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Flood and Water Management Bill

My Lords, what a pleasure it is when a contribution from a noble Lord sends a chill wind towards speakers in the debate other than the Minister. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for indicating that she has some anxieties about amendments that we will come to later. As noble Lords will appreciate, I have perpetual anxieties about all amendments apart from government ones. I will begin this part of the debate by addressing the issue of how the national and local strategies should operate. We touched on this earlier in our discussions. There will be a number of occasions as we debate the Bill when these issues can be raised, but this is perhaps an appropriate one on which to clear up some of them and reach a broad understanding of the principles behind the Bill and of the way in which things are meant to work. The national strategy will underpin effective management of flood and coastal erosion risk. Given the importance of this, the Environment Agency must consult other risk authorities, the public, and, where appropriate, Welsh and Scottish Ministers on the content of the strategy. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, raised a specific question about this when we discussed the previous group of amendments. I emphasise that the national strategy perforce will be general. It will not put forward specific options for specific locations. The Environment Agency will certainly be expected to continue with catchment flood management: that is the concern of the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and which he emphasised so emphatically at Second Reading. He has been supported today both by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart. The national strategy is bound to have broad objectives, which will include catchment areas. Therefore, it is bound to be involved in issues of risk assessment, including those aspects of climate change that we touched on earlier this afternoon. As noble Lords would be quick to point out if I did not, the issues of the costs and benefits of the measures proposed, and of the contribution to wider environmental objectives, will be the responsibility of the Environment Agency; and that will be the basis of the national strategy. What the national strategy will not do is to prescribe particular local flood or coastal risk management decisions. That will be appropriately and properly the responsibility of the risk management authorities, whose operations we define in the Bill, but it will provide a framework within which these decisions can be made consistently. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, is right: the concept of a catchment area is of very great importance with regard to risk management, and of course the catchment area does not automatically coincide with local authority areas—that is not how water distribution works. The Environment Agency will have overall responsibility, but it will not be prescriptive as regards decisions taken at local level. Investment of public funds in flood and coastal erosion risk management must be carried out equitably to achieve maximum benefit. The national strategy will help to ensure that resources go where the greatest priorities are identified. What local strategies need to do is to reflect that element of national strategy. In addition, decisions need to be made in the context of wider risks to ensure that decisions made in one area do not impact negatively on another. That was the whole point that the noble Earl was making a moment ago. Why should those downstream bear the costs of those decisions taken injudiciously upstream? The point there is that the local risk management authority will seek to meet local needs, but will do it within the framework of the national strategy, particularly reflecting catchment areas. The responsibility therefore remains with the Environment Agency to manage those risks that typically occur on a larger scale, such as flooding from the main rivers and the sea. We fully expect that it will continue to undertake its planning at a catchment scale, as it currently does, through catchment flood management plans. That is the EA’s responsibility. Local authorities will be responsible for those risks that can be more appropriately managed at a local scale, including surface water and ordinary water courses—although, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is apt to point out, ordinary water courses have extraordinary features at times. I accept that point entirely. We all know that we are dealing with a difficult area. That is why this Bill is so important. We all recognise the great difficulties of water management. These responsibilities are underlain by a duty for all risk management authorities to co-operate, as specified in Clause 13(1), and to share information, as specified in Clause 14. These, together with the guidance, alongside the national strategy and the ability for the authorities to enter into arrangements in Clause 13(4) provide the assurance that authorities will work together on a catchment basis, when that is needed. As will be seen from the broad description that I have given of how the national and local strategies are meant to interact, we conceive of the four amendments as being of broadly similar intent, making reference to the need for strategies to take account of catchment scale linkages and processes. Of course, we accept that argument entirely. It is important to ensure that water movements across local authority boundaries are dealt with effectively; I hope that noble Lords will accept from the amendments that the Bill is structured to take full account of this most important concept. The guidance accompanying the national strategy will address these concerns and seek to ensure that one authority does not simply act in a way that passes the problem on to another. Local authorities will be bound by the duty to co-operate, and local strategies will need to be consistent with the national strategy and guidance. Similarly, in exercising flood risk functions, local authorities will also need to co-operate and act consistently with the national strategy and guidance. Against this clear perspective that the Bill identifies, I ask noble Lords that the amendments should not be pressed. Amendments 26 and 32 would require local authorities to specify the strategy impacts outside their area. However, although they could specify, they would not have the power to do anything about them. Determining the impacts may not be practical, since it would require understanding of how risk is to be managed in adjacent areas for which they are not directly responsible. The Bill already makes sure that the people responsible, in the adjoining authority—or authorities, if more than one—should co-operate and share information. Those duties, together with the ability to enter new agreements, buttressed by the national strategy and guidance, provide a more pragmatic approach to ensuring that the arrangements work at the catchment as well as the local and national scales. I am, however, grateful to noble Lords who tabled these amendments, because they raised the issue of the catchment area. It is important to recognise that the Bill successfully and properly addresses that most important concept. I hope that noble Lords will feel able to withdraw their amendments.