Environmental Protection and Green Growth

It was our pleasure. I know that Carlisle also suffered terribly. We cannot stop all development. The Thames Gateway development is happening on areas that are also potentially flood plains, but we must ensure that there is a joined-up strategy across Government and that the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Treasury and the Home Office look at the real costs of flooding. At the moment insurers pay out, but it is not in their interests to stop flood events, because ultimately it is the reinsurers who pay the costs. We need to drill down and get a true account from across Government of the costs of flood events.