The Environment Agency has issued notice of its permanent withdrawal from main river maintenance to riparian owners in Somerset and North Somerset. The Leader of the House and Ministers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will recall the devastation caused by flooding in 2012, 2013 and 2014. Regular maintenance is essential to allow floodwater to escape from what is a man-made landscape in the Somerset levels and moors. Will she ask the DEFRA Secretary to insist that the Environment Agency rescinds its withdrawal notices until such a time as locally all the flood risk management groups, the internal drainage board, the South West Association of Drainage Authorities and every interested party has a chance at least to meet, discuss and plan a sustainable and funded solution for the future, and that, importantly, it carries on maintaining the main rivers in the meantime? Winter is coming, and rainfall with it.