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Flood and Water Management Bill

Last week when we debated Amendment 14 and the amendments grouped with it, I indicated that I would like to quote some of the things said on that amendment in opposition to this group of amendments. This is right at the heart of the Bill. One of the main reasons why the Bill is coming forward is that the Pitt report demonstrated that there was a lack of clarity and responsibility which caused problems with the co-ordination of flood risk management. The Bill therefore aims to try to clarify the responsibility to reassure communities which, at the time of the 2007 floods, expressed concern about a lack of clarity. When we discussed Amendment 14 and those grouped with it last week there was considerable support around the Committee for the idea of co-ordination between authorities and a belief that that is a very important part of what the Bill is about. So I am a bit surprised that the amendment seems to weaken the requirement to co-ordinate and co-operate. It seems to run the risk of there being two sets of authorities which take a different view on the same issues. The Bill is not entirely successful in clarifying who is responsible for what, because there are still lots of players on the pitch—the Environment Agency, the local risk management authority, the IDBs and so on; and the water companies, in the case of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. That is why these strategies are so important. The national strategy covers all sources of flooding, but the local strategies cover ordinary water courses, surface water and ground water, and the two really need to be plugged into each other if there is not to be continued confusion of the sort that arose graphically in 2007 in Leeds, where there was flooding from both groundwater and the main river; in Sheffield, where there was a great dispute about where the water was coming from; and also in Hull, where the management of the surface-water and ground-water flooding had to be very closely co-ordinated with management of the river and tidal flooding. It seems entirely reasonable that there should be consistency, with the national overarching strategy giving guidance to local strategies, enabling co-ordination for the effective management of floods and coastal erosion, and enabling clarity to be given to local people, while making sure that the development of solutions that meet local needs is dealt with locally, while solutions that must be resolved on a more strategic basis are part of the national strategy. I hope the Minister will reassure those who wish to substitute "have regard to" for "consistent with". It is important. We might be arguing about angels on the heads of pins, but the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, hit the nail on the head when he said that this was about local relationships between national bodies such as the Environment Agency and local authorities and IDBs. For the most part, they work well together locally. We may be straining inconsequentially on this matter, but it would give the wrong signal if the words were changed.