Water (Special Measures) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Baroness Pinnock

Committee stage
Monday 28th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak also to Amendment 8 in my name. These amendments are in a group looking at exemptions from the rules under Clause 1. My particular concern relates to the obligations being imposed by Clause 1, and indeed the rest of the Bill, on water companies where they may not and could not possibly be held responsible for the activities they are undertaking because the fault lies with others who are not currently within the remit of the Bill.

The purpose of these amendments is to reflect the fact that water companies should be held responsible under the terms of the Bill, in particular Clause 1, only for those activities within their specific responsibility. Clearly, for example, where there are missed connections between wastewater pipes and major developments, water companies should not be held responsible if they are obliged to fit these new connections into inadequate, antiquated pipes that simply cannot take the amount of waste coming.

The background to this very simple measure follows from the Pitt review—the noble Baroness will recall that I raised this at Second Reading—following the severe floods of 2007. I think it is worthy of note that Sir Michael Pitt is from East Yorkshire, which is more vulnerable to coastal flooding than just about any other part of the country. His 2007 review identified, for the first time, surface water flooding as well.

In connection with surface water flooding, the two most consequential amendments set out that mandatory construction of sustainable drainage systems in major developments should take place so as to contain floodwater and prevent it mixing with sewage through overflows into the combined sewers.

Further, and this is where the developers should have a responsibility and not the water companies, I ask the Minister to look favourably at ending the automatic right to connect, which has so far never happened. That one measure alone would mean that misconnections—whereby the existing infrastructure is deemed to fit the amount of wastewater coming from major new developments—would simply not happen in the future. Most of these developments are made up of four or five-bedroom homes with, dare I say, four or five times the amount of sewage coming out of them into inadequate Victorian pipes. Currently, under the planning rules, developers and local authorities deem those connections to be safe and refuse to put in appropriate infrastructure to ensure that a safe connection can be made. Were the water companies to be recognised in the planning application process as statutory consultees, on the same basis as the Environment Agency comparatively recently has been, those misconnections could be averted. The simple measure of making water companies statutory consultees, on the same basis as the Environment Agency, would help in that regard.

When she looks at these amendments in summing up, would the Minister agree to obliging developers to have sustainable drains fitted to take excess rainwater into a soakaway, pond or culvert to prevent it mixing with sewage water in combined sewers, which is currently leading to sewage overflows? It is not fair to make the water companies responsible for that. Were they to be statutory consultees, they would probably argue that the wastewater will not fit the pipes currently in place.

This has led to some very perverse sewage spills. I remember when I was in the other place there was a school in Filey that suffered £1 million-worth of damage to its swimming pool and, I think, the maths department. Existing developments had to be evacuated for six to nine months because of the public health aspect of sewage coming in. Precisely because a small development of only 30 houses was pumping out so much sewage, the rainwater when mixed with it had nowhere else to go and it went into the school and the existing developments. I am sure noble Lords could give other examples of this.

I ask the Minister to review the way in which highways currently contribute to pollution through rainwater running off the road surface, taking with it oil, brake fluid and other pollutants. When this combines with floodwater, it enters the combined sewers and then often goes into homes, causing huge damage and a public health disaster.

I hope the Minister will agree that water companies should be held responsible for those activities within their control but cannot be held responsible for circumstances which are outwith their control. These two small, tightly-drawn amendments would fit that purpose.

I conclude by asking the Minister this. If these amendments are not added to the Bill, what mechanism do the Government intend to use to ensure that water companies will be held responsible under the Bill only for activities under their direct control and not those under the control of others, such as developers and highways authorities, which are currently excluded from the remit of the Bill? I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I broadly agree with the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. She raised some important issues, about, first of all, the way that surface water drainage is treated. As the Minister will know, surface water is combined with sewage water in the same pipes in many of our towns and cities, and increasing rainfall and development is putting pressure on that combined drainage system.

The other issue to consider, which the noble Baroness raised, is the pressure put on local authority planning services to agree to housing developments where the existing infrastructure is not appropriate to support them, with developers reluctant to fork out huge sums of money to pay for the additional drainage systems needed. The answer lies in empowering local authorities’ planning services to put conditions on planning consent which specifically require developers to build the appropriate infrastructure to support the development that they wish to build.

There is a related point. I am a local councillor; in my experience, where there is an issue of surface water, the planning services require underwater attenuation tanks to be built to hold that water until it can be released to the natural drainage systems, such as streams. However, the developers are very reluctant to do that, and are seeking to get around it in other ways. Surface water drainage issues and local authorities’ inability to enforce this is something that the Minister may wish to raise with her colleagues in local government when it comes to reforms of the planning system, as it will affect the Minister’s environment responsibilities. I agree with the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh.