---

Flood and Water Management Bill

I welcome the Flood and Water Management Bill. I am pleased that it will receive a Second Reading this evening and I hope it is not long before it is on the statute book. At this moment in time, the eyes of the world are rightly focused on Copenhagen and the world climate change summit. I hope that we can decide on substantial and sustainable reductions on carbon emissions this weekend. I know that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and his excellent ministerial team will do all in their power to get the right deal at Copenhagen. I am aware that some Members of this House and others outside deny climate change and that others are sceptical about the science. I am not one of them. I accept that climate change is taking place. Instead of having the four seasons of winter, spring, summer and autumn, it seems to me that we are moving towards two prolonged seasons: spring and autumn. That assessment is, I accept, much too general, but we do face climate change. I agree with the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) that we might not be able to blame climate change for the floods that took place in 2007 and for the floods that took place in 2009 in Cumbria. However, unless we address climate change, it is likely that flooding will become a major problem in the future. That is important to me because the most defining geographical features of my Weaver Vale constituency are the River Mersey, the River Weaver and the River Dane, the Bridgewater canal and the Weaver navigation canal. Water is a significant feature of my constituency, and the old historic town of Northwich has a long history of flooding. In November 2000, we had floods in the town centre where the River Dane and the River Weaver come together. The measures in the Bill will make it more unlikely that we will be visited by floods in the future. I therefore welcome the provisions in the Bill to strengthen flood defences. It is right that the Government have addressed the proposals brought forward by Sir Michael Pitt following his review of the 2007 floods. Of significant interest is the fact that the Environment Agency is to be given responsibility for developing a national flood and coastal erosion risk management strategy. Dovetailing with that, quite rightly, will be the Bill's requirement that unitary and county councils should take the lead in managing the risk of all locally caused floods, and again I welcome that requirement. In my constituency, that means that Cheshire West and Chester unitary council and Halton borough council will perform that important task. That is a step in the right direction, and I am confident that Halton borough council will play a full role in developing plans to manage risk for all locally caused floods. I have a word of caution for hon. Members, however, about the new Cheshire West and Chester unitary authority. Sadly, that council has all too quickly developed a reputation for not doing much and not listening to what local people want. Its inaction over the redevelopment of Northwich town centre following the completion of the £35 million Government-funded town stabilisation project is a case in point. I hope, therefore, that the Bill will include measures to enable the Environment Agency and DEFRA to scrutinise the council's progress on its important role of managing floods. I shall now turn to what has become known as the rain tax aspect of the Bill. I was glad that the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs said in July that the Conservative party was calling for action on the issue, although I am sure that that was not a result of the ten-minute Bill that I introduced on 12 May. That Bill would have dealt with the problem by exempting places of worship, non-profit-making sports clubs and scout and guide groups from surface water and highway drainage charges, although I should apologise for an error in my drafting because community and village halls clearly should have been included in the Bill's scope as they, too, need to be exempt from the charges. The introduction by United Utilities of surface area and highway drainage charges signalled a large increase in the water bills faced by scout and guide groups, places of worship, sports clubs, village halls and the like. The changes were introduced following the review by Ofwat of how water companies should charge for surface water drainage. It concluded that the fairest approach was to charge non-household customers based on the size of the site that they occupied, and that charge is called site area charging. Astonishingly, Ofwat did not examine the impact of the change on voluntary community groups, although it warned water companies that surface area charging might have a negative impact on sensitive properties such as schools, hospitals and places of worship. In general, it warned that water companies would need to take account of the scale and speed of any changes to determine whether they were reasonable and acceptable to customers. United Utilities took Ofwat's advice by bringing in surface area charging, but it did not take any account of the scale and speed of the changes in charging, and whether they would be reasonable and acceptable to customers. Following reports in the media of the impact of the changes, it was not long before I was visited by community groups such as churches, sports clubs and scout groups. They had also received representations from their parent organisations warning that the way in which United Utilities had approached the situation would mean that would be faced with seriously high drainage charges. Before the charges were introduced, such organisations had been granted significant discounts on their water bills because of their charitable status. Their bills had been based on the rateable value of the properties that they occupied, which were either zero-rated or heavily discounted. I have previously given the House two examples of what has happened, the first of which was that the 1st Halton scout group in my constituency saw its water bill increase by 424 per cent. A church organisation has also had a problem. St. Marks church and Bethesda church, which are part of the Hallwood ecumenical parish in Runcorn, are jointly billed for water. In 2007-08, they did not pay any water rates at all, but in 2008-09 they received a charge of £181.76. That charge was set to rise to approximately £2,000 in 2010-11. The Hallwood ecumenical parish could not afford such a massive increase, so I am pleased that there has been some movement in how the matter will be dealt with. Every pound that such organisations spend on surface water drainage is one pound less for them to spend on the services they provide for their parishioners and members, and the communities they serve. Hon. Members representing all parties have rightly criticised these charges on the Floor of the House. Even Ofwat has joined in the criticism—surprisingly, because it was the author of the change itself. In early 2009, Ofwat announce that United Utilities had agreed to a one-year moratorium during which surface area charges would be frozen at 2008-09 levels for faith buildings, community sports clubs, scout groups and guide associations. At face value, that measure was greatly to be welcomed, but I was concerned at the time that a one-year moratorium would only delay the implementation of surface area charging and would not result in a change to the charging policy that would be both acceptable and fair to these organisations that serve their communities well. I was concerned that Ofwat made it clear to United Utilities that it should use the one-year moratorium to work with customers, to communicate the need for the new charges, and to offer advice on how customers could implement environmental improvements that will help them to reduce their costs significantly. It also said that United Utilities would use the moratorium to create a new time frame for the implementation of surface area charging by spreading the remaining charge over a longer period to give customers time to put in place measures to offset future costs and benefit the environment. On that basis, at the beginning of 2010-11, places of worship, community sports clubs, scout groups, Guide associations and village halls would have been faced with substantially larger bills for drainage. Simply altering the implementation date for surface area charging was not the solution that those organisations were looking for. They wanted a scheme that would put them back in their position prior to the change. To complicate things—and to make matters worse—Ofwat made it clear to water companies that it would not approve any tariffs for surface area charging that involved cross-subsidies, that were based on rateable values or that involved exemptions. It also instructed all water companies that their tariffs for surface area charging would have to be approved by November 2009. Conversely, it did not say what types of charges, other than surface area charging, would be acceptable. Throughout the whole exercise, the Government kept a close eye on proceedings. I pay particular tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), who has dealt with the problem fantastically. I was also delighted when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced in his party conference speech in late September that he would bring forward measures to address the problem. I therefore welcome the Government's decision to bring forward the Bill, which will give water companies the power to introduce concessionary schemes for surface area drainage charges for amateur sports clubs, scout groups, places of worship and other community groups.