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Flood and Water Management Bill

I speak to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach, Amendment 47. As the Minister explained, Clause 15(4) provides that a penalty imposed for failure to comply with an enforcement notice must not exceed £1,000. Subsection (9) enables the Minister to substitute some other amount by negative order. Without the amendment, the power to do so could in theory be unlimited. As the Minister explained, this was another point picked up by the DPRRC, which our amendment sought to address and which has been met by the government amendment. It is a matter of regret that a Bill that has been circulated through government departments for so long should repeatedly fall short of what we expect of good legislation. That highlights the important role that this place plays in scrutinising legislation and holding executive power in check. To be fair to the Government, they have used the opportunity of this possibly truncated Grand Committee to make the changes recommended to them. For that, we are all thankful. This has been a fairly dismal run of amendment groupings which has eaten into the time available for scrutiny of the Bill. The Government have been very reticent to tell us whether we will be given enough time properly to scrutinise the whole Bill. I invite the Minister to tell the Committee what representations he has made to his colleagues to ensure that we will get time to do the job properly.