To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment he has made of the effect of Ofwat's final determination on the ability of water companies to provide alternative water supplies in the event of contamination of usual supplies by flooding; and what recent assessment he has made of the capacity of water companies to increase the resilience of their water treatment plants to flooding. (304954)

Water companies have to provide a safe and secure water supply. It is for the companies themselves to take responsibility and make decisions on how best to protect the essential services they supply.

In its final determination Ofwat included over £414 million to improve the resilience of water and sewerage services against external hazards such as flooding.

Companies are also obliged to have emergency plans in place to maintain supply either through network resilience or deployment of bowsers, for which Ofwat has also allowed funding.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for what reasons the chief engineers and regional engineers in each region of England are no longer in place; and what alternative structure is in place for the carrying out of their functions. (304955)

DEFRA has given the Environment Agency a strategic overview of flood and coastal erosion risk management and, in line with this, passed it the management of the capital improvements programme. The chief engineer and regional engineers were primarily focused on this work.

To facilitate this transition the Environment Agency has strengthened its role at both regional and area levels, for example, by recruiting additional coastal engineers. DEFRA also seconded staff to the Environment Agency to ensure continuity of work and training.

DEFRA retains a smaller cadre of engineers and other experienced professionals who provide input to policy development and an intelligent client function for the flood and coastal erosion risk management programme.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many people are registered with Floodline Warnings Direct. (305075)

The Environment Agency has over 450,000 registered users on Floodline Warnings Direct.

The Environment Agency's Floodline Warnings Direct is a free service that provides flood warnings direct to users by telephone, mobile, email, SMS text message and fax.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when he expects a final national flood emergency framework to be implemented. (305076)

A fully developed National Flood Emergency Framework will be in place by June 2010, in line with the commitment given in response to Sir Michael Pitt’s review on the 2007 floods. The Framework will provide the basis for Exercise Watermark—our planned national exercise in March 2011.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much his Department has spent on flood defences in each of the last five years. (305230)

DEFRA provides funding to operating authorities for flood defences from the allocation of funding for flood and coastal erosion risk management. Over the past five financial years this allocation totalled: