---

Flood and Water Management Bill

My Lords, my three amendments in this group relate to arbitrary costs being imposed on those who try to conserve winter rainfall for sensible use in the summer. Such sustainable practices by farmers, golf courses and others must be encouraged rather than discouraged. I agree with my noble kinsman, the Duke of Montrose, that the 10,000 cubic metres cut-off line was fairly arbitrary. I know that at Second Reading much was made of that being equivalent to three-quarters of the Royal Gallery, so it sounds quite a frightening amount, but that is because of the height of the Royal Gallery. In fact, such an amount in a reservoir is likely to amount to only 2 metres deep by 70 metres by 70 metres. That is not a particularly big reservoir, really. It is very unlikely that such a structure will go "whoosh", with all the water escaping all at once, especially an off-stream reservoir in which the spillway is designed to cater for only small amounts of rainfall that fall in the reservoir. An on-stream reservoir is different because it caters to floods, and the stream—it is usually a stream—increases and can cause problems. An off-stream reservoir presents very little danger. A bank would break down over time, and there would be a certain amount of seepage. The trickle would become a flow that would accelerate over an hour or so, and you would probably be left in the end with, say, a quarter of the water or less in the bottom of the reservoir. If you change the cut-off from 10,000 cubic metres to, say, 15,000 cubic metres, instead of being 2 metres by 70 by 70 metres, it would be 2 metres by 86 by 86 metres. That is not very different, and the risk scenario does not change all that much. However, I am not going to oppose a 10,000 cubic metre cut-off. I would just say that it seems slightly controversial. If we accept it, the one thing we do not want is for it to be changed again through an arbitrary decision made by an unreasonable, risk-averse Minister without parliamentary input being an essential part of that decision. I hope that the Minister can reassure us on that.