Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

On the first point, we have just heard two contributions that offer different view on which way the money is going. The fact is that there needs to be a system for prioritising flood defence investment. Rightly and properly we have given that responsibility to the Environment Agency. It has a system for scoring and assessing potential schemes. The best thing that we can do to assist it in that process is to ensure that it has more money to spend on flood defence, which is exactly what we have done over the past 10 years and what we will do over the next two years. Decisions about where the Environment Agency puts its head offices are a matter for the agency itself.