Floods and Water (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I will introduce the words “climate change” at this point, simply because it seems, to follow on slightly from the noble Lord, Lord Deben, that constancy and vigilance will be particularly important. If one thinks of the extremes of climate change that we are already experiencing—and there is every indication that it will get much worse—the constancy that the Minister is speaking about becomes extremely important. At times of drought and of far too much rain, many things start to go wrong. Drought is the obvious one, as you do not have enough water, but when there is too much rain—I speak as somebody who lives on a farm—you start getting an enormous amount of run-off of chemicals into the rivers, and things like that. Therefore, this constancy towards regulation, wariness for the future and extreme vigilance are incredibly important in this area.

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I will add just a couple of things. I thank my noble friend the Minister for so clearly setting out the objectives of these transfer regulations, because that is what we are discussing, while looking to the reports in the future. Like other noble Lords, I look forward to the setting up of the environmental body, because it is key to future regulation and checks and balances on what happens. Clearly, it is not good just to have reports; actions need to follow on from them. That has not quite been touched on today.

I will follow the noble Lord who spoke just now of droughts and the rain position. The Minister will know, because I raised it with him quietly earlier, the difficulty that some farmers are having in drought areas. I refer in particular to the position of Norfolk, which was referred to earlier, and the difficulty that farmers there are having because the Environment Agency is dragging its feet and not getting on with the business of giving answers to questions that are raised. Although it is not clear, because it does not quite fall within the remit of these regulations, it raises another issue altogether. We want to make sure that the various organisations that exist now and which are responsible for making things happen are doing the job that they should be doing. If they are not, who then holds them to account? I think it would be the new environment body, but I worry that if we are not careful, we will have so many different bodies, and at the end of the day, who will be in control of saying yes or no? It should be the Government of the day, but the Government of the day have passed some of these responsibilities on to well-established bodies. Clearly, however, in this case the job is not being done, which is causing immense angst for those who are in business there. Without having those sorts of issues settled on what they can and cannot abstract, in future their businesses will be very much in jeopardy.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I strongly endorse the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Deben. We had real issues about water quality in the south-west, where I live, before we had the various framework directives, particularly the bathing water directive. Through the action of the European Union and a pressure group called Surfers Against Sewage, we now have fantastic beaches in the south-west.

I intervene because I want to personally thank the noble Lord, Lord Deben. Privatisation of the water industry meant that those improvements could be afforded, which meant that water bills in the south-west, and Cornwall in particular, went up by a huge amount. As a result, I was elected as an MEP for Cornwall, Scilly and Plymouth in 1994. I was one of the first two Liberal Democrats ever to be elected to the European Parliament, so I again thank the noble Lord. Perhaps that was not meant to be the result of that policy decision, but we still have excellent beaches in the south-west, and I encourage everyone to visit them, enjoy them and celebrate the European directive that meant that we could enjoy bathing in the clean waters of the Atlantic in the south-west.