The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)
My Lords, first, I declare my farming interests, although I rather think that in the Vale of Aylesbury we have never needed a water abstraction licence or otherwise. I acknowledge the vigour with which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, set out her concerns, and I value the contributions from noble Lords across the House. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, that water is one of our essential natural resources. Our ambition for clean and plentiful water for both the environment and people is a key goal of the Government’s 25-year environment plan. I say to my noble friend Lady McIntosh that with 75% of the land in this country farmed, surely it is the case that farming and an enhancement of the environment are mutually compatible. That is how we see the way forward.
It is the Environment Agency’s task to ensure that water is managed and used effectively and sustainably. Managing water abstraction is particularly important in times of dry weather to manage the impacts of drought. The abstraction licensing system is one of the agency’s key tools to manage water resources and to secure the amount of water available for businesses and the environment.
The vast majority of abstraction has been licensed since the 1960s. This has meant that about 20,000 significant abstractions and those with the most potential to damage the environment were already licensed. This includes abstractions used by the water companies, industry, the energy sector and most of the agriculture sector. We are therefore largely compliant with the water framework directive requirements regarding prior control of abstractions. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, rightly spoke of sustainability. Since 2008, the Environment Agency has changed more than 270 of these abstraction licences to prevent more than 30 billion litres of water per year being removed from the environment where this abstraction is unsustainable.
Through the statutory instruments we are discussing, we are commencing and implementing some provisions in the Water Act 2003 to remove abstraction licence exemptions for some further activities. Hearing the Minister and the shadow Minister who dealt with the Water Act 2003 speaking about it as if it was yesterday shows the great importance of hearing the experiences of those times, as well as why your Lordships’ House is an important place. The work that we are undertaking now will ensure that we more fully capture all significant abstraction in the licensing regime. This will mean about 5,000 comparably less damaging abstractors will be licensed. I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said about the issues that came up in 2003 about mines, quarries and agriculture, highlighting the importance of proper deliberation on these matters.
I accept that we and previous Governments—I can say this because the previous Governments are represented here—could have made a more expeditious advance on these instruments. I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, will not mind me referring again to this—I think it was already referred to—but it was the Labour Government who, during that seven-year period after 2003, had their initial consultation only in 2009. But I will not dwell on that because I should take this opportunity to explain some of the reasons why it has taken some time to complete this complex legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, indicated some of these issues.
These changes are part of an evolution of complex water abstraction legislation, stretching back to the 1960s, which affect existing lawful entitlements. Bringing them into regulation while avoiding disproportionate and unnecessary business impacts needed careful implementation. I say to your Lordships that central to all this is ensuring the wise use of water—that we regulate only where it is necessary for environmental protection or enhancement—and being equitable to all abstractors. We did not want to find ourselves in a situation where we were unnecessarily regulating businesses that contributed strongly to the economy of our country, but which could then not function because they did not have access to the water they needed.
To begin with, we had insufficient knowledge about these abstractions because they were not regulated. Different sectors had varied concerns. We worked with each sector on an individual basis to develop a policy that met our primary requirements for the protection of the environment, through a fair abstraction licensing regime, while allowing these businesses time to adapt and continue. My noble friend Lady Byford, with her considerable experience on these matters, will identify that the sectors affected ranged from navigation authorities such as the Canal & River Trust to farmers using trickle irrigators and the mineral industry, which removes groundwater from mines, quarries and large engineering works so as to extract minerals safely without groundwater seeping into its works. The Government have also made changes to the internal drainage boards that will benefit them. The work we have done with them has borne fruit and is very helpful.
The instruments bring these sectors and others into the abstraction licensing regime, which will allow the Environment Agency to manage all the water in a catchment. It is important that we look at these things on a catchment basis. The first cycle of river management plans required by the water framework directive were published in 2009. This is what showed us that we needed to know more about the exempt activities and how they contributed to overall abstraction pressures. We did research to identify the numbers and locations of these activities, consideration of how the policy proposals impacted on businesses and the environment, and further economic appraisal of the policy changes that arose following the initial consultation in 2009.
A key policy change was the Government’s initiative in relation to dealing with cases of serious environmental damage caused by abstraction. This required consultation in 2012 and the development of new guidance to facilitate the changes. We then included a commitment in the 2015 river basin management plans to remove the exemptions and we consulted further in 2016. To ensure that the final approach was proportionate, time was also required to develop the policy and legislation to allow abstraction exemptions to continue for numerous low-risk activities. For example, provisions in these instruments continue abstraction exemptions for small-scale temporary construction works. Had we introduced the legislation without making this exemption, there would have been substantial business impacts on the construction sector. We estimate that 20,000 of its abstractions per year would have had to be licensed, without benefit—I emphasise, without benefit—to the environment.
My noble friend Lady McIntosh and the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, referred to further plans. Removing abstraction licence exemptions is indeed only part of the story, so I hope that I might enable the noble Lord to return home with a certain amount of cheer. The Government recently published their updated approach to managing water resources. This abstraction plan explains how we will implement reform of the abstraction licensing system over the coming years. The plan outlines three main approaches. We intend to make full use of existing regulatory powers and methodologies to address abstraction that prevents us meeting environmental objectives; we will develop a stronger catchment focus to protect the environment and improve people’s access to water; we will also digitise and move the abstraction service online, and bring regulations in line with other environmental permitting regimes.
I hope noble Lords will be reassured that the Government are taking action to improve the abstraction licensing system and wanted to take the right time to get the balance right between avoiding unnecessary regulation and ensuring environmental protection. I emphasise to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, that the top priority is environmental protection.