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Flood and Water Management Bill

I am absolutely in agreement with the hon. Gentleman on that. In fact he could have taken the words out of my mouth. The Government's proposal to break up that shared service is very much to be regretted. I hope that it will not happen. The omission from the Bill of statutory duties relating to fire and rescue authorities must be, I hope, an innocent omission, but it is serious nevertheless. I hope that the Government will take the opportunity to correct that. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) rightly pointed out the difference between leaving it as an informal power that can be exercised, and spelling out a statutory duty in the Bill. I am entirely in agreement with that. Amendment 5 is in some ways parallel to new clause 9 in that it addresses the possible shortfall in funding at local level, as opposed to national level, and the resources available to local authorities in their new lead role as flood risk management authorities at local level. That is still causing concern to the Local Government Association and to officers and leaders of local authorities of all political colours, despite the reassurances from the Minister. He has confidently said on several occasions that all new responsibilities will be fully funded, but like the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh), I remain pretty sceptical about how that can be done. Gloucestershire county council, despite being run by the Conservatives, did a perfectly respectable job, which I applaud, during the floods of 2007, but since then there have been more and more demands on its resources. It has had to cope with further unexpected demands from snow, and further, less dramatic, flooding, which nevertheless required further work by officers and imposed further demand on resources. We have had yet more snow in the past couple of weeks, and the big freeze created an epidemic of potholes over the entire county, with roads breaking up all over the place. Those demands are not to be met through any earmarked pothole budget or snow budget. The funds are coming out of the general resources of the county council. It is not clear how those additional lead responsibilities, which will not be given any earmarked funding, will be exercised without putting more and more pressure on county councils and other lead local authorities. These are tough times for local authorities and all the signs are, from all political parties, that in the aftermath of the election, the need to reduce the Government's deficit will make those times tougher still. It seems pretty harmless to propose an independent review as set out in amendment 5 to consider the implications of those new responsibilities and demands in the context of the whole local authority budget, so I hope that the Government will see fit to accept that. Amendment 4 is a bit odd since it appears to require Parliament to approve a report by a quango. If we had to approve all the reports by quangos to this place, we would probably do little else. I am not clear what would happen if we did not accept such reports. I am not sure what the consequences of that would be, so perhaps the hon. Lady will be able to clarify that. Amendments 31, 32, 33 and 34 are sensible responses to points made in Committee, and I commend the Minister on having responded to them in such a positive way. Amendment 28 addresses the important issue of the possible harmful consequences of the quite extensive powers given to the Environment Agency under the Bill. It is, perhaps, more directive than the current wording, since it specifies that no harm shall be done to, for instance, the preservation of cultural heritage, rather than obliging the EA to balance harm and benefit. It may, therefore, be a little idealistic, and I would not necessarily want to be the EA official who has to square that circle, but I would be interested to hear how practical the Government think this proposal is. Amendments 48 and 49 are, again, very welcome implementations of the intentions behind two amendments in Committee—Liberal Democrat amendments in this case. The powers of the EA need to be sensitively implemented, particularly in respect of private landowners and land occupiers, and as these amendments reinforce the need for sensitivity and consultation, I support them.