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Flood and Water Management Bill

My Lords, I begin by declaring my interest. I am a farmer and landowner and I am involved in property and insurance markets, all sectors which will be affected by measures in this Bill. Most of the measures we welcome, as my noble friend Lord Taylor made clear at the outset of this very informed and constructive debate. I share the concern that other noble Lords have expressed for the communities which have suffered such severe problems from flooding. I, too, recognise the pressing need for improving the way in which we prepare for flooding and manage our water. The Bill is a welcome start, but it is only a start. We have recently had the Pitt, Cave and the Walker reviews. We have, therefore, been provided with a very broad body of research to consider. The Pitt report alone has 92 recommendations, whereas this Bill has but 49 clauses. That may be a somewhat rough comparison, but I hope that noble Lords will accept the point that there is much more that we could be looking at today. However, I accept that we are probably pressed for sufficient parliamentary time. Instead, it will fall to the next Government, as the Minister said, to consider all these matters affecting the water industry in their entirety. I regret that the Government did not allow as much time in another place as was necessary to give full consideration to the Bill. At the Report stage, my honourable friends tried to debate reservoirs, infrastructure projects and temporary water use bans, but were unable to do so, so scrutiny was not quite as thorough as it might have been. It is very much my hope that sufficient time will be found to allow this House the chance to do its job and subject the Bill to rigorous scrutiny, but that, too, may be in doubt. My noble friend Lord Selborne talked of the importance in the preparation of maps and other information, particularly water catchment maps, which reinforces the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and mentioned by my noble friend the Duke of Montrose. My noble friend Lord Selborne also called for the naming of who was responsible for each component part within the catchment area. That must be made clear. I join my noble friend Lady Fookes in congratulating the Government on Clause 47, which concerns pre-consolidation amendments. It was interesting to hear her informed remarks about building on gardens with hard impermeable surfaces and her idea of water companies allowing watering on certain days of the week. My noble friend Lord Taylor tells me that that is done in France. My noble friend Lord Taylor has set out our position on much of the Bill. Although, for example, we welcome the strategic overview role of the Environment Agency outlined in the Bill, which gives it a national responsibility for flood risk management, while local authorities will have responsibility for local flood management strategies, we have concerns that the Bill is too centralising. We would like to see a balanced and common-sense approach, with a clear definition of roles, to avoid the cumbersome and unnecessary overlapping of different layers of Government in the efforts to deal flooding. My noble friend Lady Byford reinforced the need to know who is responsible and for what. Where does the buck stop? As my noble friend Lord Taylor said, we will examine in Committee, we hope, the role that local authorities and communities, with their local knowledge, can play in the preparation for flooding. It was heartening to hear the assurances given by the noble Lord, Lord Smith, that the Environment Agency will be working closely with local organisations. My noble friend also touched on the Environment Agency’s role of balancing whether the benefits of carrying out work will outweigh the damage to human health, the economy, infrastructure or the environment caused by the work. The question here is whether an unelected body should balance these competing interests and make these decisions rather than an elected representative, albeit with the Environment Agency’s support. The original draft Bill did not give the Environment Agency the power to balance these competing interests; rather it allowed it to carry out the work only when it explicitly did not create or increase the harmful effects. There were also concerns that the Bill does not categorically end the automatic right for a new development to connect with the sewerage system, even if the system does not have the capacity to take the outflow from the new development. Although the Bill provides that all new sewers and drains must be built to universal build standards, it allows the connection of new sewers and drains to the public sewerage works even if these standards have not been complied with. The end of the automatic right to connect is one of Sir Michael Pitt’s recommendations. We should like the Government to look again at this to ensure that no extra capacity can be placed on the system that might increase the risk of flooding of sewerage, a point referred to by my noble friend Lord Selborne. The adoption of the private lateral drains and sewers to water companies will help to consolidate the drainage system and will remove the risk of future liability and repair in the long term. However, we also believe that the 2011 timescale is unrealistic and that more consultation is needed and further clarity should be provided. Water companies have no idea as to the number of drains they will be adopting or if the adoption is to include private pumping stations. It has been a flawed consultation and not all those affected, including small family drainage companies and relevant bodies, were consulted. Therefore we should like the Government to consider proposals which ensure a full audit of all private drains to be transferred to establish the costs and implications involved. In Clause 27, authorities are placed under a duty to aim to contribute to achieving sustainable development when exercising a flood or coastal risk management function. Under Clause 27(2), the Minister must publish guidance about the meaning of sustainable development. I often find that the words "sustainable development" mean different things to different people. Can the Minister say what he thinks sustainable development means in this context and also indicate when we will see this guidance? It would be good to get this definition in the Bill. It is clear from the accounts we have heard from communities stricken by flooding that this Bill is timely, even if it is not as complete as it could be. As my noble friend Lord Taylor pointed out, many of the families affected by the Cockermouth floods have yet to move back into their homes. Can the Minister give us the number of families and businesses affected by flooding which are still waiting to return to their properties? If he does not have accurate statistics, will he consider the merits of the recommendation in the Pitt report which proposed a monthly update following major flooding incidents of the recovery process and the number of people out of their properties? My honourable friends tabled an amendment to this effect in another place. We will consider bringing back a similar amendment here. Such a measure may help focus minds and prevent victims of flooding slipping off the radar. My noble friends Lord Taylor and Lord Dixon-Smith raised questions on reservoirs, as did other noble Lords. How has the lower figure of 10,000 cubic metres, which is given in Schedule 4, been reached? I know that the Environment Agency is calling for it to be lowered to 10,000 cubic metres, but even it says that there have been only a handful of incidents at this level. Quite what "incidents" means, I do not know; "not life-threatening", I suspect. I understand that the last time a life was lost through reservoir damage was in the 1920s. I cannot see such a recommendation in the Pitt report. As my noble friend Lord Taylor mentioned, there could be an annual cost of £10,000 for carrying out risk assessments, which seems an excessive charge to levy on farmers and others who have done the right thing by capturing and storing water rather than extracting it from rivers. I hope that these measures will be about safety rather than putting extra burdens and costs on to small reservoir owners. I was encouraged to see in the Environment Agency’s own briefing that, in some cases, the regulatory impact will be reduced for those who own or maintain low-risk reservoirs with capacities above 25,000 cubic metres. It says that this could mean as many as 400 to 500 low-risk reservoirs being effectively deregulated. That is certainly welcome, although the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. As is clear from our wide ranging debate today, there is an appetite on all sides to improve the way in which we approach the management of our water resources. The Bill could be more comprehensive and it could be better, and we will no doubt aim to improve it in Committee. We have raised a number of issues today and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.