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Flood and Water Management Bill

My Lords, my question as to whether Clause 22 should stand part of the Bill is in this group. It was put down with somewhat similar motives, but with a slightly different background. When one reads this, one is surprised that the Environment Agency will have the power to create regions. When you stop to think about it, we have all sorts of regions already all over the country. I found myself wondering whether what I was looking at was a prime example of what I call the silo mentality of government departments in which one government department does not consider what another one has done. Perhaps it just disapproves or thinks that it is unsuitable for the purpose for which it is intended, which I suspect is what the Minister’s reply would be. In this country, we have a very expensive regional structure for other purposes, which causes a great deal of vexation to some of us and some of us might like to see it go. I find myself wondering whether perhaps the Government are being pessimistic about their chances of surviving and wish to keep a form of regional structure for this purpose anyway. There are a host of motivations why I put this down. If we come to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, and it is accepted that the regions are based on regional river catchment areas, I would accept a combination of river catchment areas. Some areas do not have massive river basins and you would want a combination of river basins to make a region. That said, I can see that if you are dealing with the Trent, the Severn or the Thames and major river basins, there is a great deal of merit in having a single committee to deal with that. If that is called a regional committee, so be it. But I would rather call it a river basin committee and we would know precisely what we are talking about. Because of the way in which this is worded, there could be confusion between one type of region and another. If these are regions with a single, specific purpose, it would be better that they remain that way, rather than in the polite way in the Bill, which states: ""The Environment Agency … must divide England and Wales into regions"." If it says river basins or regions, that is fair enough. But it does not. I put this down to enhance—if that is the right word—this debate or to attempt to make the Bill more clear. Again, I have to accept that in the end we are in a position where we can do nothing about it. What comes out of the washing machine or the spin dryer at the end of the system remains to be seen.