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Flood and Water Management Bill

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 58. I declare a couple of interests: I am chairman of the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association and am soon to be a non-executive director of a watertight wares company which deals with flooding. After listening to the noble Lords, Lord Taylor and Lord Dixon-Smith, I should add that I own a mile-and-a-half of a river bank. The River Rede, which in Northumbria means the red river, is so called, we think, because of the iron oxide which goes into it or—the local variation—because it is stained red with the blood of Scotsmen after a massacre in the 16th century, which is the version that I prefer. The purpose of Amendment 58 is to bring the water regulator, Ofwat, into the remit of the Bill. To me, it is the elephant in the room that has not been discussed because, although the regulator is seen as slightly outside the ambit of the tenor of the Bill, it is responsible for the operations of the water companies. The Bill also deals with sewer flooding and drains flooding from sewers into which the water runs. There is therefore a direct link between the water regulator and provisions within the Bill. We should not underestimate the problems with flooding. Obviously we have been talking about water and rivers flooding—the first amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, dealt with the wider area—but 50 per cent of all flooding in houses comes from sewers being flooded by rainwater and then the water going back through the pipes. This was a major problem for the poor people of Carlisle, where much of the flooding came through the sewers. Sewer flooding is far worse because it is contaminated water and gets into the brickwork; you then have to hack all the plaster back to the brickwork to get rid of the smell. That is why flooding in this area takes between three and six months to put right and is far more serious than river flooding. Another reason for tabling the amendment is that Ofwat regulates the water companies through five-year plans, which in relation to flooding is a short period of time with which to deal with long-scale issues. I do not want to clash with the ASA and its recent pronouncements on the department’s adverts on flooding, which say that climate change is an aspect of flooding, but I believe that long-term trends indicate that climate change will bring about far more flooding, although, of course, it is difficult to state that individual floods are caused by climate change. If that is the case, as part of this Bill I would ask two questions. First, the powers or primary functions of the regulator are currently under review by Defra. In the light of the fact that we are looking very seriously at flood water management, should not the department take into consideration long-term sustainability when looking at this and write it into any review process? I hope that the Government, and any Government of any future colour after the election, will take this point extremely seriously, because it is a real issue in dealing with these much longer-term problems. Secondly, should Ofwat in that review be conditioned with the same sustainability criteria given to other regulators? I raise the issue because, in the Energy Act 2008, Ofgem was given a sustainability regulation looking at carbon and the interests of present and future consumers. That is why I added that line into the amendment. In the 2010 Bill, whose Second Reading happens in your Lordships’ House next week, there is a provision to indicate that cost should no longer be the primary consideration. This is an important point; it might be seen as an esoteric point about the Short Title of the Bill but I believe that it is much more important than that. As we passed the Climate Change Act 2008, we should start taking into consideration the longer-term issues that all pieces of legislation will feed into. Therefore, I hope that the Minister can confirm that, in the Defra review, Ofwat’s primary regulations will be raised far above the regulation about cost and take in the much more important consideration, which this Bill deals with, of the long-term sustainability of managing our water resources.