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Flooding

As my hon. Friend will have heard, we certainly will be spending more money on flood defence. Let me also say that the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw), is going to visit Reading tomorrow. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) raises an important point about surface water. In part, the problem is a consequence of the fact that more land has been tarmacked over and paved over, so there is nowhere for the water to go when there is flash flooding. That is a lesson that all those with responsibility for surface drainage have to take on board.