Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 29th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

197: After Clause 87, insert the following new Clause—
“Sustainable drainageThe Secretary of State must bring into force in England all uncommenced parts of Schedule 3 of the Water Management Act 2010 (sustainable drainage) within three months of the day on which this Act is passed.”Member’s explanatory statement
In England, developers have the automatic right to connect surface water arising from new homes to the public sewerage system, irrespective of whether there is capacity for this. Implementation of Schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act (2010) would end this automatic right to connect and provide a framework for the approval and adoption of Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS).

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, this is my moment; I have waited all day and all night. It gives me great pleasure to move Amendment 197 and to speak to Amendment 198. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, for lending her name to both amendments, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Young of Old Scone and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for lending their support to Amendment 197.

I hope that the amendments are self-explanatory. They are flipsides of the same coin, and they have huge amounts of support among interested parties, such as insurance companies, environmental managers and others, as I shall explain. Amendment 197 explains that developers have the automatic right to connect surface water arising from new homes to the public sewerage system, irrespective of whether there is a capacity for this or not.

Both Houses of Parliament approved Schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, the purpose of which was to end this automatic right to connect and provide a framework for the approval and adoption of sustainable drainage systems. It has not yet been implemented in England, but it has been implemented with a degree of success in Wales.

Similarly, Amendment 198 links the right to connect to the public sewer to first having followed the Government’s newly introduced national standards for sustainable drainage systems, to provide a more robust incentive to developers to follow this guidance in the absence of full implementation of Schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all those who spoke in favour of the amendments—and to those who did not. I will take my colleague aside and teach him the error of his ways, perhaps acquainting him with Schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010.

As a newly elected MP, I was surprised at two things: first, that we do not make new laws but amend existing ones; and, secondly, that, having passed a law, we do not implement it. I listened very carefully to the response from the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor. She has made the points for me: these are guidelines in the non-statutory National Planning Policy Framework and in the national standards for SUDS.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I have explained many times during the course of the debate on the Bill that, although the planning policy statements and the NPPF are not statutory in themselves, they are part of a statutory planning framework and they must be taken into account as local plans are developed. They cannot be statutory documents because they have to be amended frequently, but they sit within that statutory planning framework, and that is what makes them powerful.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister. It is not me that she has to convince, but the insurance companies out there, and the likes of CIWEM, who have to pick up the pieces when there is a combined sewage overflow. We have not plugged the gap of the highways runoff, either. I would like to reserve judgment about bringing back the amendment at Third Reading. For the moment, I beg to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 197 withdrawn.