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Flood and Water Management Bill

I reciprocate the comments of the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) and thank her for engagement with the issue. My officials will read the Hansard report of the debate and will read her thanks to them. They have been open and engaged and I thank them for that. I also ask the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch) to take my thanks back to his colleagues for their engagement in terms of finding the best way through. We had a great deal of debate about reservoirs. The issue has been aired in the other place, the Chamber and in Committee, but we have settled on this position as a result of consistent engineering advice based on a risk assessment approach. Partly because of our engagement with the hon. Lady and others, we have some flexibility to revisit the issue of over-capacity to take on some of her concerns. On future legislation, we are in agreement. We see the need for additional engagement. Beyond Pitt's recommendations, we have the Cave report and Anna Walker's report and so much besides. We will have to have some consolidating legislation and I am pleased to say that we are already working up some proposals internally to try to bring forward something at the earliest opportunity. As always, this will be subject to parliamentary time but we would share the hon. Lady's aspiration to have another water Bill before the House as soon as possible. I can confirm what I have said previously about drains: the transfer will go ahead next year. As for the regulations, I heard a whispered aside from behind me that they are in the pipeline. I can confirm that they will be available by the end of May. They are being drafted and are in a good state. We say "enactment" in the amendments because we do not want the power to create an entirely new function. The functions should be defined in statute before the order is used to define them as risk management functions. On the land tribunal and the change to the upper tribunal, other legislation has made the change, and the amendments merely reflect that. I thank the hon. Member for Hereford for reminding us why this Bill is so important to his constituents and to others throughout the country. At the risk of making this sound like an Oscar speech, it would be remiss of me not to thank those external organisations that have engaged with us in this process, those in the other place who have added so much to the Bill, Front and Back-Bench Members, Committee members and members of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, who have carefully constructed the Bill. It is all a tribute to them, and to my Bill team who have unstintingly given their time and efforts to turn this into a good Bill. It will make a difference, and it will deliver Sir Michael's Pitts recommendations. There is more work to do of course, as there always is, but this is a singular step forward, and we should all be proud of the work that has gone into the Bill. Lords amendment 1 agreed to. Lords amendments 2 to 25 agreed to. Sitting suspended (Order, 7 April).