Rishi Sunak urged to do more for flood-hit areas in England

Rishi Sunak is being urged by opposition parties to do more to help areas in England affected by flooding.

Hundreds of homes have been evacuated following heavy rainfall, with flooded roads and railway tracks causing travel disruption.

Labour said the PM should set up a “taskforce” to manage the response, and set out what support will be available.

He is also coming under pressure to visit flood-hit areas.

The Liberal Democrats said he should go to affected areas to “see for himself the devastation caused by these floods”.

Mr Sunak said he had spoken to flooding victims and the Environment Agency was responding “appropriately and with all due haste”.

There are around 280 flood warnings in force, the majority in the Midlands, East Anglia and southern England.

Heavy rain has fallen on ground already saturated by Storm Henk, which caused disruption across large parts of England earlier this week.

Several rivers have burst their banks, including the Trent in Nottinghamshire and the Severn in the West Midlands and West of England.

Labour said the prime minister had been “asleep at the wheel” and he should urgently set up a taskforce to protect homes from further damage, similar to the Cobra meetings sometimes held to deal with national emergencies.

The BBC has been told there are no plans to hold a Cobra meeting. A government source said Environment Secretary Steve Barclay was being updated by the Environment Agency.

Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “The government need to get on the front foot, to go to the areas affected by the floods, and to set out the support that’s going to be provided”.

Mr Sunak told reporters the Environment Agency “absolutely recognise the urgency” of the situation, and had “people on the ground in all the affected areas”.

He added that hundreds of high-volume pumps were in operation, and were “making a difference” in affected areas.

Asked whether he would visit flood-hit areas, he said he had spoken to people who had been affected during a visit to the East Midlands on Thursday.

The Environment Agency says its operation of flood defences and action to clear watercourses has protected 44,000 properties from flooding this week.

But Labour and the Liberal Democrats also accused the government of inadequate flood prevention measures.

Both parties pointed to a National Audit Office report in November, which found number of extra homes in England to be protected from flooding had been cut by almost half.

The government had committed to better protecting 336,000 more properties between 2021 and 2027 – but the spending watchdog report found this was reduced to 200,000.

The report also found the Environment Agency had removed 500 of the 2,000 new flood defence projects originally included in the government’s six-year flood and coastal erosion programme.

The government said capital funding for the programme had been doubled to £5.2bn, and blamed rising inflation for the targets being missed.

Labour has not committed more funding to the project, however.

Shadow environment secretary Steve Reed said the issue was “not about extra money” but ensuring the existing budget “is used to maximum effect”.