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Flood and Water Management Bill

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) on moving this important group of proposals. I was not fortunate enough to be selected to serve in Committee, but I have had the opportunity to review the Hansard reports of its proceedings in some detail. She is right that there are still far too many unanswered questions on a matter that is particularly important to my constituents in Basingstoke. I should like specifically to speak to new clauses 3, 7 and 8, and amendment 13. That is not to say that the other proposals are not important, but given the lateness of the hour and the other issues to be debated tonight, I will confine my comments to those. The proposals are important to all those who suffer from, and face the problem of, surface water or sewage water flooding in or around their homes, particularly when we consider the unsustainable approach that the Government have taken to house building in my area and those of other hon. Members. The Government have been ready to build houses, but they have not been ready to ensure that the services available locally can meet their needs. I experience that problem regularly in my constituency, especially in connection to river pollution, water supply and sewerage. On new clause 3—my hon. Friend's recommendation for pilot schemes—frankly, the Government have been dragging their feet for more than three years, which is adequate time for a much more robust analysis of the problem that will be transferred to water companies. I read the report of the debate in Committee closely, and the Government's responses were unsatisfactory. I am sure the Minister has reviewed those and come to the House today with more detail, to satiate hon. Members' questions. Obviously, I support the transfer of sewerage systems to the sewerage companies, but that needs to be done correctly. Like the hon. Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter), I have a number of estates in my constituency that have private networks. A number of householders are left in great difficulty when, for example, the roots of trees penetrate the sewerage pipes and create blockages, and flooding ensues. We know that there are 180,000 km of private sewers and natural drains in the country, so my constituents are not the only ones to suffer in that way. My hon. Friend's proposal for a pilot scheme to assess the costs involved in transferring the network to the water companies, which she made in Committee and today on Report, is absolutely right on a number of levels. First, we need to know whether water or sewerage companies can cope with the problems that they are to be given. My hon. Friend was right that there is probably very little maintenance going on at the moment, because people know that the asset will be transferred. Certainly, poor maintenance is a considerable historical problem. Secondly, customers will want to know exactly how the transfer will hit their bills. Thirdly and importantly, we need to know how much money the measure will free up from local authorities. My local authority does not see as its responsibility the alleviation of flooding problems when they occur. The payments to contractors, which my hon. Friend mentioned, are made either by private householders or by social housing landlords, who are often the people affected by those problems in my constituency. The question of how much money is being freed up in local authorities needs to be answered in far more detail, because we would not do anyone any favours if the transfer of the network is not done properly. As I said, the sewerage system is in poor condition. We need to ensure that any new approach is robust, and that we know what is to be transferred. New clause 7, which would end the automatic right to connect, and new clause 8, which would make water companies statutory consultees, are absolutely right. We need to ensure that when new housing, especially major development, is being discussed and planned there is sufficient capacity in the system to deal with the resulting sewage, and local residents need to be assured that they will not be left disadvantaged financially or in any other way. I have talked to water companies about this issue, and the problem is that they look at the theoretical capacity of the water system when they assess whether it is possible to link more houses to it. The problem is that many households are illicitly tapping into the sewerage system to drain their ground water, and that has created many of the problems of sewage flooding and overloading with which hon. Members are familiar. I urge my hon. Friend to ensure that water companies look not only at the theoretical capacity in their sewerage system, but at the actual capacity, and take into account the large amounts of ground water that find their way into our sewerage system, causing flooding problems for local residential areas and for sewage works trying to cope with excess capacity. I commend amendment 13 to the House, because it also addresses the issue of overloading of the sewerage system. We need to ensure not only that the sewerage pipes can cope with the amount of material from local residents, but that the sewage works can cope. In my constituency, our sewage works regularly cannot cope with the amount of sewage that is being pumped into it. As a result, our local river is overloaded and exceeding EU pollution levels, but the local authority does not appear to be able to do much about it, because of the lack of involvement by sewerage companies in the decision-making process on house building. That is unacceptable, because it leads to unsustainable development. I urge my hon. Friend to press her amendments to a Division, because if they were included in the Bill they would really help the Government to achieve a properly sustainable approach to sewerage and water for new developments for the first time.