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Flood and Water Management Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness. I think that she and I are agreeing with each other. I am trying to point out that there are two different things here that the clause will apply to: first, the habitats directive stuff, trying to provide more good habitats for wildlife and replacement habitats where habitats are lost, and, secondly, defending the coast. If it becomes difficult to defend the existing line of the coast, particularly in parts of eastern England but in other places too, decisions will have to be made at a wider level than just one local authority. Which parts of the coast to defend, on which parts to install and maintain the hard defences that the noble Baroness talked about, and which ones can be sacrificed, if that is the word, so that a managed coastal retreat can take place, are not matters of pure science where the answer is obvious. It is a matter of making decisions about which areas have to be defended, for whatever reason. The obvious example is where there is a town that would otherwise be flooded—you have to try to defend that town if you possibly can. However, even where the coast is in countryside, if I may use that term, there are choices to be made, and when they are, they will be made on a bigger scale than one local authority. I do not believe that this process can be implemented by the Environment Agency or any other national body simply imposing a scheme willy-nilly. That will not happen. Instead, there will be a huge public debate between all the different organisations, bodies and elected authorities from national to local level, and sooner or later decisions will have to be made. In both Clauses 38 and 39, a number of safeguards are set out that will probably ensure that unless there is a broad consensus on the larger-scale schemes—it will not be 100 per cent in many cases—they will be impossible to implement. Apart from anything else, under subsection (8) orders have to come as affirmative orders to Parliament. I know that the Conservatives do not treat affirmative orders in this House as importantly as some of us do, but I will not pursue that subject again until we come to the next big one. Both these clauses probably are necessary although, as I say, I have considerable sympathy with the noble Lord. We would like to see them stay but to some extent that will be determined by the answers the Minister gives.