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Flood and Water Management Bill

Not on that point, I am afraid. The natural environment can be our ally, and our tutor, in providing more space for water, better flood risk management, more intelligent planning, more cost-effective strategies and more secure supplies, and in the process we should take the opportunity to enhance and defend native species and landscapes and biodiversity, and serve a wider environmental agenda. The residents of Warden Hill do not just want less water flooding into their streets and houses and more flood defences—although I should thank Cheltenham borough council for the funding it has managed to obtain for those that are currently planned. Residents want affordable water and insurance bills, a pleasant and sustainable natural environment around them, and future development that does not make their problems worse and necessitate even more expensive flood defences in future, diverting increasingly precious taxpayers' money from other services. Ideally, they also want a bit more warning next time. How much does this Bill contribute to all these objectives? We might think that after two and a half years of multiple reviews and consultations, extensive pre-legislative scrutiny and expert advice, we would have a truly outstanding and comprehensive piece of legislation—a veritable torrent of good ideas. Sadly, however, what we have in this water Bill is more of a trickle than a torrent. It is flowing in the right direction, but there is not much of a current. It is not big enough or strong enough to tackle many of the problems highlighted by the events of the last few years. It is better than nothing after such a long wait, but it is still a disappointment. Let us not be churlish, however. The Bill does helpfully define a flood as an event in which""land not normally covered by water becomes covered by water."" Well, phew, at least we have covered that one. As many hon. Members have mentioned, clause 42 rightly addresses the issue of the rain tax and community groups such as scout groups. The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs claimed that as a Conservative win, but I have to say that I do not remember him spotting this any more than the rest of us did when area-based charging was first introduced. This loophole was, in effect, highlighted as a result of a very bad bit of implementation by one water company. Members on both sides of the House supported this revision, and the clause is most welcome. The Bill takes forward some ideas from the Pitt review. We have a national oversight—a "buck stops here" responsibility—for the Environment Agency. We have a local lead responsibility for local authorities. Both of these measures are welcome, but although I noted the Secretary of State's brave claim that all new net burdens on local authorities would be fully funded, back in the real world it is far from clear how exactly these provisions are to be resourced, and whether the Bill will truly sort out the bewildering tangle of responsibilities that surfaced in the floods. These are issues that the Bill Committee must explore in a lot more detail. The issue of the maintenance of watercourses, drains and sewers has been raised time and again by local residents in many Members' constituencies, and certainly in mine. In particular, we should explore whether the linked issue of unadopted sewers is being adequately addressed. Cheltenham resident Bridget Sansom e-mailed me saying that""during the summer of 2007 floods, there was a backflow of sewage via the washing machine into the kitchen. This is the result of unadopted sewerage and still has not been solved two years on."" She asked for my "comments, support and help." Let me start by asking about the Government's current plan for the water companies to adopt private sewers. Has that been properly accounted for? The Government recently claimed that water bills in many areas would be going down by a few pounds per household, yet the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs impact assessment on sewer transfer predicted a cost to water companies for that transfer ranging from £4 to £12 per household, and this is not included in the price review 2009 figures. This will more than offset the decrease in water bills that was claimed. So which is the truth? Are water bills going up and not down, or are the Government planning to dodge this crucial issue? The Bill talks a lot about risk management, but the definitions appear quite limited on first reading. There is, for instance, no explicit reference to risks associated with critical infrastructure. This was a particular issue in Gloucestershire, where the loss of the Mythe water treatment works to the floods meant the loss of fresh water to thousands of people for up to two weeks, and where the absolutely catastrophic loss of electricity supply—not just, as my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) pointed out, to Gloucestershire, but to more than 500,000 people, and as far away as Wales—was only narrowly averted by the quick, co-ordinated action of gold command, Gloucestershire constabulary and the Army and other emergency services. I must declare a personal interest here, as my wife was a member of gold command. A key Pitt recommendation was that we address this issue of critical infrastructure and, with some prescience, it referred not only to power and fresh water but to transport infrastructure. I am sure that the people of Cumbria, who have lost road and other communications, would agree with that. Pitt's recommendation 53 stated:""A specific duty should be placed on economic regulators to build resilience in the critical infrastructure."" The Secretary of State has issued guidance on this issue to the regulators and yet more consultation is promised, but guidance and consultation have been issued before—as long ago as 2004—and we were still terribly exposed in 2007 and again in 2009. Work is being done to address the specific risks in Gloucestershire, and that is very much appreciated—such work may well be done in Cumbria too—but we need to consider whether or not the legal duty that Pitt recommended is necessary to protect the rest of the country and whether or not the Government are, once again, using consultation as a substitute for action. We must also consider the personal cost. I am talking not only about the trauma and disruption of having flood water destroy and pollute one's home or business, and the human impact of homelessness and lost possessions; after the flood water has gone and the property has been replaced or repaired, the insurance will need renewing. One of my constituents found that not only had his insurance premiums skyrocketed but the excess for flood damage had risen from £50 to £5,000. I have heard figures as high as £20,000 cited by others and in some cases flooding has been excluded as a risk altogether. That is not really insurance in the sense of a collective scheme to pool risk and protect all of us from extreme events. What added insult to injury in my constituent's case was that since the floods the Environment Agency had spent thousands erecting a flood wall to the rear of his property, protecting him and his neighbours from a repeat of the event that flooded their houses in 2007. The insurance issues were resolved in that case, but it raises a number of questions. First, should insurance take account of work, either at household or local level, that has reduced the risk of flooding? Secondly, should insurance companies be allowed to claim that they are insuring almost everyone and then impose such punitive premiums, excess charges or exclusions that they render someone's policy virtually useless? It makes good business sense to sell well-targeted insurance to those at almost no risk and very little insurance to those at any risk, but that has a high social cost. In a previous decade, some insurance companies used to exclude people who had taken an HIV test. As happened then, do we not now need a collective solution that takes account of a social need? Do we not, thus, need a solution that excludes from insurance only those at a genuinely very high risk of repeated flooding where no steps have been taken to defend them or their property, and that supports the good principle of shared risk for everyone else?