Water (Special Measures) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hayman of Ullock and Lord Blencathra

Committee stage
Wednesday 30th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Bethell, I am pleased to move Amendment 52 in his place. This amendment seeks to increase and improve the monitoring undertaken by water companies after an emergency overflow.

The amendment is quite straightforward. It makes the case that, where there is a discharge from an emergency overflow, the undertaker must regularly assess the environmental health of that inland water within 500 metres downstream of the overflow. My noble friend then suggests that the methods used to make assessments under that subsection must include the use of fish counters or other methods of accurately monitoring the fish population. I accept that there may be a weakness here because, unless one knows what the fish count was before the overflow happened, it may be difficult to come to a conclusion as to the number of fish which should be in the river after the overflow has taken place. The undertaker must also prepare a report on the results of these assessments on a quarterly basis and submit it to the authority, and, after having done so, the undertaker must publish the report within 30 days. In addition, in accordance with everything else which has been said in debates tonight, the information must be in a form which helps the public to readily understand it, be published in a way which makes it readily accessible to the public, and be published in the undertaker’s name.

For those reasons, we on these Benches want to protect our rivers and restore the health of those rivers that have been seriously affected by pollution. Thanks to our efforts in government to drive up monitoring, 100% of emergency overflows are now monitored, and as such, we are able to access information about all emergency overflows that occur. This was a seriously transformative step forward compared with the situation we inherited in 2010 but we accept the need to go further, and we support better monitoring of both overflows and of the overall health of rivers themselves.

With the level of monitoring achieved under the Conservatives, it is now possible to learn far more about these incidents and therefore to take action to prevent them happening again. However, this does not mean that water companies are now taking enough responsibility to publish the results of this monitoring and to report their findings so that they can be held to account.

This amendment focuses on an area that the Bill does not address and ensures that the health of our rivers, not just the extent of pollution incidents, is a central component of the Bill. The inclusion of monitoring 500 metres down the river will give a real insight into the impact that an overflow is having on the overall health of a river over time. This monitoring will ensure that water companies cannot downplay the damage and leave the natural area to be ruined; instead, they will have to take a responsibility for a wider area that these emergency overflows can impact.

We on these Benches support this amendment in its intention to ensure that regular reporting is done so that the public are able to access up-to-date information on the overall health of our rivers beyond the immediate aftermath of any emergency overflow.

I know that many amendments in the previous group were related to monitoring of emergency overflows, and, although this amendment specifically relates to river health, I am sure there will be cross-party support for much of the previous group and for this amendment to ensure that water companies can be held publicly accountable for their action after emergency overflows.

I hope the Minister will take the concerns of my noble friend Lord Bethell as expressed in this amendment seriously and will consider it. Once again, we feel this is a timely opportunity to deliver a positive reform in the Bill today rather than waiting for the wider reform which the Government have proposed. I beg to move.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, for raising this important issue and tabling Amendment 52, and the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for moving it in his absence. I start by reassuring him that I always take the concerns expressed in this House very seriously. I think that we agree that understanding the impact of sewage discharges on the environmental health of rivers is vital.

Clause 3 requires water companies to provide information on the frequency and duration of discharges from emergency overflows. These measurements will enable regulators and the public to see, in near real time, when a discharge from an emergency overflow has occurred, and how long it lasted for. This will, in turn, enable resource to be directed to investigate the cause as well as the impact of a discharge, and will enable the regulators to take enforcement action if it is required.

However, this is just one measure that the Government will use to better understand the impact of sewage entering our waterways. New continuous water quality monitors will be installed at storm overflows from 2025 to continuously measure the impact of sewage discharges on the receiving watercourse. The information gathered from these monitors will be key in supporting fish populations. Requiring the installation of additional fish counters downstream of emergency overflows may require additional structures in the watercourse and may impose additional costs on water companies and their customers.

This does not appear to be proportionate, given that emergency overflows should be used on only very limited occasions. The Government will therefore not accept this amendment. However, I hope that I have been able to reassure the noble Lord that the Government are using this Bill to enable quicker action to be taken to investigate discharges from emergency overflows.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I thank the Minister for that response. I regret that she is not accepting the amendment but, if we accept her assurances that the monitoring of overflows will be thorough, that may negate the need for further monitoring downstream. I like to think that we will check the water further downstream than just within a short distance of the storm overflows, because what happens downstream is terribly important. I recall when the creamery at Appleby burst and flooded the River Eden. The damage was considerable for a couple of miles downstream. Checking what happens right beside the factory or the storm overflow is one thing, but it is important that we check downstream when the money allows. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Water (Special Measures) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hayman of Ullock and Lord Blencathra

Committee stage
Wednesday 30th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I first declare my interest as on the register. Since it seems to be de rigueur in the Committee tonight, I declare my wholehearted support for the controlled reintroduction of beavers into appropriate locations.

I thank the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for leading this group of amendments on improved monitoring and publication of data and I rise to speak to Amendment 48 in my name. First, I was rather impressed by the points on telemetry made by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington. We find in Natural England that the use of modern technology can replace hundreds of people on the ground trying to carry out inspections, and this sort of technology has to be the way to proceed.

It is important that the nature of emergency discharges is collected by water companies and is made available to the public and Parliament in an easily accessible format and location, as has been said by every noble Lord tonight. The damage of pollution caused by emergency overflows has become an issue of increasing concern to the public in recent years, and they deserve more information on how water companies are performing. It is sensible to require water companies to publish the extent of emergency discharges, as this data is indicative of the strain on our water sector and will provide valuable information as to what kind of infrastructure development is necessary to prevent overflows in the future.

We support the Government’s intention in this part of the Bill, but we feel the Government can go slightly further to ensure that the monitoring data is available to the public on the water company’s website. My Amendment 48 is a modest little amendment that would deliver that change. We on these Benches feel that this relatively small amendment would do a great deal of good in ensuring that consumers can access this information easily on the website of their own provider.

A number of noble Lords have moved amendments on monitoring and reporting. We are broadly satisfied with the Government’s measures to improve monitoring and reporting in the Bill, but we are also keen to see some movement from the Government in the direction of making this information more readily accessible to the public and have taken on board many of the points raised by other noble Lords tonight.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for the interest they have taken in this debate. I turn first to Amendment 43, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, Amendments 44 and 46, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, and Amendment 59, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington. The Government agree that it is vital to understand the causes and impact of sewage discharges, and agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, that this needs to be timely and accessible.

Clause 3 requires water companies to provide information on the frequency and duration of discharges from emergency overflows. This information will enable regulators and the public to see, in near real time, when a discharge from an emergency overflow has occurred, and how long it lasted for. This will enable resource to be directed to investigate the cause as well as the impact of a discharge, with a view to resolving any issues.

While the Government agree with the intention behind the amendments seeking to require companies to specify the volume of discharges in their publications, we do not see the value in doing so, as this would not provide the meaningful insights that we need about the actual impact a discharge has had. Monitors required to measure volume as well as concentration are also very costly to install and could delay the rollout of other monitors.

The volume from sewage discharges is measured through flow monitoring, and the installation of flow monitors would likely require construction projects to install them at the majority of emergency overflows, hence the large cost. This is because the pipework in emergency overflows would require modification for flow monitors to be able to record accurate measures of volume. Therefore, the Government do not believe the expected high costs are proportionate to the information we would get. With respect to the cause of discharges, it is not possible for companies to provide this information in near real time. This is because an investigation and site visit are often required to validate the cause.

Water (Special Measures) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hayman of Ullock and Lord Blencathra

Committee stage
Monday 28th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering for moving this important amendment, which has caused a little bit of welcome excitement in the Committee. Both Amendments 7 and 8 seek to ensure that senior executives do not receive a financial penalty for failures that were not their fault or within their control, and we on these Benches feel that the noble Baroness’s amendments merit consideration by Ministers. The intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, at the end also merits some consideration.

It is right that the Government should take steps to ensure that, when a water company fails to meet the standards set by Ofwat, the responsible executive is held to account. While it is right that company directors take responsibility for the successes and failures of a business, under the Bill, other senior officers, who may not be members of the board of directors, could be penalised under these rules. The argument that the relevant senior executive is held responsible, rather than an officer of the company who was not responsible for the decision, is a simple one. Rather than applying financial penalties to all senior executives, including those below board level, these rules should penalise only those who are responsible for the company’s conduct.

It is quite a long time since I last worked in industry, but I do not think that much has changed to this day. Who is responsible depends on the level of direct supervision by a more senior officer. At lower levels of a company, it is quite straightforward: the supervisor or the foreman has minute-by-minute relationships with the team under him or her, so they could be held responsible for faulty work or bad behaviour by their workers. But that is at the lower level. As you get higher up a company, the whole ethos changes. Executives are supposed to set objectives and delegate to their other officers how it is done. The CEO, or directors, tell officers under their command, “Here are your legal duties and these are the company objectives. Here are your own personal targets and objectives—report to me weekly, monthly or whatever on how you are progressing. Now, just get on with it”.

There is no direct day-to-day supervision, and the CEO has to trust that the senior officers below him or her obey the law, behave properly and do not cause the breaches that we are concerned about. It would be wrong to blame and reduce the pay of CEOs or directors based on a mistake by a person under him or her where they have no direct control. Of course, the exception would be in the extraordinary circumstances in which the CEO or executive director gave instructions to the worker to break the law or not to care about the rules. That would be a different matter.

Without these amendments, we are concerned that it may prove difficult to find professionals willing to take on senior roles at water companies if there is a risk they will suffer an unfair loss of performance-related earnings through no fault of their own. It is a basic principle of performance-based pay for employees below board level that it should be tied to their performance as an employee within a team. It would not be an effective incentive scheme if one individual or team were deprived of their performance-related benefits because of the behaviours of failures of another individual below board level. As we discussed at Second Reading, arbitrary punishment will not improve performance; it will only encourage people to seek employment outside the water sector.

If we are to deliver the improvements to the water sector that the British people rightly expect, we must attract more talent to the sector through a fair incentives and penalties regime. The Bill is a bit too broad and could permit rules to be applied to the sector by Ofwat that are unfair and ineffective. Furthermore, when a current bonus scheme, or contractual bonus, provides for the bonus to be payable on the achievement of certain performance conditions, and the performance conditions have been met, an employer is, in effect, obliged to award the bonus. In cases where an employer may grant discretionary bonuses, employers are required to exercise this discretion honestly and in good faith, not to exercise it in an arbitrary, capricious or irrational way, and not to breach the implied term of trust and confidence.

It concerns me that, should the Government choose not to include these amendments in the Bill, and individuals’ performance-related pay was docked for actions or responsibilities beyond their control or remit, it would put the employer in a position of complying with the requirements of rules created by Ofwat under this Bill but then acting contrary to these common-law and contractual requirements. That leads to a concern that this scenario could result in costly and time-consuming litigation, thus diverting funds which would otherwise be better spent improving our water and sewage systems. Therefore, I encourage the Government to accept these amendments so that, should a water company fail to meet the standards set by Ofwat, only the relevant executives are held responsible. However, if the Government are unwilling to put this on a statutory footing, we hope that Ofwat would be willing to enact these principles under its rules, which could be overseen by the House under Amendment 27 as an affirmative instrument.

I want to comment on the points made by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering on surface water. I put it this way: if we were starting again from scratch a couple of hundred years ago, we would have designed a system whereby we never had rainwater from gutters or car parks running off into Mr Bazalgette’s sewage system—but we are where we are now. In an ideal world, two pipes would come into every house and, as the noble Lord suggested earlier, one would have clean water for drinking and the other water for flushing the toilet or for hose pipes. We cannot go back and do that now—but what we can do is look at new developments, and I hope that the Government will consider the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, in that regard.

I understood that it is possible if one is building a car park, before one puts in the hardcore, to lay a whole series of ooze pipes and then collect all the rainwater run-off, so it replenishes the underground stream by putting the water back into the subsoil. That should be possible. Whatever it is, we need to look at new developments to ensure that surface water is not unnecessarily going into our sewage system. I hope that the Minister will carefully consider what my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering has said.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, through provisions introduced by Clause 1, Ofwat will be able to issue new rules on remuneration and governance to ensure that companies and executives are subject to robust oversight and held accountable for failure. Among other things, these rules will ensure that executives will no longer be able to take bonuses where companies fail to meet standards on environmental performance, financial resilience, customer outcomes or criminal liability.

Amendments 7 and 8, introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, seek to ensure that these rules apply only in instances where the failure to meet the required standards is due to a failing by that individual and not another person. I start by reassuring the noble Baroness that, should companies meet their performance expectations, executives will rightly be rewarded. However, the changes proposed through Amendment 7, in particular, would make it more difficult for Ofwat to implement the rules on remuneration and governance in a meaningful way. This is because it would introduce an additional test to be met before the bonus ban could be applied, where a link between the specific actions of an individual senior leader and the performance failings of a company as a whole might be difficult to demonstrate.

Senior executives are also collectively responsible for the actions of the company and therefore should be held responsible for poor performance. However, having said that, Ofwat has stated, in the policy consultation it published last week, that, while it intends for the rules to apply to most performance-related pay decisions by water companies,

“there may be … exceptional circumstances where a payment should not be prohibited”.

For example, if an incident leading to a rule breach was clearly and demonstrably beyond the control of the company, this could be grounds for an exemption from the ban.

Considering the changes proposed by Amendment 8, we also consider it unlikely that individuals in senior roles will fail to meet Ofwat’s future standards of “fitness and propriety” due to a failing on the part of another person. The potential criteria proposed by Ofwat in its consultation to measure “fitness and propriety” include character, previous conduct, and knowledge. These criteria are specific to the individual, rather than the performance of the company, and do not obviously relate to acts by other persons.

I just want to mention an issue that the debate moved on to, around drainage and SUDS. We are going to be discussing SUDS further in group 8, so we shall talk about that then, but I want to assure the noble Baroness that we are engaging with officials in MHCLG, because it is really important that we have a proper discussion around planning and drainage as we move forward with development. I am very aware of the problems that surface water can cause in new development if it is not thought through properly.

The noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, drew the Committee’s notice to the commission and asked whether it would be discussed there. I will draw the Committee’s attention, for interest, to part of the scope of the commission:

“Where housing, planning, agriculture and drainage interlink with strategic planning for the water system, these are in scope. ... The commission should have regard to how the water sector regulatory system provides the certainty around the provision of water infrastructure needed to underpin development plans, housing growth and sustainable development, while strategically protecting and enhancing the environment. This should include how regulation and planning for water infrastructure and for residential and commercial development can work together more effectively to anticipate and invest to provide for future growth, to quickly resolve and prevent issues where water and wastewater capacity constraints may otherwise inhibit necessary development (such as through their impact on requirements for water and nutrient neutrality)”.


So, although it is not entirely dealing with the issue around SUDS, I think it is something we need to explore further with the housing department, for example, and with local government. There is an opportunity to look at development and water within the scope of the commission. I hope that is helpful for noble Lords to understand.

I hope I have reassured the noble Baroness that the rules will be applied to individuals in a proportionate manner, and made clear why the Government consider these amendments to be unnecessary.

Environment and Climate Change Committee Report: An Extraordinary Challenge: Restoring 30 per cent of our Land and Sea by 2030

Debate between Baroness Hayman of Ullock and Lord Blencathra

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, in standing in for my noble friend Lord Roborough, who could not be present at the start of this debate, I must tell the Committee that the last time I clutched a Dispatch Box desperately seeking inspiration was Thursday 20 March 1997. I was the last Conservative Minister to answer a departmental Question at 3.15 pm, immediately followed by John Major answering his last PMQs, and then we prorogued for the general election. Some 28 years later I am an example of His Majesty’s policy of patching up and mending old things, and putting them to work again.

I need to declare my interests as on the register but to go further too. I remain for the next three months the deputy chair of Natural England. I have checked with the clerks and, while I can talk factually about nature, Natural England, this report and the last Government’s response, under the Addison rule I cannot speak officially for Natural England, nor answer questions about its activities or advocate its policies—only the Minister can do that. Because of my position in Natural England, I am automatically on the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, so I leave it to the Minister to say what a brilliant job we are doing in Natural England.

I welcome the Minister to her post. There is no one better on the Labour Benches in the Lords to do it, and she is an excellent addition to the Defra ministerial team.

I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and all the noble Lords who conducted the 30 by 30 inquiry, on their recommendations. I also commend the 16 noble Lords who have spoken today. They made excellent points, including in the superb speech by my noble friend Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, who is welcome to take this seat back any time he likes.

A lot has happened since the report was published in July 2023, and not just the change of Government. Noble Lords have read the last Government’s response, and in the changed circumstances I see no point in rehashing it all today. The report called for national parks to be given a new statutory duty to protect nature, and Section 245 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act imposed a new duty to do just that; I hope that my noble friend Lord Harlech will be reassured by that. As I recall, that was the Lord Randall amendment in the Lords.

The report called for local nature recovery strategies to be given statutory underpinning in local development plans. Schedule 7 to the levelling-up Act did that; I believe that was the Baroness Parminter amendment. On SSSIs, I say to my noble friend Lord Harlech that Natural England has now moved fully to assessing the condition of SSSI features at the site scale, and the focus is on bringing SSSI condition assessments up to date and in line with the EIP target to complete this by the end of January 2028—although that is highly dependent on not cutting Natural England’s grant in aid.

Natural England is also progressing the EIP target to have action under way and on track by January 2028, which will bring 50% of SSSI features into favourable condition. Natural England is continuing to look for improvements in the approach to monitoring —to make more use of modern technology, such as earth observation, to increase the contribution of participatory science, and to utilise condition assessments gathered by third parties, such as ENGOs, which my noble friend Lord Lucas called for—and we aim to grow that.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, that I have been involved in about six new SSSI designations or extensions. They may not be many in number but two were absolutely massive, including a large one down in west Cornwall—which was slightly controversial—and another large one near RAF Fairford and the waterworks around there.

The report underplays the role played by national nature reserves, which I argue are a legitimate component of other effective conservation measures. I submit that the country’s NNRs meet the OECM criteria defined in CBD 15 and in the Government’s nature recovery Green Paper. There are currently 221 national nature reserve sites, which comprise 110,000 hectares or 427 square miles. That is 0.85% of England’s area. Natural England manages 134, the Wildlife Trusts 50, the National Trust 20, local authorities 29 and the RSPB, National Parks, other NGOs and other government agencies 34.

Let me cite a superb example: the new, supersized Purbeck Heaths NNR announced in 2020. Seven organisations manage it: Natural England, the National Trust, the RSPB, the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust, the Dorset Wildlife Trust, Forestry England and the Rempstone Estate. The new NNR is larger than the original NNR, which was 996 hectares—it is now 3,331 hectares, a 234% increase. It is better, as it is increasing biodiversity and creating a more dynamic and resilient landscape, and it is more joined up, as it has a huge continuous grazing area and landscape-scale objectives.

Another excellent example is the Somerset Wetlands “super” NNR which links up six pre-existing national nature reserves on the Somerset Levels and Moors. It is managed in partnership by Natural England, the Environment Agency and five other NGOs. The crucial point is that some say NNRs should not be included in the OECM category nor count towards 30 by 30, since they are not statutorily protected—but that is a feeble point. These organisations are all approved by Natural England to manage reserves properly and bring about species recovery and conservation. Thus, I say to the Minister that they should be included as part of our 30 by 30 targets, since they may be managed by other effective means, as my noble friend Lord Lucas pointed out.

Finally on national nature reserves, paragraph 83 of the report said:

“We recommend that the Government enable and resource Natural England to develop and publicise accessible digital and offline tools and communications to enable members of the public to learn about and engage with their local protected areas”.


I agree entirely but, before doing so, we need to sort out proper online publicity for the 134 national nature reserves run by Natural England. I invite everyone, including the Minister, to search “visit a national nature reserve” on Google. Up will pop some very sexy sites with superb photos, but they are all from the National Trust, the RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts and NNRs run by similar organisations. Down that list somewhere will be a GOV.UK site called “National Nature Reserves in England”. Click on that and it will reveal 11 regional categories. Click on “North West NNRs” and it will reveal seven more categories. If the Minister clicks on “Cumbria”, that will list 37 NNRs—without a single map to help you. If she clicks on “Bassenthwaite Lake”, she will get this:

“The reserve is a shallow, balanced nutrient lake in the north-west of the Lake District. Main habitats: open water”.


To paraphrase Bob Geldof, is that it? It is the most beautiful landscape—after Ullswater and Blencathra, of course—and there is not a single photo of it, nor of any other national nature reserve, featured on GOV.UK. No wonder the NNRs managed by the other organisations have five times the visitor numbers. We all want people to access nature for the benefits it brings to health. I hope the Minister will have far more success than I have had over the last six years trying to get a dedicated site for national nature reserves, rather than buried in the bowels of GOV.UK.

The report, in paragraphs 73 to 75, urges the Government to prioritise working with the overseas territories. As the Minister will know, 94% of the United Kingdom’s biodiversity is not in Great Britain and Northern Ireland but in our 14 overseas territories, their unique islands and their 6.4 million square kilometres of ocean. The Darwin Plus scheme applies to our OTs.

I was the Minister way back at the first Earth Summit in 1992 in Rio, which launched the Darwin Initiative. I must admit, as a new, five week-old Environment Minister, I had not a clue what I was launching. I read the brief and had no idea how successful the scheme would turn out to be. Now, the Government have funded over 1,275 projects at a cost of £230 million, achieving both biodiversity conservation and multi- dimensional poverty reduction. Twelve years ago, I worked with our overseas territories for a few years and saw at first hand the splendid work the Joint Nature Conservation Committee did in our OTs and how the OTs desperately wanted more JNCC input, if only it could afford it.

Minister, it is an easy and impressive win for us in here in the United Kingdom to support the Blue Belt programme and the overseas territories biodiversity strategy being worked up at this precise moment by the JNCC and Defra. The JNCC has also done work on creating blue finance criteria, so that companies can invest in nature recovery projects in our United Kingdom’s oceans and our overseas territories’ seas and know that it is not genuine and not bluewashing.

The report made some very important recommendations on marine monitoring, and discussing all the implications could be a full day’s debate in itself. The last Government’s response pointed to the targets in the EIP and said that monitoring is very complex. Indeed it is. Natural England identified our marine protected areas in just 10 years. That was a splendid achievement, but identifying and designating them is one thing; managing them is another. All of us here can stand on a piece of land and have a fair idea of what it is, its condition and what we think we would like to do to improve it, but we can stand at the edge of the ocean and we have not got a clue what is happening under the surface. If we cannot measure it, we cannot manage it.

All I can say today is that I encourage the Government to step up all marine monitoring efforts, which are essential for biodiversity and carbon capture and form part of our 30 by 30 target. I agree entirely with my noble friend Lord Caithness, the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and my noble friend Lord Banner, on bottom trawling. I have been deeply involved in all this for the last six years and, as your Lordships know, I can bore for England—or Natural England—on it, but let me give some general observations and advice to the Minister, if I may be so impertinent.

Much of the Government’s growth talk has been about building houses, and more houses are urgently needed. I accept that not all so-called green-belt land is sacrosanct and there are poorer bits which can be built on, but genuine high-quality green belt must be protected. Growth and nature are not exclusive; they are complementary. If the Government build houses on grey belt land, they must ensure that there is green space right around them for gardens, space for nature and rewilding, tree-lined streets and not just a token little green park 15 minutes away. I agree with my noble friend Lord Gascoigne, who made that exact same point. Nature recovery is essential in our towns and cities, not just the countryside.

On the countryside, I appeal to the Minister to maintain the £2.4 billion expenditure on ELMS and innovation grants. Farmers are key to nature recovery, as well as producing the food we need.

My main disagreement with my noble friend Lord Banner is that, in my experience farmers excel with carrots rather than sticks. I hope the Government will take on board the points made about tenant farmers by my noble friends Lady Rock and Lady McIntosh of Pickering.

Also, Minister, please get the message across to all those doing big infrastructure projects to consult Defra’s arm’s-length bodies, including Natural England, at a very early stage to look at what protected species might be affected. Workarounds can then be done in the early stages, but if they wait until the bulldozers are about to demolish the bat roosts, the ancient woodlands or the Ramsar sites, then delays will occur—delays caused not by the intransigence of Defra’s arm’s-length bodies but by the law.

Over the last few years, the Forestry Commission, the Environment Agency and Natural England have liaised to increase co-operative working on the ground. That makes sense. If we are to deliver 30 by 30, then we have to work together. If, for example, we look at a river catchment area, the Environment Agency will have a view on river flows and dredging, the Forestry Commission will have a view on what trees should be planted on the banks or nearby and Natural England will have a view on what other flora and fauna, such as beavers or voles, could be present. By co-operating, we get the best possible solutions to reduce flooding, increase woodland and recover nature and wildlife, and that will help deliver 30 by 30. Working together would assist in removing the uncertainty that concerned the noble Earl, Lord Devon. My plea to the Minister is that all the Ministers, in the Commons and here, and the directorates in Defra collaborate in the way that the three ALBs I mentioned are collaborating on the ground at operational level.

As the Government look to create three new national forests and nine new river footpaths, deliver the best possible nature recovery programmes in ELMs and revise their EIP targets, can we ensure, for example, that the forests link in with existing SSSIs, national nature reserves or landscape recovery projects to create wildlife corridors which are more joined up and protected, as my noble friend Lord Gascoigne suggested? Our national forests could also be part of our 30 by 30 targets, as well as the ELM and landscape recovery schemes, provided they meet the criteria. The take-up of schemes for landscape recovery has been incredibly excellent and is beginning to make a real difference for nature recovery: that is farmers volunteering to farm for food and nature. A time may soon come when these could also be included in our 30 by 30 target, provided that they meet the quality thresholds.

Let me conclude on this note: the one area where the Government cannot blame the Tories—

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)]

Is there just one?

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

There is more than one, but one area is our Environment Act, which has given us the tools for nature recovery for the first time in our history. I invite all colleagues to look at Sections 98 to 116, which include “Biodiversity gain”, the “duty to conserve and enhance” nature, “Local nature recovery strategies”, “Species conservation strategies”, “Protected site strategies”, controlling tree felling and “Habitats Regulations”. Add in “Conservation Covenants” in Part 7 and the ELM schemes from the Agriculture Act and we have the greatest raft of measures for nature recovery that this country has ever seen. As nature recovers in those areas, then they can become protected and could qualify for 30 by 30. I suggest to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, that these powers are better than the new commission she suggested, but I do wish her a speedy recovery for her trusty right boot, provided it is not used on me.

Indeed, the Labour manifesto, on page 58, calls it “our Environment Ac.t” I did not expect it to say, “Michael Gove’s brilliant Environment Act”, but what I take from that wording is that they will tweak the EIP targets and tweak some other things, but they will not undermine the excellent new levers in our Environment Act. Let us use every lever in that Act, not just to bend the curve on nature loss, but to achieve real, sustained and progressive recovery of nature in this country.

Building Safety Bill

Debate between Baroness Hayman of Ullock and Lord Blencathra

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 26th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the constructive amendments that the Government have tabled at this stage and for listening to the noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Blencathra, who have been very helpful during the passage of the Bill. However, there are still concerns outstanding, as has just been said, so I will speak now to my Motion H1 as an amendment to Motion H.

We on these Benches have consistently argued that all leaseholders should be protected from the cost of remediating historical cladding and non-cladding defects and the associated secondary costs, irrespective of circumstance. Although we fully acknowledge that the waterfall system set out in Schedule 8 provides leaseholders with a far greater deal of protection than was proposed when the Bill first came to us, when it was originally drafted, it does not protect all of them fully. Just as importantly, the Bill does not provide redress for the countless blameless leaseholders across the country who have already been hit with huge bills and have paid out significant sums as a result.

That is why I have tabled Motion H1 to reduce leaseholder contributions to a maximum of £250. I am aware that the Government have said that leaseholder contributions are fair in principle because they will apply in only a very limited number of cases. The Minister has said that leaseholders will pay up to the cap or a proportion of the cap in only a minority of circumstances. However, if it is only a very small number of cases that we are talking about, why are the Government so reluctant to provide proper and full support? For many people, £15,000, or £10,000 as the cap currently stands, is simply an impossible sum to find.

Leaseholders have refused to give up. They recognise more than anyone that the situation they face is simply not fair, and your Lordships’ House recognised that by supporting the amendment that I tabled on Report. I ask for noble Lords’ continued support in agreeing Motion H1 and, in so doing, to acknowledge the determination and persistence of the leaseholders and cladding groups that have been pressing for redress in this matter.

In sticking rigidly to the position that a minority of leaseholders will have to pay sums that, although capped, are still significant, in order to resolve a scandal that they played no part in causing, we believe that the Government are not acting equitably and will not ensure that the most vulnerable leaseholders will be protected. Our Motion H1 would provide such protection. If the Minister is unable to accept it, we will seek to divide the House, with a view to ensuring that all leaseholders are fully protected.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to the House for missing the first two minutes of my noble friend’s magnum opus; the last business went slightly faster than I had anticipated. I declare a personal interest as a leaseholder in a block of flats that may contain some non-cladding works that may require remedial treatment.

I have to praise my noble friend the Minister yet again for the tremendous changes that have been made to the Bill since it came from the other place. I also congratulate my right honourable friend Michael Gove on forcing all the big building companies to sign up, including bringing the Galliard Homes horse kicking and neighing to the water, although he will need to ensure that it and the other companies actually drink the water—they will throw millions at lawyers to weasel out of what they have signed up to.

I am told that the owner of Galliard Homes, Stephen Conway, has accused Michael Gove of acting like Al Capone and the mafia. My respect for young Gove increases by the minute. Conway had an estimated worth of £270 million in 2015; imagine what he is worth now. It seems to me that the owners of the big building companies have made their billions by being a bit more ruthless mafiosi than Michael Gove ever was. However, that is for another day.

Despite the excellent progress on the Bill, there are still some gaps. I regret that we do not have anything specific in the Bill protecting enfranchised leaseholders. All Governments have encouraged leaseholders to buy out the freehold. Those who have done so are still exactly the same as other leaseholders who have not, and they should get the same protection. I welcome the consultation but I hope it is speedy, and I hope that, if legislation is necessary or this can be done by regulation, that is brought in as quickly as possible.

I acknowledge that the Government have increased the number of properties qualified under buy to let, but in my opinion they have not gone far enough. As a small buy-to-let owner said to me, why does the Bill support with cost-capping a billionaire oligarch non-dom with two buy-to-let leasehold flats in Mayfair, valued at millions, yet leave completely exposed a pensioner buy-to-let leaseholder with a small portfolio of just four flats? These people are not big landlords. Although nothing can be done in this Bill now, I hope something can be done in future.

Nor am I happy that we are planning to reject buildings under 11 metres. They may not be as big a risk but they are unsellable. When an estate agent or lawyer tells prospective buyers that the flat they have looked at has some dangerous cladding—but not to worry because you will probably get out in time if it burns down—I do not think that they will find many buyers. These flats are simply unsellable.

Finally, I disagree with the removal of “zero”, and like the Opposition’s amendment of £250. I do not accept that the government caps set a proportionate balance, as was said in the other place by my right honourable friend Stuart Andrew MP, who was also an excellent Deputy Chief Whip in his time. As Michael Gove said, no leaseholders should pay a penny for any remediation works. We heard impeccable legal advice in this House from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and a former Supreme Court Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, saying that making leaseholders pay in order to avoid an ECHR challenge was misguided and wrong. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, said, the challenge will happen in any case, no matter what level the Government set the cap at, and those building companies will try it on.

If Motion H1 succeeds today, I do not want the Government in the other place to take on the role of the wonderful Ukrainian Snake Island defender, Roman Grybov, who offered sexual advice to the Russian warship. We are not the “Moscow”, and I hope that the Government will bring forward a compromise amendment, perhaps higher than £250 but much lower than the government caps.

With those quibbles, I wish to congratulate my noble friend yet again on the massive progress he has made with this measure. “One more heave”, as Jeremy Thorpe said in 1974—but hopefully with a bit more success.

Building Safety Bill

Debate between Baroness Hayman of Ullock and Lord Blencathra

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, briefly, I wish to support the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, in his amendment on retention. I am not sure whether this is the right Bill for it but there is a problem that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. My only experience of it—I think it was a form of retention—was many years ago, in the early 1990s, when I had a derelict farmhouse and barns done up in Cumbria. About half way through the job, I said to the electrician, “You must be making a pretty penny out of this.” “Some hope”, he said, “it’ll be next year before I get paid and I’m fourth down the line.” I asked what he meant by that. He said, “The contractor said I’ll get paid for your job only when I have bid for three others and done them. Once I finish the third one, then they’ll pay me for yours.” I was appalled but he said, “Oh, that’s standard practice in the trade, guv, nothing we can do about it.”

I do not know whether that is standard practice in the trade, or whether it actually is retention, but it is a racket that ought not to continue. I hope that, at some time in the future—in some other legislation if not in this Bill—my noble friend the Minister will be able to crack down on that sort of racket. I know that there are views on both sides of this issue but it is not right at all because there are safety implications. The electrician was to get paid for the job he did for me only if he went in at a rock-bottom price to win three other jobs. That is a safety issue.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, turning first to Amendment 1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, we agree that longer-term protections for residents’ safety are absolutely critical. His amendment also raises the importance of how we manage longer-term protections relating to fire safety.

Look at the government cuts to the fire service. Between 2010 and 2016, the Government cut central funding to fire and rescue services by 28% in real terms. In 2020, that was followed by a further cut of 15%. If the Government are really serious about tackling fire safety—there is a lot of good stuff in this Bill—they need to look at reversing those cuts to our fire safety organisations to make sure that they have the proper support they need to do the job that needs to be done.

Turning to Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, I assure him that, in principle, we support what he is trying to achieve. The issues that he raises are important. Health and well-being need to be considered in a lot of our legislation and we too often overlook it. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, introduced his Amendment 7 very ably, as he always does, and we certainly support in principle what he is trying to achieve with it. We have every sympathy with many of his practical suggestions for what could be done to improve things in this area.

Amendment 8, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, which he just clearly introduced, is particularly important given the areas that it includes and to which he referred. We had a long debate in Committee on the importance of the safety of staircases and making sure that the minimum standards are properly applied. We heard from many noble Lords about the RoSPA campaign and the number of people who die falling down staircases. This is an opportunity to do something about that.

We also had much debate in Committee on electrical certification and the importance of the safety of electricity systems. It is important that this also includes provision for disabilities. I am aware that the Government have introduced amendments on disabilities, but this is another opportunity to support that.

It is important that we have an amendment that looks at timely intervention—timely action—on safety issues. Grenfell was not the first time in recent years that a fire in a high-rise block of flats resulted in loss of life. In 2013, coroners wrote to Ministers about two separate fires: first, Lakanal House in Camberwell in 2009, in which six people died, and then Shirley Towers in Southampton in 2010, in which two firefighters died. The coroner’s letters included clear points of criticism and recommendations, which were not acted on. These also included retrofitting sprinklers into high-rise social housing blocks. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, includes the importance of sprinklers. The Lakanal House fire involved high-pressure laminate cladding, but that was not ordered to be removed from buildings until 2019—between 2009 and 2019 is 10 years.

It is important that when coroners, for example, or anyone who understands the safety of buildings writes to Ministers about genuine and serious concerns with actions that need to be taken, these are acted on in a timely way. That is why we strongly support Amendment 8, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell and, if he decides to divide the House on it, we will support him.