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Flood and Water Management Bill

Indeed. I shall be happy to respond to that point in full. However, let me make a little bit of progress first, and then I shall turn to it directly. Amendment 13 specifies a number of issues that must be included in agreements for the adoption of new foul sewers and lateral drains. Amendment 14 provides for associated regulations. Although stakeholders advised us to retain adoption agreements under section 104 of the Water Industry Act 1991 as the vehicle for the adoption of new foul sewers and lateral drains by undertakers under the new mandatory regime, we do not intend to specify in primary legislation the range of details that must be covered in the agreement. That preserves the flexibility needed to deal with site-specific issues, and avoids placing undue burdens on small developers that do not currently use the adoption process. Where there is a dispute about the content of an agreement, the matter can be taken to Ofwat for determination. We think that that is the right approach to promote innovation and site flexibility. Amendments 15 and 16 would require new building regulations to be made as necessary for the purposes of, and taking account of, new section 106B of the 1991 Act, which provides for new mandatory construction standards for new foul sewers and lateral drains connecting to the public sewerage system, and for their automatic adoption by sewerage undertakers. I would like to reassure hon. Members that the proposals in clause 42 are not intended to require any changes to building regulations. Building regulations and building control will continue to apply to drains on a development connecting to the adoptable lateral drains and sewers, but not to the laterals and sewers themselves, which will be subject to agreement with, and control and inspection by, the water and sewerage companies. That activity will take place alongside the building control inspection process, but not overlap it. An evaluation of the relevant building regulations will start this year and will consider what new guidance might be needed on the changes that clause 42 introduces, to clarify how the building control system will work alongside them. The hon. Members for Vale of York and for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) also tabled new clause 7, which seeks to restrict the connection of waste water drainage from new developments to the public sewerage system by making it subject to planning approval. New clause 7 would require water and sewerage companies to be consulted before approval on the capacity of their systems to manage the extra demand. It would also seek to ensure that the responsibility for meeting the cost of creating any additional necessary infrastructure is apportioned. Sir Michael Pitt's review of the 2007 floods recommended that""the automatic right to connect surface water drainage of new developments to the sewerage system should be removed"." The Bill does just that. Drainage systems must be approved by the SUDS approving body—the SAB—as being in line with the national standards for drainage systems before any residual connection to the public sewer is allowed, and then only as a last resort—I keep repeating this—after SUDS have been employed to reduce the flow to the sewer. Water and sewerage companies will be statutory consultees in the SUDS approval process. I now turn to—[Interruption.] Sorry, I will come back to that. The hon. Members for Vale of York and for Upminster have also tabled several amendments on the definition of SUDS and drainage systems. New clause 5 seeks to insert a further definition of sustainable urban drainage systems into the Bill. We debated that issue fully in Committee, and I should like to restate our view that we see no desirability in a definition that constrains the idea of sustainable drainage to urban areas. As 2007 demonstrated, surface water flooding is both an urban and a rural issue, and SUDS can be used in both rural and urban areas, and everything in between. Therefore, the proposed amendment is more limiting. Amendments 2 and 3 seek to introduce the idea of water efficiency into the definition or application of SUDS. We understand the intention behind amendment 2. However, the current definition sets out what a drainage system is, whereas the amendment attempts to insert a depiction of the ideal characteristics of a drainage system. That has a consequential impact on the remainder of schedule 3, which refers to the approval of drainage systems. By inserting a reference to water efficiency, amendment 3 highlights another potential side benefit of SUDS for water use. We should all agree that we need to do more to reduce water use generally, especially in areas of water shortage—and of course, clause 36 also addresses that issue. However, I suspect that in amendments 2 and 3, hon. Members are referring to the use of rainwater harvesting as a sustainable drainage technique, which is something that I am pleased to have in my house; I have to say that it works very well and has been well worth it. Rainwater harvesting is indeed an acceptable SUDS technique. However, before making it a requirement of SUDS, we should understand the costs, benefits, practicalities and carbon impacts. The issue will therefore be addressed in the development of the national standards against which any proposed drainage system will be judged. I am not ruling out rainwater harvesting systems as a potentially beneficial SUDS technique—indeed, I love them—and especially not in some areas, but it is not necessary to drive that through primary legislation. The hon. Members for Vale of York and for Upminster have also tabled new clause 6, which would make provision to state which body has to be responsible for the ownership and maintenance of SUDS. As we debated in Committee at some length, the Bill is clear on that point. Paragraph 6 of schedule 3 already specifically places the responsibilities and duties of a SAB—a SUDS approving body—on the unitary or county authorities. Paragraph 6 also allows the Minister to appoint by order an alternative body to approve drainage systems in a specified area. The SAB would have responsibility for the approval of drainage systems in new developments and redevelopments to the national standards for sustainable drainage. The SAB is also responsible for adopting and maintaining SUDS that serve more than one property, where they have been approved.