Cameron says 20 per cent cut in flood defence funding "not true" as he visits swamped York

Speaking as he saw first hand volunteers filling sand bags at Hazel Court in York, he denied that the Government has cut flood defence expenditure by 20 per cent and said that the Government is planning to spend £280 million this Parliament in Yorkshire.

However York councillor Andrew Waller, who is on the regional flood committee, disputed this, and said there are efficiency savings assumed in the Government's figures.

He also urged the Government to factor in building inflation into the current flood defence programme, as he fears the budget could be all used before the programme reaches York schemes already in the timetable.

Mr Cameron has also spoken to volunteers from Scarborough and Ryedale Mountain Rescue Team, who have been helping to evacuate residents from flooded homes.

David Cameron with mountain rescue volunteers Picture: @srmrt

With more rain forecast for the middle of the week there may be worse to come and the Environment Agency (EA) has more than 25 severe flood warnings in place - meaning there is still a danger to life.

The worst-hit areas will have some respite from rain today but the crisis looks set to continue as more bad weather sweeps in.

• Picture gallery of York underwater

Rain will batter the north of England on Wednesday with up to three inches (80mm) falling on high ground and potentially in excess of 4.7ins (120mm) in exposed locations - with most places seeing up to 1.5ins (40mm).

Some 500 military troops have been mobilised to aid emergency services, with another 1,000 on standby should the situation worsen.

The Met Office has issued yellow warnings for rain on Wednesday in North West England, North East England, Yorkshire and Humber, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Amber warnings for rain are in place for parts of Scotland on Wednesday too.

Military personnel were mobilised on Sunday to help people in Yorkshire and Lancashire as they battled to keep rising flood waters from the doors of their homes and businesses.

But sandbags were not enough to save some, and hundreds of people had to be evacuated from their homes after rivers in York, Leeds and Manchester burst their banks after "unprecedented" rain in recent days.

Chinook helcopters are being used to help repair the Foss Barrier

The EA has 24 severe flood warnings in place for the North East and three severe flood warnings in place for the North West.

There are almost 200 other flood warnings and alerts in place across the area and other parts including Wales and the Midlands.

The Government has vowed to look again at the quality of the UK's flood defences as home and business owners face up to a miserable start to the new year.

Emergency financial assistance will also be put in place for affected areas, and homes and businesses damaged by flooding will have access to the same package of support announced for those affected by Storm Desmond.

Mr Cameron praised the efforts of the emergency services and said that with the prevalence of such extreme weather events on the rise, investment in flood defences would continue.

Shadow environment secretary Kerry McCarthy said the Government must "drop its complacency" over the need for climate change adaptation.

One of the worst-hit areas was York, where large swathes of the city are under water after the Foss and Ouse rivers topped their banks.

The Ouse stabilised this morning at 5.7 yards above its normal level, a spokeswoman for the Environment Agency said.

The barrier gate on the Foss was raised after water entered the Foss barrier building, and engineers are examining how to restore power to the site.

Around 500 properties were flooded in the city on Sunday. Troops spent the day stacking sandbags but the flooding was so bad the council ran out and begged nearby councils for help.

Hundreds were forced to leave their homes as residential streets were turned into muddy rivers, taking shelter in emergency rest centres as waters reached record levels.

Thousands of homes in northern England were left without power, with almost 6,000 hoping to be reconnected today.

One of the flooded substations was in Rochdale, which five years ago had its flood defences given a £470,000 upgrade to protect power supplies against a "1-in-200-year" flood.

The floods also affected transport links in the North. Some 16 road closures were in effect in Cumbria, while Northern Rail urged passengers not to travel in Cumbria, East Lancashire and West Yorkshire unless their journey is "absolutely necessary".

Many places have seen record river levels over the past 24 hours, including the River Aire in Leeds, and the rivers Calder and Ribble, affecting places such as Whalley, Hebden Bridge and Ribchester.

West Yorkshire Police declared a major incident after responding to what it said was the "worst flooding in 70 years" in the area.

Some 100 soldiers were deployed to the county to help emergency services in the hardest hit areas of Calderdale and Leeds.

Dozens of rescues have been carried out across northern England, including one in the town of Mytholmroyd, where an elderly man was hauled through the sunroof of his 4x4 by rescuers just as flood waters reached the roof of his vehicle.

Judith Blake, the leader of Leeds City Council, said the authority had warned the Government that flooding in Leeds was a "catastrophe waiting to happen".

She called for "significant investment" in additional flood defences for the city to prevent future flooding.

News of the flooding has even reached space, where Major Tim Peake passed over the UK on Sunday in the International Space Station.

He tweeted: "Passed over UK today - thoughts are with all those affected by flooding in northern England."

Charlie Croft, from York City Council, confirmed that river waters in the city had peaked, telling the BBC: "We have to say that we are still in the middle of a major incident, though tentative positive news is that the river may now have stopped rising at this point."

Lord Deben, chairman of the Government's Advisory Committee on Climate Change, accused ministers of failing to match the UK's words at the recent United Nations climate conference with action at home.

The committee's recommendations for "measures which would stop some of the real damage" had not been taken up, he complained.

That included using the Housing Act to prevent further developments in at-risk areas and giving water companies a statutory role in the planning process.

"All those things would help us make things better in the future but I am afraid so far no government - Labour, Conservative or coalition - has been prepared to take those steps," the Tory former environment secretary told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"If you go to Paris and you say climate change is as serious as it is; if you take a leading part in changing the world's attitude, which is what this Government did; if you contribute large sums, very generously, to helping poorer countries do something about their adaptation, you really do have to look at what is happening in Britain and take the sort of steps that are necessary to protect the people of Britain in the future," the Tory peer said.

He dismissed calls however for measures to be funded by reducing foreign aid.

"We should certainly be helping the overseas aid because they are going to affect our climate just as much as we affect our own.

"But we should also be doing something about our own adaptation, just as we should stop building houses that we are going to have to retrofit within 20 years because we haven't done what we should have done about insulation and protection for them.

"We really do have to look forward and put into practice what we have said so clearly at the Paris discussions, where we took a leading part.

"We should do at home what we insist happens right around the world."

Environment Agency deputy chief executive David Rooke said a "complete rethink" of the UK's flood preparations had to include making homes more resilient as well as seeking to hold back waters.

"We are in a period of known extremes and we are moving into a period of unknown extremes," he told Today - saying a Government-ordered review would decide by the summer whether existing assumptions remained valid.

He said: "We will need to have that complete rethink and I think we will need to move from not just providing better defences - and we have a £2.3 billion programme to do that over the next six years - but looking at increasing resilience so that, when properties do flood, they've got solid floors, we have waterproof plaster, we've moved the electrics up the wall, people can get back into their homes, their businesses, very quickly and that we continue to improve our flood warning systems so that, in the event of defences overtopping, people have time to take action and we can save lives."

The GMB union criticised planned staff cuts at the Environment Agency which it said would reduce the number of personnel able to respond to floods out of hours.

National officer Justin Bowden said a meeting due in the middle of January to decide how many jobs should go in which parts of the country as part of a funding squeeze should be halted.

He said: "You would have thought David Cameron had learnt the lesson from the floods of 2013/14. Apparently not.

"GMB members at the Environment Agency still do not know what day-to-day revenue spending will be on maintenance of flood defences from 2016/17 onwards.

"This is apart from the scrapping of hundreds of flood defence schemes due to cuts in spending. The Environment Agency Board should ask Government to halt these cuts.

"As things stand, the number of staff who will be available to deal with flooding out of hours is due to fall. There will be a meeting in mid-January 2016 to discuss how many jobs will be cut and where. This meeting should be called off.

"This month's weather and flooding are yet another reminder of the foolhardy stupidity of the Government making spending cuts to the Environment Agency.

"It is quite simply penny wise and pound foolish to make any cuts that affects any of the Agency's vital functions, or cut the jobs of those who carry them out."