Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has visited areas affected by flooding in Oxford, defending the government’s support for those impacted and meeting with Environment Agency personnel on the ground. Report by Etemadil. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:15 Much of England's been underwater for five days.
00:18 The first question is, where have you and the government been?
00:21 Well, flooding has been having a devastating impact on communities up and down the country.
00:25 I was in the East Midlands last week on Thursday, and I'm in Oxfordshire here today.
00:29 Talking to some of those that have been affected, but also saying thank you to our first responders
00:34 who have been doing a fantastic job over the past week.
00:37 We have over 1,000 Environment Agency personnel on the ground in local communities helping.
00:42 Over 200 pumps have been deployed. All of that is making a difference to protect homes.
00:47 But also, yesterday we activated the flood recovery framework.
00:50 What this means is that those homes, businesses, and farms that have been affected
00:55 will be eligible for financial support for the immediate relief that they need,
00:59 but also to build resilience for the future.
01:01 When it comes to flood defences in particular, we've invested £5.2 billion in flood defences
01:07 over the period in question. That's a record sum, far more than we've done in the future.
01:12 That's contributed to protecting over 300,000 homes.
01:15 And of course, there have been many people affected by what's happened over the past week.
01:20 But also, 49,000 homes have been protected from flooding as a result of that investment.
01:26 And also things like the pumps that I've been seeing here today, and the flood barriers.
01:31 Just in the community I've been walking around, hundreds of homes have been protected because of those investments.
01:36 But of course, this is going to be devastating for those who are impacted,
01:39 which is why there's financial support in place.
01:41 But overall, the investment that's going into flood defences is at a very, very high level.
01:46 £5.2 billion, hundreds of thousands of homes are protected as a result of that.
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