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Flood and Water Management Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has raised questions about the implementation measures in the risk management strategies. His pair of amendments, Amendments 12 and 24, do indeed highlight an unusual discrepancy in the drafting of Clause 7, which is about the national strategy, and Clause 9, which deals with the local strategies. In the former, measures are to be implemented, but in the latter they are not expected to be implemented. Why, I wonder, are expectations lower for local strategies? If a strategy has been developed, should not the measures be implemented? If the Government are serious that local authorities will have as much of a role to play as the Environment Agency, each in its appropriate sphere of course, then why do we see the difference in the drafting? The noble Lord was sharp-eyed to have spotted that difference, but it is an interesting point which I should like the Minister to address. The noble Lord’s Amendment 13 asks how we will be able to assess the costs and benefits of measures proposed in the national strategy to manage flood and coastal erosion risk. Presumably this will all form part and parcel of the work conducted by the Environment Agency when it is setting up and maintaining the risk-management strategy. Will the agency be required to produce the sort of impact assessments that government departments publish with their legislation, for example; and how, having done so, will the Environment Agency weigh up the pros and cons of the measures it has proposed? What is the process involved? To my mind this is another reason why we are justified in seeking parliamentary oversight of the strategy, so that we can have an impartial adjudication of the costs and benefits. Amendment 58, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, at first seems a bit of an oddity in this group as it deal with the involvement of Ofwat in the guidance which is to set out the meaning of sustainable development. My noble friend Lord Taylor and I have an amendment tabled to Clause 27, which we will debate later—probably not tonight—which we shall use to explore the meaning of sustainable development in greater detail. However, as it is being debated now, I will make the comment that the obligation to contribute to sustainable development will indeed be another consideration that authorities must take into account when deciding the priority they give to the measures designed to give effect to their risk-management functions. Will the obligation to contribute to sustainable development, a concept as yet undefined, take priority over other measures, or where will it fall in the rankings of all the other obligations which must be undertaken? The Minister may not at this stage be ready to tell us what he thinks sustainable development is—although I hope that he will be ready by the time we reach Clause 27—but he may feel that he ought to expand on the topic if it allows us to consider whether that obligation will interfere with, complement or otherwise relate to the measures which must be set out as a result of Clause 7.