London: Liz Truss, UK’s environment secretary, has defended the government’s spending on flood protection, as thousands of homes in Cumbria and Lancashire remain without power after devastating extreme weather.

As local authorities continued their clean-up operation, Truss tried to head off a political row about whether cuts to flood defence spending and poor projections about climate change were partly to blame for the scale of flooding in the north-west.

Speaking to Sky News, Truss insisted that more would be spent on flood protection this parliament than under the coalition or under the last five years of the Labour government.

“It’s completely wrong [to say] that we are cutting flood defences. In fact, we are increasing real-terms spending on building our flood defences. We will be spending £2.3 billion (Dh12.66 billion) over the next six years,” she said, claiming the floods were an “unprecedented event”.

However, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has highlighted a £115 million fall in spending on flood risk management this year compared with last year, when spending peaked after the floods of winter 2013-14.

Truss also defended the current level of spending — £2.3 billion over six years — when pressed by the BBC on whether this was enough given the almost £6 billion the UK is spending on tackling the effects of climate change in poorer countries abroad over five years.

The environment secretary said the UK’s current spending would reduce the risk of flooding but could never eliminate the risk entirely.

Ministers came under pressure over their strategy on flooding as local councils bore the brunt of the clean-up and rescue efforts.

Meanwhile, communities hit by floods in southern Scotland have been warned to expect further disruption from more rain.

Aileen McLeod, the Scottish environment minister, said the community spirit displayed in the Borders town of Hawick was one that “all of Scotland can be proud of”.

One hundred homes had to be evacuated at the weekend as Storm Desmond hit, causing the river Teviot to burst its banks.

But with the potential for more wet weather in the coming days, McLeod said there could be further disruption to transport and services.

On the fourth day since extreme weather caused chaos in Cumbria and Lancashire, thousands of homes were still without electricity.

Electricity North West said 10,000 homes in Lancaster were still cut off, with a further 1,454 properties without power in Cumbria as flood water restrict ed engineers’ access.

A 90-year-old man, Ernie Crouch, died after he was apparently blown into the side of a moving bus by strong winds near Finchley Central tube station in London on Saturday.

The Environment Agency still has 16 severe flood warnings in place for north-west England.

The Met Office has issued a severe weather warning for more rain this week.

David Cameron visited Carlisle on Monday, where police estimated between 2,200 and 3,500 homes had been flooded. He said: “After every flood, the thing to do is sit down, look at the money you are spending, look at what you are building, look at what you are planning to build in the future and ask: ‘Is it enough?’”

Cumbria police have estimated that 4,881 homes were flooded across the county, saying that in the “reasonable worst-case scenario” there could be a total of 6,455 homes affected.

Thousands of people remained homeless.

After a huge clean-up effort, just eight schools in Cumbria were set to remain closed for a further day on Tuesday.

The Met Office has issued a yellow “be prepared” weather warning for more rain and wind in southern Scotland and north-west England on Wednesday and Thursday.