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Flood and Water Management Bill

My Lords, I have a particular bête noir with legislation; it is almost impossible to find one subject that is covered by one Act of Parliament. Five Acts of Parliament already deal with water and another three overlap with it. The Bill is no different, but I was pleased and surprised to find Clause 47 on the pre-consolidation amendments, which give Ministers the power to consolidate as far as possible prior to a major consolidation that is usually undertaken by the Select Committee that considers consolidation Bills—a body on which I serve but that meets all too rarely. I therefore particularly appreciate this enlightened clause, and I congratulate the Government on it. The main thrust of the Bill is on flooding, but I want to raise an issue that is not as grand as other matters that colleagues have raised. In cities and towns, covering gardens with hard materials so that cars can stand on them is causing far more surface water to run off. In times of heavy rain, this can be very difficult indeed. The Royal Horticultural Society, of which I am a long-standing member, was particularly concerned about this two years ago, and it has made all sorts of imaginative suggestions for the design of small front gardens so that they can take the necessary car off the road and still have softer materials, such as very low plantings that can go underneath a car when it moves in and out of a garage. I hope that the Government will be prepared to look at this more seriously. I believe that permeable materials have to be installed in new builds, but that this is not the case for thousands upon thousands of houses and gardens. Although this seems like a small matter, given the magnitude of the number of houses involved it could give a real boost both to the look of the gardens and to the problem of surface water. Another issue is drought. I confess that it takes a real effort of will and imagination to think about drought after a winter of precipitation of excessive snow, excessive rain, or both, but I vividly recall the summer and autumn of 2006, to which my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach has already referred. I garden in east Sussex and was acutely affected by a hosepipe ban that appeared to go for ever. I even discovered that the ban was in place in January when I would not have believed that possible. There are real concerns about total hosepipe bans that are imposed at will by water companies and organisations, particularly as different water companies have different ways of looking at the situation, to the utter confusion of consumers. They were extremely bad about getting in touch with consumers during that period. I saw precious plants wilting while I tried to obey the law. There is a real need for a good, improved code of practice. My noble friend referred to a draft code that seems to have disappeared from view. I am not sure that the Horticultural Trades Association will mind about that because it had considerable concerns about its shortcomings, but it certainly wants a really good code, and I hope that the Minister will give us some helpful information tonight about the possibility of a code that really works. It is essential, first, that the water companies have some clear arrangement whereby they do not simply impose a hosepipe ban but have some gradual implementation, depending on the severity of the drought. For example, it would be perfectly possible to say that we could water only every other day or first thing in the morning or last thing or night—which good gardeners would agree is better anyway—or that we should water vegetables and plants but not grass. After all, you can expend a great deal of water on grass, and it may look pretty awful if you do not water it, but it usually recovers, in my experience. I see no reason in a water shortage to put water on grass when it might be very reasonable to have water to put on ornamental plants and vegetables. Since 2006, there has been a great increase in interest in allotments and growing vegetables in gardens, which I should have thought the Government would wish to encourage. As it was, in 2006, the horticultural trade suffered greatly because of all the confusion and people therefore stopped buying. In the south-east, it was reckoned that no less than £12 million of sales were lost, as well as jobs where they could not afford to keep people. We do not want to see a repetition of that, and I am sure that a good consultative arrangement would be in order and very much welcomed. I hope for something clear and proportionate to the situation, which gradually increases the restrictions depending on the need. People would appreciate that and be far more likely to co-operate. Years ago, one of my friends had a son in the police force in Devon and Cornwall in a period of drought, during which there was an absolute hosepipe ban. One night at about midnight, he was patrolling and thought that there were burglars afoot, when it was actually a householder furtively watering his precious plants under cover of darkness. We could do without that, but if we are to get the co-operation of gardeners and consumers, we need to be far more realistic and sensible in how we deal with this. That would be my contribution. I hope that, despite the shortness of time in which to develop this Bill, that matter at least will receive urgent consideration.