Drive to battle floods

Flooding paralysed York for days on end

The government is reassessing how it provides for people's "safety and security" in the wake of extreme weather caused by climate change.

Deputy prime minister John Prescott told BBC One's Panorama that Britain should get used to freak weather because it is "here to stay and likely to get worse".

"The assessment is under way at the moment, and I will receive a report from the Environment Agency - it will be public," he said.

Thousands of homes and businesses across the UK are still suffering the effects of the worst floods in living memory.

Veto on housebuilding

Mr Prescott said new rules on housebuilding, to be announced next month, would mean the Environment Agency's objections to building on floodplains, could no longer be ignored by local authorities.

He said: "We want to review plans on housing particularly if housing is in flood plain areas.

"We're going to prevent the building in some cases unless you can show that sufficient and adequate flood defences are taken."

Mr Prescott also told Panorama he was concerned about insurance companies blacklisting flood victims.

Violent weather may presage climate change

He said: "The insurance companies are part of the equation and the problem, we are talking to them and I am concerned when we get frequent floods they are now beginning to say to some so I'm told 'You can't have insurance'."

"I am concerned about that when I wade through these floods and talk to people, who say, this is the third flood we've had."

Mr Prescott said insurers had an obligation to their policyholders.

'Wake up call'

On the eve of The Hague talks about reducing carbon emissions, leading climate scientists tell Panorama that whatever happens with levels of emissions in the future, we are all going to be affected by severe weather changes.

Professor Martin Parry of the University of East Anglia, who is on the International Panel on Climate Change, tells the programme recent flooding must act as a "wake-up call".

He said: "There is, unfortunately a time lag built into the global climate system of about 50 to 100 years that would take this warming forward before it evened out again.

"If we don't adapt, if we don't put in place the knowledge which I believe we have, we will start to pay an increasingly high price for damage caused by climate change."

Panorama is on BBC One on Sunday at 2215 GMT.