---

Flood and Water Management Bill

My Lords, I am not surprised that the Minister has not risen to my challenge to give a quotable definition of what the Government mean in this instance by sustainable development. The concept is not easy and still less understood. Sustainable development is a policy approach that has gained a lot of international popularity in recent years. What on earth does it mean? The concept of sustainable development has several critics. Some criticise the term by saying that it is too vague. The philosopher Luc Ferry said: ""I know that this term is obligatory but I find it also absurd, or rather so vague that it says nothing"." There is no doubt that the word "sustainable" has been used in too many situations, and that "sustainability" is one of those terms that confuse a lot of people. One hears about sustainable development, sustainable growth, sustainable economics, sustainable societies, sustainable agriculture and so on. Everything must be sustainable, but what on earth does that mean? It is certainly interpreted differently in different circumstances. When I was born nearly 60 years ago, the world's population was just under 2.5 billion. It is now just over 7 billion. That is an increase in my lifetime of nearly 5 billion people. They all need somewhere to live. They need water, food and jobs. In my lifetime, cities, towns and villages all over the world have had to expand into the natural environment to accommodate this growth. In Britain, we need to build an extra 3 million homes in order to accommodate our population, which is set to increase by a third over the next 40 years. When I was vice-chairman of our planning committee in Norfolk, we were told that all future development had to be sustainable. This was a nice concept, but is it achievable as more and more houses are being built on greenfield sites? These fields can never be replenished or returned to their natural state. Are the materials used in the building industry sustainable? Probably not. We import 90 per cent of our timber, and we all know that some of the forests cut down will never be replaced. One has only to look at the Amazon and Africa to see this. I appreciate that many forests are replanted, but by no means all are. As for sustainable development in planning, it is a nice idea but almost impossible to achieve. We all know that an unsustainable situation occurs when natural resources are used up faster than they can be replenished. Presumably a sustainable situation occurs when human activity uses nature's resources only at a rate at which they can be replenished. That is not a bad definition, but I prefer the one given by the UN Brundtland report of 1987, which said that sustainable development is, ""development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs"." That is my chosen definition of sustainable development. However, I look forward with interest to the Government's definition, and to seeing how it will apply in this instance. I have no doubt that the Government's definition will be completely different from mine. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 57 withdrawn. Amendment 58 not moved. Clause 27 agreed. Clause 28 agreed. Clause 29 : Restructuring Amendment 59 Clause 29 : Restructuring Amendment 59 Moved by