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Flood and Water Management Bill

Let me begin by saying that it is all right for the noble Lord to be a little prickly when the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, produces a line or two, and I am entitled to be prickly about procedure. The Committee will recall that the amendment of the noble Baroness was grouped with an amendment that was moved. It being grouped with that, when I respond I expect the debate to revolve around all the amendments in the grouping. Whether noble Lords choose to speak at that point is entirely for them, but if an amendment is grouped with others, it is only reasonable, from the ministerial position, to assume that comments are expected in response to all the amendments. That is exactly what I delivered, and having delivered those comments once, I do not see why I should have to deliver them a second time. I would run the risk of departing from what I said on the last occasion, which would be catastrophic. I want to reassure the noble Baroness, as I did last time—although in her terms rather prematurely, but in my own terms quite accurately—that of course we accept that the report would ordinarily be published as soon as practicable after it has been received. I want to assure her again that that is our position. She asked why there should be any deletion from the report, and I accept entirely her argument, one that has been reinforced by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor. Such information should be in the public domain as far as possible because people need to know where they stand on such an important issue; I could not agree more. However, the noble Baroness will appreciate that there are some parts of our water environment that we might not wish to put into the public domain because that information could be of assistance to those who wish us harm. Here I make the obvious point that very large dams and reservoirs could attract the attention of terrorists, so we have to take care of such information, to say nothing of the fact that we have certain security and national defence positions with regard to the use of water. That is why we have some hesitations, but the general position is clear. Unless there are issues of security, which was the only reservation I expressed, all the information in the report would be made available to the public as quickly as possible. That is broadly what I said on the last occasion and I am delighted to reiterate the position.