Agriculture Bill

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st July 2020 Lords Chamber

This is a crucial set of amendments. I very much hope that the Government acknowledge that this must be part of the Agriculture Bill. This is what agriculture is about, as well as those crucial aspects of land management and public goods. Food security is a public good. Food health is a public good. I hope that we see this Bill become an Act that incorporates those elements.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 160 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and Amendments 164 and 167 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hain. Along with farmers’ leaders in Wales and many noble Lords who have spoken today, I very much welcome the inclusion of Clause 17. The duty upon the Secretary of State to prepare a report on the UK’s food security is welcome. However, I share their concerns about the frequency of the reporting requirement and have questions about the purpose of the report. I am sure that when the Government initially drafted this clause, they did not dream of the situation we are now in and the challenges to our food security that we face in the short and the longer term.

The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown into sharp focus the fragility of our supply chains and their susceptibility to disruption, and we face the challenge of preparing for a possible second wave of the virus. The increasing inevitability of the negotiations around our future trading relationship with the EU coming to an abrupt halt without a favourable trade deal at the end of the transition period raises real concerns over the possible disruption of food supply chains at our borders. Also, the impact of climate change on global food availability will increasingly demand our attention. These three challenges and others could present the Government with problems. They need to demonstrate that they have responses to events such as these and can deal with them with confidence and agility, but I am afraid that on two counts, Clause 17 fails to allow for that.

As I highlighted at Second Reading, there is merely a requirement for the Secretary of State to lay a report before Parliament

“containing an analysis of statistical data”.

But what then? There is nothing in this clause to require the UK Government or the Welsh Government to publish a report and to act in response to its findings. We will have data, of course, but how will it be used?

The second weakness in this clause lies, of course, in the inadequacy of the reporting frequency, and I support those who have their names to Amendment 160 in their call for the first report to be prepared within 12 months of the Act passing, to be followed every three years thereafter by similar reports.

The Government’s intention to lay a report every five years appears to border on complacency, when we are still learning lessons from the present pandemic; we are still waiting for the Government to show how they will avoid chaos at our borders and the climate change crisis moves ever closer. But perhaps I am being unfair in accusing the Government of complacency. As I said earlier, this clause was written before the pandemic struck, and I am conscious that I speak with the benefit of hindsight, but I hope it illustrates the need for agility when emergencies arise, the need for up-to-date information to aid decision-making and—as the Prime Minister said at the weekend—the need to prepare for the worst. It would be interesting to hear the Minister outline the Government’s view of how they envisage the information the report would contain would be used to improve food security.

I turn briefly to the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hain—Amendment 164, to which I have added my name, and Amendment 167. I support both of them. They highlight the need for co-operation and consultation between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations in the production of a food security report. The suggestion was made to the Senedd’s scrutiny committee that the Welsh Government should be

“included in the methodology planning for the report so that Welsh (and other Devolved Administrations) are able to extrapolate their own data to inform future policy making”.

I welcome the co-operative approach taken by the Minister and the Welsh Minister in securing the recognition of devolved competence throughout this Bill, and hope the noble Lord will assure me that the role and responsibility of the Welsh Government, in the production of a food security report, will be recognised as well.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb [V]]

My Lords, I will keep my remarks short. I have signed only two of the amendments in this group, 162 and 171. In fact, they all improve the Government’s reporting and planning provisions. A regular comprehensive food report setting out targets and action plans would help the country move towards a resilient, flourishing and sustainable food system.

Agriculture Bill

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 16th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Curry of Kirkharle [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 197, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and to Amendment 207, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and others. I very much welcome Clause 27. The Government’s commitment to include fair dealing within supply chains in the Bill is important and much needed.

I speak as someone who established a reasonably successful agricultural co-operative to market livestock, finished beef cattle and lambs, during the 1990s, so I am only too well aware of pressures in food supply chains. I still have the scars. Clause 27 goes into a huge amount of detail on how fair dealing obligations will be applied. That is welcome. For far too long, insufficient information has been available on input costs and benchmarks on which to base sensible modern contractual arrangements.

As has already been said, when pressure is applied to supply chains, the primary producer is, ultimately, the fall guy and the weak link in the chain. The buck stops there. So, however welcome the provision is, I am concerned because, in this part of the Bill, the Government are particularly vague about the location of the administration of the function. Like others who have spoken, I think I understand why. I am aware that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is reluctant to expand the scope of the Groceries Code Adjudicator.

As the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady McIntosh, have said, under the current chair, Christine Tacon, the office of the adjudicator has been established with huge credibility and influence. It is the logical home for this function, and I would encourage the Minister, in negotiations with his colleagues in BEIS, to persist in trying to achieve that outcome. There is no other logical place, even if we consider the RPA, with the experience for the function to be sited there. A new chair of the Groceries Code Adjudicator will be appointed later this year, when the current chair steps down, and that will present an opportunity to review and expand its remit. I support the amendments.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 197, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and I thank him for his detailed approach in introducing the amendments. This amendment to Clause 27 provides the opportunity to look again at the remit of the Groceries Code Adjudicator, and to examine whether it could be extended to include responsibility for overseeing fair dealing obligations in relation to farmers and producers. More importantly, perhaps, the amendment also provides an opportunity for the Government to explain and expound on their position.

Since the adjudicator’s role was established in 2013, there have been calls from farming unions in Wales and the rest of the UK to address fairness in this part of the supply chain by bringing the sector into her remit. Clause 27 allows the Secretary of State to impose new fair dealing regulations and to provide for enforcing those regulations, and allows

“complaints relating to … non-compliance to be referred to a specified person”—

in effect, creating a new body under a new leader.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in the other place recommended that the adjudicator is

“a more logical entity to oversee fair dealing obligations”,

and it could

“see no reason why fairness in the food supply chain should be governed by two separate processes and enforcement bodies.”

In Wales, the Senedd’s Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee agreed with the sentiments of the Farmers Union of Wales and the Tenant Farmers Association Cymru, which expressed concern that the Government were not seeking to achieve the desired outcomes of Clause 27 by expanding the role of the adjudicator.

In their response to the EFRA Committee’s report, the Government said that

“no final decisions have been taken about the body that would oversee and enforce the new codes of practice”,

although their positive comments about the potential role of the Rural Payments Agency seemed to point in its direction. The Government do, however, rule out a role for the adjudicator, referring to the call for evidence in 2016-17, when they concluded that they would not extend the adjudicator’s remit to indirect suppliers, because

“there was insufficient evidence of a market failure across the supply chain to justify a major government intervention”.

It appears, however, that circumstances have changed somewhat in the intervening three or four years, and the Government themselves have now recognised that there is now a need for further regulations—hence Clause 27. It seems illogical that the new regulations should lead to the creation of a new body when a person and a body that operate in that field, and have the necessary expertise, already exist.

If, as they say, the Government have not made a final decision, my hope is that in the promised industry consultation they will be open-minded, and that the option of the new role being incorporated into the functions of the adjudicator will be included in that consultation. In the meantime, I would be grateful if the Minister could provide some clarity about the Government’s thinking and tell us, in particular, whether they consider a completely new body to be desirable, and how they view the relative merits of the Rural Payments Agency and the Groceries Code Adjudicator in relation to the new regulations. I support the amendment, and look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

Agriculture Bill

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 10th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Humphreys (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for outlining the provisions as they apply to Wales in this Bill. I very much welcome the inclusion of Schedule 5 on Wales, which provides Welsh Ministers with the powers to provide for the continuation of direct payments to farmers after 2020, giving some security to our farmers in these difficult times. As the Welsh Government intend to introduce an Agriculture (Wales) Bill, expected after next year’s Senedd elections, these are transitional powers, with a sunset clause of 31 December 2024, allowing for consultations with interested parties and the production of a White Paper. Again, I welcome that decision

Agriculture is of course a devolved matter, and this Bill covers areas where the Senedd believes it has competence, particularly in relation to the WTO agreements on agriculture, but which the UK Government believe are reserved. I would be grateful if the noble Lord could update us on the present position of both parties on this issue. Will an LCM be required, or will the matter be resolved through a bilateral agreement? If the latter, can the noble Lord say how such an agreement would operate, and confirm whether either way forward has received Senedd approval?

Farmers in Wales have welcomed the inclusion of food security in the Bill and, in particular, the duty placed on the Secretary of State to lay a report before Parliament

“at least once every five years”.

They were, however, concerned about the frequency of the reporting requirement. In their evidence to the Senedd’s Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee, leaders expressed concerns that a five-year cycle would not

“sufficiently reflect the food security risk to the UK”,

and that the period would be too long,

“particularly through a transition period that could prove to be challenging.”

The lack of a requirement on the UK and Welsh Governments to publish a response and to take action as appropriate was also seen as a deficiency in the Bill. These are issues, along with the inclusion of the devolved Administrations in the methodology planning for the report, that I hope we can discuss in more detail in Committee.

The CCERA committee report also highlights the concerns of farmers’ leaders in the matter of fair dealing with agricultural producers and others in the supply chain. Clause 27 of the Bill is aimed at addressing unfair practices in agri-food supply chains, which disadvantage small, individual businesses operating without strong links between them. The discretionary powers that this clause gives the Secretary of State were queried and a strong, alternative case was made for extending the powers of the Groceries Code Adjudicator in relation to fair dealing with agricultural producers along the whole supply chain. Have the Government given any consideration to this or discussed this alternative with the Welsh Government?

In the matter of identification and traceability of animals, broadly welcomed by farmers, can the noble Lord say whether it is indeed the case that the new multispecies livestock information system will be run by what is essentially the present Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board? If so, how will this UK board, operating in a devolved policy area, be accountable to the Welsh Government? Finally, what steps will be taken to ensure compatibility between the new livestock information system and the Welsh electronic IDCymru system?

Rural Economy (Rural Economy Committee Report)

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to our chair, clerks, advisers, the expert witnesses who appeared before us—and especially to the community members who hosted our committee’s visits. Mainly, however, I thank my fellow Peers for their collegiality on the committee.

Like our chairman and others who sat on the committee, I am disappointed that the Government have declined to accept our recommendation that they initiate a rural strategy to outline the future they see for rural communities. As committee members and advisers analysed our evidence-taking sessions and examined documents we had received, we concluded that the Government’s present reliance on policy priorities leads to inconsistencies in delivery as current priorities are inevitably replaced by others.

Calling for a government strategy is, I believe, appropriate. We set out our definition of such a strategy as,

“an over-arching framework document which would set out the Government’s vision, aim and objectives over a multi-year period”.

Such an approach would allow government departments to feed into the framework and, crucially, would provide the long-term certainty that our rural areas need.

I will highlight three issues. The first has already been referred to by our chair. One of the most common complaints we heard in our witness sessions was the lack of consistency in the quality of the rural-proofing process at both government and local levels. This was highlighted for me when, earlier this year, I paid a visit to Bishop’s Castle in Shropshire and was fortunate to meet the pupils and staff of the community college there. The college is a highly successful rural LEA secondary school situated in the idyllic countryside of the Long Mynd in the south of the county. Last year it was failed, probably as a result of the law of unintended consequences. Nevertheless, it was failed.

Since the 2014-15 financial year, the college had received sparsity funding of £100,000 per annum, the maximum allocation available, but for the 2018-19 financial year changes to the funding formula were introduced. The maximum allowance was reduced to £60,000 per annum, and schools with more than 300 pupils on roll suddenly found that this was to be reduced on a falling pro rata basis. The consequence was that the school’s allowance was reduced by £66,200 to £33,800—a massive drop in income for a school of this size. In the words of the head teacher, “the formula just doesn’t support rural schools”. So much for rural-proofing. It also begs the question: what is the Government’s strategy for rural schools? How do they ensure that policies or formulae that support rural schools cannot be changed to the detriment of the very schools they were designed to help?

My membership of your Lordships’ Rural Economy Select Committee coincided with news of the closure of the last bank in the small market town where I live, and it became obvious that access to cash would be a burning issue for our rural community in north Wales, as it is for many communities throughout the UK. It is an issue that the committee took very seriously. Throughout the UK, many of our shops, cafés and other businesses still deal only in cash, and many people prefer to use cash for small transactions. Indeed, there are up to 1.2 million people in the UK who do not have access to a bank account.

Access to cash is only one side of the coin: cash circulating in a community needs to be deposited by businesses. The Post Office, as it has done in many communities, has stepped in to fill the gap. I certainly welcome the co-operation between the Post Office and the UK high street banks, which led to the establishment of the banking framework in 2017 and which has enabled customers to carry out day-to-day banking at Post Office branches. I welcome their commitment to banking framework 2, which will see a significant increase in the fees paid to the Post Office by banks for processing transactions.

The coalition Government began a programme to maintain and modernise the Post Office network in 2010 and I welcome and acknowledge the £2 billion that Governments have committed since then, but could the Minister assure me that there will be continued government investment in the maintenance and modernisation of the network? What strategy are the Government intending to put into place to ensure the future of post offices in our rural areas?

As a committee, and as individuals within it, we are very aware of the problems of loneliness and social isolation in rural areas. I was particularly impressed by the scheme we heard about when we visited Fownhope in Herefordshire. Its compassionate community scheme has 18 companions, who make weekly or fortnightly visits to those who need company and support, based on referrals from the local medical centre. These visits help reduce hospital visits, encourage sociability and combat isolation.

One of the major contributary factors to rural social isolation is the worsening situation regarding rural transport. Indeed, in many areas the rural transport system has virtually collapsed. The system in Wales is no exception. Rural areas throughout the UK have similar problems, but devolution allows the devolved Administrations to tackle problems in a different way or at different paces.

Earlier this year, the Welsh Transport Minister announced £1 million of funding for pilot projects that, together with Transport for Wales, will test innovative forms of demand-responsive bus travel across Wales. Conwy County Borough Council, where I live, was one of the three project winners and the county will stage a three-year trial based on the Conwy valley area, aiming to give those who live in a six-mile radius of Llanrwst, our market town, access to all our facilities. It is an exciting project that, if successful, will see demand-responsive transport available to everyone, whatever their age, free for those with bus passes and £1 per journey for others.

The Chancellor’s recent infrastructure funding announcement that a national bus strategy will be initiated in England begs the question: why cannot the rural element of that strategy for buses contribute towards a rural strategy framework document covering all the issues that the committee has raised?

Flood Defences

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, although the noble Baroness’s Question asks about the Government’s plans for adequate flood defences in the UK, I hope that she will allow me to turn my attention to the situation in my part of Wales, for which the Welsh Government have responsibility—although, of course, they are restricted by the Barnett settlement in the amount of funding that they receive from the UK Government. I am sure that the Minister takes an active interest in flood defences throughout the UK, including Wales.

I shall give some explanation of my interest in this debate. My interest, like that of many noble Lords, comes from where I live. I live in north Wales in the Conwy Valley, through which the Conwy river flows. The river has its source in Lake Conwy, in the area surrounded by the Migneint and Berwyn mountains, and flows into the sea at Conwy. The river and its name, as noble Lords can no doubt imagine, sometimes dominate our lives.

The small town in which I live, Llanrwst, sits at one of the narrowest points of the river and has an almost iconic status within Wales as the town that is always affected by floods. Year after year, newspaper and television reports have shown the damage to properties and the devastation to the lives of some of our inhabitants. Comparatively recent floods in 2004 and 2005, where there were three flood events within two years, left over 60 properties flooded, some of which flooded twice in a matter of days, leaving householders unable to sell their properties or arrange future insurance cover.

I am among the first to criticise the Welsh Government for their failures but I am also among the first to praise them when the occasion allows, and this is such an occasion. The work begun by the then Environment Minister for Wales, Jane Davidson, and Environment Agency Wales, is now beginning to come to fruition and, hopefully, the residents of our town can have more confidence in being able to withstand the powers of future floods. I offer these descriptions as examples of actions that Governments can take.

Over the intervening years since 2005, the Welsh Government have put schemes in place to alleviate the floods. Although they are designated as flood alleviation schemes, they can also be described as providing flood defences for the town. A £3.2 million major engineering scheme—85% funded by the Welsh Government, with the remaining 15% funded by Conwy County Borough Council—saw tunnelling work carried out under our streets and the construction of a massive culvert. Flood gates now automatically open when the floodwater rises. The water is stored under our streets until the river level begins to drop and the gates again open to allow the water to flow back into the river. One of the characteristics of the River Conwy is that it is tidal from its mouth at the Irish Sea to about two or three miles north at Llanrwst. When a high tide is coming up river and meets the torrential floodwaters making their way down from the mountains, our town becomes the pinchpoint.

The Conwy Valley is primarily rural and one of our major industries is agriculture. Over the years, flood banks have been constructed alongside the river, leaving the rich soil of the flood plains to be grazed, or cultivated by farmers. This added to our problems, narrowing the river channel and increasing the pressure of both flood and tidal waters and increasing the speed with which they met.

In a further £7 million scheme, funded by European objective 1 funding, a Welsh Government block grant and Environment Agency Wales’s flood defence budget, other steps have been taken to deal with the problem. In very sensitive talks with local agricultural representatives and farmers, agreement, with compensation, was reached to reduce the height of the flood banks, allowing 450 acres of low-lying land to be flooded and allowing the flood plains to do the work that they should have been doing over the years. Further flood banks were then constructed at the next village down river, Trefriw, in order to protect homes there. Perhaps I should add here a comment and warning that flood defences in one particular location can have a knock-on effect on other locations further down river.

All these measures have proved successful and following the latest flood event in the valley in January 2013, when 95 millimetres of rain fell in two days and the volume of water was equal to that of 2005, a spokesperson for Environment Agency Wales said:

“Homes in Llanrwst and Trefriw were protected as a result of the flood scheme completed in 2010 … We have seen unprecedented levels of rainfall in 2012 and it is testament to this initiative and the hard work of our officers that the defences held up to safeguard properties in Llanrwst and Trefriw“.

In another part of the £7 million scheme, Dutchdam and Bauer demountable defences were selected and purchased to protect the most vulnerable properties, if all the other measures fail. These barriers can be erected quickly, which is essential for use in an area where the river rises quickly and where there can be a relatively short warning period. Mercifully, there has been no need for these barriers yet, but, as others who live close to rivers will testify, one can never be certain.

Work has recently been completed to protect a further 42 properties close to one of the small tributaries which flows through the town and is liable to flood estates as the water backs up and tries to join the fast-flowing and more powerful River Conwy. This scheme, again funded by the Welsh Government and following a plan developed by Conwy County Borough Council, aims to increase the capacity of the existing watercourse by raising flood walls, realigning and increasing the size of culvert inlets and replacing trash screens.

Those of us who live in close proximity to water have a healthy regard for its power, force and unpredictability and would never be foolish enough to say that such schemes are guaranteed to make flooding a thing of the past. We all understand that each river and each incident of flooding has its own characteristics and a solution achieved in one location will not necessarily apply to another location, but our experience in the Conwy Valley shows that innovative thinking and creative engineering can make a difference.

Water Bill

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Humphreys]

165B: After Clause 75, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to provide sewers
In section 101A of the Water Industry Act 1991, in subsection (2)(a) for “on which there are buildings” substitute “with permanent use and generating domestic effluent”.”

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to move this amendment and, in so doing, refer noble Lords to the interest I have already declared as a trustee of the Crafnant Trust. The trust has responsibility for Lake Crafnant, a small reservoir in north Wales.

The amendment seeks to clarify the definition of duty properties as they appear in Section 101A of the Water Industry Act 1991 where an application is being made to connect premises to sewerage for the first time, and seeks to define “duty properties” as premises,

“with permanent use and generating domestic effluent”.

The Water Industry Act 1991 brought in a duty on water companies to provide a sewerage connection where the current arrangements were causing environmental problems, if that was the cheapest overall solution to the problem. Section 101A(1) of the Act states that,

“it shall be the duty of a sewerage undertaker to provide a public sewer to be used for the drainage for domestic sewerage purposes of premises in a particular locality in its area”.

Section 101A(2)(a) further defines the use of the word “premises” as,

“the premises in question, or any of those premises, are premises on which there are buildings”.

It is the use of the word “buildings” that has become problematic for some local authorities and a strict interpretation of the word has given rise to some environmental problems—problems that have caused conflict with the duties of local authorities under the Government’s own guidance, Planning Policy for Traveller Sites, issued in 2012. Under this guidance, local planning authorities are advised that they must have,

“due regard to the protection of local amenity and local environment”,

and that sites should be,

“sustainable economically, socially and environmentally”.

Chesterton Fen in south Cambridgeshire is a case in point, where conflict has been seen between the 1991 Act and the Government’s planning policy. The Traveller site there has full planning permission and the caravan count in January of this year showed that there were 261 caravans on the Chesterton Fen Road site but, because very few of the premises there are “buildings”, none of these is connected to a main sewer and the owners have each had to make their own arrangements for sewage disposal such as small package treatment plants, cesspits and septic tanks leading to soakaways. The development there is close to the River Cam and, because the development is dense and low, there can be environmental problems. I am told that lagoons close to the banks of the river can become less than sweet smelling at all times of the year.

Local councillors petitioned Anglian Water in September 2007 to investigate whether it had a duty to provide a mains sewerage connection but Anglian Water turned the request down in 2009 and an appeal was lost in June 2011. The judgment hinged on the number of properties in the area for which the water company had a duty to provide this service under the Act. In short, most of the Travellers’ caravans or day rooms did not count, so although there are more than 250 caravan plots in the area, only 30 duty properties—houses and a few substantial mobile homes—were considered, and the economic argument was then that it was cheaper for these 30 to provide cesspits for themselves than to lay on a sewer. If all the caravans had counted as buildings, there is no question but that the water authority would have had to provide a sewer. After all, it is impossible to imagine permission being given for an estate of 250 houses without access to sewerage being part of that permission. Therefore, the whole issue revolves around the use of the word “buildings” and the lack of guidance around its definition. Many applications and appeals have had to resort to the definition provided under building regulations guidance, which is why successive applications and appeals have failed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for raising an issue which is clearly of no small importance to any community affected. Section 101A relates to a “Further duty to provide sewers” to relieve environmental and amenity issues caused by inadequate sewerage. This section applies to “premises” and “buildings” and the amendment seeks to change that to make the duty apply to structures which may not currently be considered buildings for the purposes of this duty.

In the case of Traveller sites, such as the one she referred to at Chesterton Fen near Cambridge, when considering an appeal in respect of a decision not to provide a sewer under Section 101A, the Environment Agency will look at the case for each individual caravan on the basis of its size, permanence and degree of physical attachment to the land. To vary the definition in this section would potentially have far-ranging and unintended consequences. We feel that the best route is to meet my noble friends to discuss their concerns further. On that basis, I hope that she will be prepared to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Humphreys]

I thank my noble friend for her reply. Given the degree of reassurance she has given me, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 165B withdrawn.

Water Bill

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a trustee of the Crafnant Trust, which has responsibility for Lake Crafnant—a small reservoir above the Conwy valley in north Wales which I do not own.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate and to note that, although the Bill applies to both England and Wales, it gives Welsh Ministers powers in relation to the whole area served by water and sewerage undertakers,

“wholly or mainly in Wales”.

I would not presume or dare to speak on behalf of the Welsh Government, but I believe that they would not wish to follow the direction outlined by the Westminster Government, whom they consider to be,

“overly dependent on competition within the water supply system”.

That is their right under powers devolved to them, but I also welcome the fact that, if enacted as currently drafted, the Bill will enable Ministers in future Welsh Governments to introduce competition if they so wish.

I was pleased to hear the noble Lord speak about the work of Dwr Cymru, and perhaps here I should also declare an interest as a customer. There is a belief that in Glas Cymru we have a framework and a supply system that work for the people of Wales. Glas Cymru is a not-for-profit organisation with no shareholders. It has brought investment into the system and reduced bills, and it is perhaps a model that should be emulated.

I welcome the attempts in the Bill to help those in areas at high risk of flooding to secure affordable insurance. However, as I understand it and as other noble Lords have highlighted, there are some concerns about the provisions that apply only to those in domestic properties. I am sure we can all think of examples of flooding in our areas where homes may have been affected but so, too, have the business premises next door. Perhaps my noble friend could place on the record, for interested parties, the reasons why small businesses will not be treated in the same way. As I said, I welcome these changes as far as they go, but changing the insurance regime in isolation is surely dealing with only one side of the coin. I hope that your Lordships will allow me to deal with the other side of the coin as I seek to bring the debate back to the matter of insurance.

As we begin to realise the enormity of the task that we have to deal with in order to combat the effects of climate change, many of us believe that there has to be a commitment to further flood defence work to prevent a repetition of the misery that we have seen in recent weeks. The Conwy valley, where I live, is certainly no stranger to the misery caused by flooding. I respectfully suggest that the magnitude of the flooding that we experience would certainly not be solved by community or group activity. One characteristic of the Conwy river is that it rises very quickly and can subside equally quickly, particularly after a high tide, but the flood waters have in the past left up to 100 flooded homes in their wake.

Many Members have spoken about sustainability, and they may be interested to hear of some work that has been carried out in the area of the source of the river Conwy. Some £300,000 has been allocated to restoration work on the threatened Migneint upland peatbog on the Conwy-Gwynedd border. The scheme has been funded by the National Trust and Natural Resources Wales and supported by many volunteers. This project, which is aimed primarily at saving a threatened Welsh ecosystem which can store more greenhouse gases than the Amazon rainforest, is recording impressive results according to scientists. Miles of ditches dug on a large area of peatland over the past two centuries have been filled with the aim of storing carbon and, at the same time, reducing flooding in the valley below. Already, some evidence is pointing to a slowing down of the rate at which the river rises, as the run-off from the slopes of the Migneint and Berwyn mountains is retained for longer in the peatlands.

Because of the severity of the floods that we suffered in the Conwy valley in 2004 and 2005, we saw massive schemes put in place by the Welsh Government, Environment Agency Wales and Conwy County Borough Council. Here, I pay tribute to the effective partnership working that we have seen between these organisations, and I add my recognition of the contribution made by European rural development funding to the schemes.

In an effort to protect our homes and businesses, a massive culvert was constructed under the streets of our town. As they rise, flood waters are now diverted into the culvert, stored there and gradually released as the waters subside. Demountable barriers, purchased from Holland—where the people know something about controlling water—are now available and can be installed to block off streets if flood waters threaten properties. Thankfully, these have not been required so far.

Embankments, or levees, which had been constructed along the river bank over the years to claim the fertile flood plain soil for agriculture, have been levelled and the flood plains are once again allowed to do the job nature intended. Farmers have been consulted and compensated and their co-operation in moving livestock at times of high risk has been achieved. New bunds, or small embankments, have been built and artificial lakes created to store flood water in order to protect the next village.

Those of us who live in close proximity to water have a healthy regard for its power, force and unpredictability and would never be foolish enough to say that such schemes are guaranteed to make flooding a thing of the past. However, the Environment Agency's data show that the volume of water which would have caused flooding to properties in the past did not do so in our last flood event. An unseen and unheralded saving to householders and insurance companies has therefore emanated from the flood alleviation scheme.

We all understand that each river and each incidence of flooding has its own characteristic and a solution achieved in one location will not necessarily apply to another. However, our experience in the Conwy valley shows that innovative thinking and creative engineering can make a difference.

This is neither the time nor the place to make a plea for the encouragement of more schemes to restore peatlands or of more engineering projects to protect vulnerable areas, but I hope that my noble friend can confirm that these matters are at least under discussion, that consideration is and will be given to methods of their funding and that the potential consequential savings to householders, local authorities and insurance companies will also be taken into account.