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Pitt Report

I do not think that the transfer of the private sewers will help the hon. Gentleman's constituents; it depends on the source of the flooding, and it will take time to deal with that. Some of the houses I visited when I came to his constituency would certainly benefit from some of the flood resilience works—we saw some homemade versions as we walked around on that occasion. We have, indeed, brought forward expenditure. The £20 million identified in the pre-Budget report is in addition to the increase in expenditure we had already put in place, and it will allow more schemes to start earlier so that protection is provided faster than would otherwise be the case.