My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for meeting the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and me to discuss this amendment. I do not wish to say anything at length but I shall make a couple of simple points. If we accept that Flood Re, according to the Government’s own figures, will build up a reserve, we can ask what this surplus might be used for. It could be used for future discounting of policy charges; it could be saved up for—excuse the pun—a rainy day when the call on insurance may be greater than anticipated; or, as our amendment suggests, it could be used to manage down future risk. As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, this is in effect a proposal that Flood Re should invest to save, to reduce both its own future costs by encouraging household-level protection measures and to help those householders to exit at the end of the period of operation of Flood Re.
According to the work of the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Committee on Climate Change, which I chair, about 190,000 properties could benefit from property-level protection. It would seem reasonable that some of the money that accrues as a surplus in Flood Re should, given the returns on investment to which the noble Baroness has already alluded, be used to help some or, I hope, eventually, all of these 190,000 properties to become more resilient.