Sir – After the deluge, comes the post mortem. Why have the funds available for flood defences been cut? Readers may care to cast their minds back to the previous Labour administration of 1997-2010.

Then they may remember that Gordon Brown of “light touch regulation fame” was required to pay a fine of more than £400m back to the EU because the Rural Payments Agency had failed to deliver.

This incompetence led to a fine of £400m being levied and where did our then Chancellor find the money; why, he reduced the funding for flood defence works by £400m – simple.

Timothy J Oates
St Peter’s Road
Abingdon