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Flood and Water Management Bill

Perhaps I should ask my right hon. Friend to discuss that point with my hon. Friend. I think that he probably makes a good point, and he reinforces the principle that we need regular maintenance and reports to tell us what is going on. We certainly need those reports, as it is so easy for people not to maintain things and for us not to know about it. I return to the car analogy: if we do not have our car serviced at the right time, it may not necessarily break down next week, but it might well do so not long after that. If we do not know that regular maintenance has been done, we will be heading for problems. New clause 9 is important and would require the Secretary of State to assess the "staff, equipment and resources" that the Environment Agency possesses in order to implement the Bill's provisions. One problem I had during the floods of 2007—I am sure that other hon. Members did, too—was trying to establish who was responsible for what and for which watercourses. This may go slightly beyond the scope of the amendments, but once we had discovered who was responsible for what, getting them fixed became the next problem, as we were told that they did not have the money. It would be good if the new clause were adopted because the Secretary of State would know whether the Environment Agency had the resources necessary to deal with the problems—not only the daily ones, but the further issues with which the EA is now required to engage and for which it must prepare a strategy. It would be folly and dangerous to go ahead without ensuring that the Environment Agency had the necessary resources. It has to prepare a strategy and then implement it, and if it needs £x to do so, but it gets only £x minus 10 per cent. or 20 per cent., the shortfall might prevent it from delivering the strategy. The same problem could arise with the lead flood authorities—in other words, county councils—which must have the resources to make them confident enough to prepare the strategy that is necessary, not a reduced one.