. “It is also to ensure that the land isn’t eaten in by the sea. It is also to protect people’s life and limb from floods. And therefore you have to see this as a major priority for government expenditure.”

He also balked at government claims it was spending more than previous administrations. He said the government should work out “what the cost of the sort of protection we need to have is”.

He said: “Having established that, we ought to spend it. This is not something you can just leave. If you say: ‘Well we’re spending more than the last government,’, or ‘the last government spent less than it ought to have done’, then that just avoids the issue.”

He added, however, that increased expenditure would not resolve a failure to face up to the consequences of climate change.

“Having accepted that climate change is happening, there’s a curious unwillingness to recognise that this is not something about our children’s future, it is something about our present,” he said.

“We’re going to have more frequent and more serious weather incidents than we’ve had before, and we’re beginning to see that, and that means we have to take a lot of measures that are not about flood defences but are about avoiding having to have even further flood defences.”

Lady McIntosh, a Conservative peer who until May was the chair of the Commons’ environment, food and rural affairs committee, also criticised the government. McIntosh, who is an honorary ADA vice-president, said that “we are falling woefully short on maintenance expenditure”.

She said the government should at least match the £2.3bn it is spending on new defences on the upkeep of existing defences, calling for private sector investment to help make up the shortfall. “We keep saying the same things over and again. It’s like a rail disaster or a bus crash. You focus on the moment and then the next disaster happens and you move along,” she said.

“But I think this is an opportunity now, because it’s Somerset, Gloucester, Yorkshire and the Humber, Lincolnshire, Cumbria, Scotland – it’s a huge raft of the country that has been affected.”

A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “Over the next six years we have made a commitment to protect the £171m spent each year on maintaining defences in real terms, and have increased our investment programme to £2.3bn of new money to 2020/21 to protect 300,000 homes.

”No other government has ever made such a long-term commitment to fight floods and help protect our most at-risk communities and we can only afford to increase flood defence spending because we’re building a stronger economy.”

Dozens of homes were evacuated in Aberdeenshire on Friday when water levels on the river Don reached their highest levels in 45 years and the river Ythan burst its banks.

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, visited the area on Saturday to set out details of government support for those affected. She said communities affected by severe weather would be given £12m of additional funding, including a £1,500 grant for every home or business directly hit by flooding.

She said: “In the face of devastation Scotland’s communities have rallied together and shown real strength. I have met with some local business owners who have made a real difference by offering vital support and once again I am amazed by the determination and dedication of all of our emergency services who are working around the clock to save homes and livelihoods.

“We do not yet have confirmation of consequentials coming from UK government flood funds. However, now that the picture of those who need support is clearer, the Scottish government is acting now to make sure that the people who need help get it.”