Environment Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Duke of Wellington

Report stage
Monday 13th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendments 59 and 60, in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Altmann and Lady Quin, and the noble Lord, Lord Oates, to whom I am very grateful for their support.

These are not glamorous or intellectually stimulating amendments, such as others we debated last week, but their purpose is both high-minded and supported by the public. I cannot resist referring to a petition circulating in recent days, which already has more than 90,000 signatures, calling on the Government to place a duty on water companies not to emit sewage. I had nothing to do with the petition.

The amendments simply seek to write into an Act of Parliament a legal commitment to clean up rivers. It is surprising, shocking and indeed revolting that, in the 21st century, in a civilised and developed country, there were, according to the Environment Agency, in 2020, 400,000 discharges of sewage in England and another 100,000 in Wales; that is more than half a million discharges of sewage into rivers in England and Wales.

Since the Bill left the other place earlier this year, the Government have moved a long way, and I recognise that. First, they took over some elements of a Private Member’s Bill tabled by the right honourable Philip Dunne, Member of Parliament for Ludlow, who is also chair of the Environmental Audit Committee in the House of Commons. Clause 80 of the Bill comes from Philip Dunne’s Bill. It requires the Secretary of State to prepare a plan to reduce untreated discharges.

Since Committee, the Government have tabled further amendments: Amendments 61, 62 and 63. I thank the Minister for two meetings which the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and I had with him during the Summer Recess. I am also very grateful to the Minister in the other place, Rebecca Pow, who asked me to meet her on Teams two weeks ago, with her officials, to inform me that these amendments were to be tabled the following day. I very much welcome the amendments, particularly Amendment 63, where, for the first time, the Government are using the word “elimination” rather than just “reduction”. Amendments 61 and 62 concern very welcome increases in reporting and monitoring.

I will now explain the need for Amendment 59 to Clause 79. This seeks to separate foul water from surface water. It is surface water from heavy rainfall that often overwhelms a sewage plant, which of course is designed mainly to deal with sewage. In his letter to Peers of 27 August, the Minister announced that the Government will review Schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act. If the Minister can confirm from the Dispatch Box that this would have the same effect as my Amendment 59, we will have no need to press that amendment. However, I hope he will accept that the purpose of Amendment 59 is essential, as it is surface water that can so often cause storm overflows.

I turn to Amendment 60 to Clause 80. The clause and the further amendments are still missing perhaps the most important part of Philip Dunne’s Bill, which was the duty to be placed on water companies to take all reasonable steps to ensure that untreated sewage is not discharged into inland waters. My Amendment 60 seeks to put that legal duty into the Bill. In addition, the amendment would require water companies to demonstrate continuous improvement and progressive reductions in the harm caused by the discharges.

Proposed subsection (2) in Amendment 60 addresses another problem. There is considerable evidence that the Environment Agency and others are not prosecuting most of the discharges, even though many are apparently illegal. It is therefore important to write into the Bill a requirement on the various bodies to exercise their powers of enforcement.

I understand that one of the reasons why the Government are reluctant to place a legal duty on the water companies to take all reasonable steps to prevent discharges is that they have been advised that this might affect the investment decisions of the water companies and put sewage treatment ahead of other possible investments. I do not find that argument at all persuasive—in fact I think it demonstrates the absolute need for the amendment and the necessity of placing a legal duty on the companies to bring to an end these damaging discharges.

That necessity is no better demonstrated than by a press release from Ofwat, the water industry regulator. It announced, on the very day when we were debating the environment in the Queen’s Speech, a new water sector investment of £2.8 billion into the green recovery. But if we read the press release further, we see that only £157 million—just over 5% of the investment—was to help to eliminate the harm caused by storm overflows. Only a legal duty would move these investments higher up the list of priorities.

I do not underestimate the cost of modernising the sewerage network, and I understand that the Government will have reservations about imposing a required investment on the water companies. However, as I said at Second Reading, it should be possible to find a formula that involves some modest grants, some long-term borrowing, reduced dividends and above-inflation increases in wastewater or sewerage charges to residential and commercial users.

I turn to subsection (2) of proposed new section 141E, to be inserted in Clause 80. In Committee I tabled an amendment on this. As the Bill is currently drafted, a discharge is not considered to be a discharge if it has been caused by electrical or mechanical failure! That strikes me as an enormous loophole, and it can only have been included at the request of the water companies. In our meeting with the Minister, we were assured that, despite the wording of that subsection, discharges as a result of electrical or mechanical failure will still need to be disclosed. I ask the Minister to repeat that assurance from the Dispatch Box. However, I then wonder why subsection (2) is necessary at all. Will the Minister not consider deleting the subsection entirely at Third Reading? It appears totally unnecessary and possibly undermines part of the purpose of Chapter 4, and Clause 80 in particular.

While the country drives towards carbon net zero and improving air and soil quality, we surely cannot allow water quality to be compromised by regular discharges of untreated sewage into the aquatic environment. The Bill aims, and government policy is, to leave the environment for future generations in a better state. I cannot believe that any Defra Minister does not want to clean up our rivers, and the only way to ensure that is to include in the Bill a legal duty to prevent discharges. Not including such a duty will inevitably lead to delays, more plans, excuses and further delays.

On my way to the House today I received, very kindly, another email from Rebecca Pow. In it she describes everything that the Government are doing, but then in the paper produced by the department there is a section of frequently asked questions. It reads:

“Why are you not placing a duty on water companies to reduce storm overflows?”,


to which the reply is this:

“The Environment Bill places a new duty on water companies to produce Drainage and Wastewater Management Plans setting out how”,


and so on. That is my point—there is yet another plan. I am sorry to say this, and I am grateful to the Minister for alerting me to everything that the department has done.

I hope not to divide the House on Amendment 59 —that of course depends on the Minister’s response—but I intend to do so on Amendment 60. I beg to move.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, and with his permission, I shall speak to Amendment 82. I thank the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, for moving his amendment so eloquently. I have known the noble Duke since 1982, when I was a humble adviser to the Conservatives in the European Parliament, and I am delighted to follow him today.

Unfortunately, the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, has been unavoidably detained in Norfolk, but he is in a very privileged position and knowledgeable in this regard: following the devastating floods in East Anglia in 2020, he took up the position of independent chair of the Norfolk Strategic Flooding Alliance. I will set out his remarks at the outset and then add a few of my own.

Environment Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Duke of Wellington

Committee stage
Monday 21st June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Wellington (CB) [V]]

My Lords, this amendment in my name—and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, for adding her name to it—has one simple purpose. I wish to persuade the excellent Ministers—in this House the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, and in the other place Rebecca Pow—to acknowledge as a priority the importance of cleaning the rivers of this country. The Government have repeatedly stated that this generation should be the first to leave the environment in a better state than that in which we inherited it. This vision has almost unanimous support, I am sure, in both Houses of Parliament and in the country as a whole. The main target is, of course, to reach a state of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and I understand why this is the overarching ingredient in policy-making.

There is so much in the Bill which I support. In Clause 1(2), the Secretary of State must set long-term targets in respect of air quality, water, biodiversity and waste reduction. Part 5 is devoted to water, and contains clauses on resource management, drought planning, and drainage and sewerage management. Since the Bill arrived in this House, the Government have tabled their own amendments on sewerage management, which I welcome but will attempt to strengthen through amendments later in the Bill. But Chapter 1, which we are debating today, is entitled “Improving the natural environment”, with the subheading “Environmental targets.” My proposal is that the Government set a target for improving the natural environment of our rivers.

I am grateful to the Minister for a meeting last week with a number of Peers, mainly from the Cross Benches. From that meeting, I understand that there is doubt about the appropriateness of the European standard of good ecological status, in which case I suggest to Ministers that they establish a new United Kingdom standard and have a target for progressive percentages of rivers to reach that target in five years, in 10 years, and finally for 100% of rivers to reach that target in 15 years. Ministers have stated that they want to be ambitious, to set high standards and to lead the world by example. That being the case, we must not allow untreated sewage to be discharged into our rivers over 400,000 times or for more than 3 million hours during 2020, as reported by the Environment Agency.

I read again the highlights of the 25-year environment plan published by the Government in 2018. Although “clean and plentiful water” is listed among the environmental benefits to be achieved, there is no specific reference to the elimination of the shocking level of sewage discharges. That is my point: while we strive as a nation to reduce carbon emissions to zero, improve biodiversity and clean the air we breathe, we cannot continue to accept that raw sewage is discharged into rivers, harming all aquatic wildlife and imperilling the health of human beings who swim in or enjoy the rivers.

I fear that the apparent unwillingness of the Government to make this a priority is the great cost involved in converting our drainage and sewerage infrastructure. In other parts of the Bill there will be an opportunity to debate how this could or should be paid for. I do not believe that most members of the public are aware that, in the 21st century in a developed country such as ours, raw sewage is still being discharged into rivers every day. I think most people would expect the Government, in their new Environment Bill, to make it a priority not just to reduce but to eliminate these discharges. That is the purpose of my amendment and I beg to move.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to support the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, in his amendment. On the face of it, this does seem an omission, given that clauses from Clause 83 onwards deal specifically with water quality, yet it does not appear as a specific target.

I declare my interests in the register and that I co-chair the All-Party Water Group. I worked for five years with the water regulator for Scotland—WICS, the Water Industry Commission for Scotland—and I have co-authored two reports on bricks and water which deal with water issues specifically in relation to housing. I am also vice-president of ADA, the Association of Drainage Authorities. Drainage boards have a specific role to play, being responsible for ensuring that lower-lying watercourses of below either eight metres or eight feet—I cannot remember which—flow as smoothly as they should.

Amendment 4 is commendable, and I congratulate my noble friend the Duke of Wellington on bringing it forward. Of course we should aim to have the best water quality, and to ensure that we have clean rivers, that—where possible—farmers can farm less intensively, and that we meet the highest domestic and international water quality standards, as well as seeking to improve our soils. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, said, we must have a level playing field to ensure that we are not just improving watercourses in this country but ensuring that products grown on less regulated land and soil do not have a free pass to come into this country through trade agreements.

I would like to address one issue that my noble friend the Duke of Wellington referred to—untreated raw sewage being spilled into our watercourses. I would like to pose the question: why is that happening? It is happening because water companies are being placed in an impossible position. They are obliged to connect to major and smaller developments—to provide clean water and to collect wastewater and sewage coming out. We increasingly see that water companies are obliged to connect, even when they are placed in a situation where they may not be deemed able to do so.

I draw attention to the fact that we are seeing increasing amounts of surface water. This is a relatively recent phenomenon; it was identified for the first time in any significant way in 2007. I am drawing on the experience of Sir Michael Pitt, who was asked by the then Labour Government to write a very comprehensive review of how we should adapt to this new form of surface water flooding. Many of his recommendations have been implemented but many have not.

Subsequently, I am tabling amendments which will address the specific point of raw sewage. One way of dealing with it is to end the automatic right to connect to major new developments. This was called for by Sir Michael Pitt. It will address the specific problem of sewage outflow, particularly where combined sewers overflow and cause a public health issue in many cases—where the sewage overflow goes into existing developments and those residents have to leave. I believe we have asked too much of water companies, without giving them the wherewithal to address this, either through the quinquennial price review, or by allowing them to do whatever they choose to connect—sometimes against their better judgment—to major developments.

A way of addressing that is to ensure that water companies are given the same statutory right to consultation as has now been extended to the Environment Agency. Since the Environment Agency has been granted that right, we have seen the number of houses prone to flooding that are being built significantly reduce. Similarly, I hope we can see that water companies are not placed in an impossible position when it comes to major and significant new housing developments, particularly where they may be built on functional flood plains or land prone to flooding in the shorter term.

I entirely endorse the comments and remarks of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, in moving this amendment about the importance of maintenance. We have to differentiate between the maintenance of major and minor watercourses, ensure that local authorities have the budget and resources to do the maintenance they are required to do and that the Environment Agency oversees it. I pay tribute to the work of those local drainage boards and landowners who are often responsible for doing the regular and very necessary maintenance on minor watercourses.

This might seem a small amendment but it is very significant, and I hope my noble friend the Minister will look favourably on it, and on the later amendments we will consider in due course. I support Amendment 4.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Duke of Wellington

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 9th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to welcome back the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who is on such fine form. I thank my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury for bringing forward this excellent amendment. I will ask my noble friend the Minister one specific question, which follows on directly from what the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, just said. I am conscious that many livestock producers, predominantly pig producers, have cut down heavily on the use of antibiotics, at some considerable expense. As I understand it, the alternatives are a great deal more expensive. Will the Minister confirm that Clause 1(1)(f) will enable alternatives to be covered by the provisions of financial assistance under that clause? I entirely endorse the thinking behind what my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury said. It is absolutely right to see animal health and welfare as interdependent.

[The Duke of Wellington (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I had intended to withdraw to speed up proceedings, but now that I have been called I will simply say that I support the principle behind Amendment 44. It is in my opinion desirable, where the terrain and climate admit, to winter animals outside. It is good for their health. Therefore, I totally support what is behind that amendment. I need say no more.