Water Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Graham Stuart

Monday 25th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Miss McIntosh]

I hope that we will all continue to press the Government to proceed with SUDS.

As for abstraction, I can only support what other Members have already said. Abstraction has an important part to play in resilience in times of drought and, potentially, in times of floods, when there are competing demands for the water supply. I urge the Government to show a greater sense of urgency. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that they would be consulting shortly, and it would be helpful to know when that consultation might take place.

The water White Paper, which we also scrutinised, placed great emphasis on the importance of resilience and the need for innovation to improve it, but I think that the Bill has toned down that emphasis slightly. I hope that the Government will find renewed enthusiasm for resilience. There will always be competing claims from the farming industry and angling, but we must not forget jam-makers such as those whom I visited in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), as well as brewers and other industrial users.

The role of the Environment Agency has been extremely positive, and fewer properties have been built on functional floodplains since it became a statutory consultee. However, I believe that it could do much more to share information, particularly mapping information. It is extremely frustrating for constituents not to be able to access a single map. Sir Michael Pitt—from east Yorkshire—was very clear in that regard, and I think that we owe him a great debt of gratitude for the work that he has done. I believe that there should be a one-stop shop for our constituents, and that they should be able to know exactly where to go.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

Does my hon. Friend agree that not only is mapping important, but it is important for maps to be updated quickly? Following the completion of a £3 million flood defence scheme in the village of Burstwick, in my constituency, it took more than a year for maps to be updated, and during that time residents were still being asked for higher insurance premiums because the insurance companies did not have access to the information.

[Miss McIntosh]

My hon. Friend has eloquently re-emphasised the point that I was making.

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[Miss McIntosh]

I am sure that the whole House, including the Secretary of State, has heard what my hon. Friend said. Dredging little and often can prevent floods. The drainage boards have an army of volunteers, a huge fount of knowledge and, probably, more engineers than the Environment Agency.

I am delighted that the Government have authorised the pilot schemes, and the Select Committee will observe the outcome very closely. I commend the Pickering pilot project, which is one of those schemes at which this country excels. It has already slowed the flow, it is creating new peat bogs, and it is holding water back so that it cannot flood Pickering. If we can succeed with a combination of slowing the flow and building a reservoir, not only will Pickering be safe from flooding, but the benefits of the pilot can be used elsewhere, and resilience to flooding and possible water shortages can be improved.

I believe that the 2014 price review gives us an opportunity to invite Ofwat to reward innovation, which it is not doing at the moment. Ofwat should invite water companies to show that they can bring positive benefits to consumers by creating innovative flood defence and water supply schemes like the Pickering project, and to include such proposals in their business plans. I regret that that did not happen in earlier price reviews and this is a unique opportunity to do that.

I also invite the Government to engage much earlier with EU directives. I yield to no one in respect of the benefits they can bring, but they can be very costly. If we sign up to very short-term, tight timetables, that adds to the costs. My right hon. Friend will be aware of the EU water framework directive, the bathing water directive, the drinking water directive, the urban waste water treatment directive and others. We have to get in there early and put our views across. Their aims and objectives are laudable, but they must be affordable and done on a realistic timetable.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

My hon. Friend made an important point about dredging. It is essential to ensure that unnecessary costs are not imposed on those who try to carry it out. South Holderness drainage board raised money locally to dredge Stone creek and Hedon haven, but then found that the Marine Management Organisation —which, as on previous occasions, would not have charged the EA anything—imposed a cost of several thousand pounds on the drainage board and then at the end more than doubled that amount, imposing a crippling cost on local people raising local money to try to do the right thing.

[Miss McIntosh]

I thank my hon. Friend for that.

I want to mention briefly some new aspects of the Bill and some omissions. On the omissions, bad debt costs each and every household approximately £14 a year. That is unacceptable. We need secondary legislation to progress this matter, and I urge the Government to bring that forward as swiftly as possible.

On social tariffs, I fail to understand why successive Governments have had difficulty in releasing information on benefits. In response to a recent question to the Department for Work and Pensions, the following answer came back from the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning):

“There is no legislation in place currently”—

well, I knew that and I told him that, but it is always good to know I was right—

“that would permit the release of benefits information to water utility companies: it is likely that new legislation would be required to enable the sharing of benefits data with water utility companies on this scale.”—[Official Report, 18 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 681W.]

I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to put pressure on the DWP to release that information so that we can make the best possible tariff available to the appropriate customers at the earliest possible time.

On insurance, the Select Committee came down in favour of Flood Re, but there are a lot of unknowns, and I do not believe we know any more about the known unknowns than we did before this debate started. For example, under Flood Re, why have we chosen household bands as the basis for insurance levy scales? If there is a database, where is it? What is the definition of uninsurable properties? Are small businesses excluded? If they are to be excluded, why are they excluded? It has been put to me that farms might be excluded. Obviously, that would not go down well in my area. I would quite like to know before the end of the evening whether farms and small businesses are going to be excluded.

The memorandum of understanding between the Government and the insurance industry commits the Government to take primary responsibility as an insurer of last resort in an extreme flood event while the fund is growing. We need greater clarity this evening, before the Bill goes on to Committee, on precisely where we are in that regard. The House would also like to know whether the Bill achieves the normal historical value for money requirement in respect of such proposals.

The Select Committee welcomes the commitment to open up the retail market to competition by 2017, but we believe the case for upstream reform needs to be made more vigorously. We need to know precisely what the implications are for customer bills. It has been put to us that there might be de-averaging of household bills. We also need to know the implications for national resilience of upstream reforms, including in respect of climate change and population growth. We note that the start date is two years later, but the House would like to know whether it is feasible at all and whether we even need primary legislation.

It is true that the Select Committee came down in favour of functional separation between the wholesale and retail arms and in favour of a voluntary exit strategy. We would like to hear a little more when the Minister winds up about why the Government are against that.

Members on both sides of the House are interested in cost of living issues, of course, and we need greater assurances on the impact on householders. The Flood Re levy has been set at £180 million per annum, which is £10.50 per customer, for the first years. We also need to know the timetable for the application for state aid. It would be helpful to know that we are going to be in a position to have signed off on state aid before this Bill leaves the House and achieves Royal Assent and, more importantly, by the start date of 2017. Concerns have been expressed about stranded assets and the impact on household customers generally, particularly from the Flood Re insurance levy, and the formalising of the cross-subsidy that has existed under the statement of principles.

To conclude, the potential risks of de-averaging prices in respect of household customers and upstream competition must be addressed. On the comparative merits of the Ofwat duty, we would prefer sustainable development as opposed to the Government’s proposal of resilience. That needs to be explored. We also need to look at possible greater resilience in terms of both water supply and the use of abstraction, and we need the review of abstraction policy sooner rather than later. We applaud the sustainable development and wider environmental aims of biodiversity protection and climate change mitigation, but I personally would argue that this should be addressed through Ofwat’s primary duty of sustainable development. The Government need to explain how the transition in the insurance sector from the cross-subsidy being formalised in Flood Re to an eventual free market will be managed. I believe this is too important to leave to secondary legislation and we need more details in the Bill.

I give the Bill a warm welcome. I have highlighted a number of concerns which I hope will be addressed and I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate.

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Graham Stuart

Wednesday 18th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Stuart]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, but I am not looking for Ministers to limit that disruption; I am looking for them to remove that disruption altogether. However, he is right to mention the date. We are talking about a major manufacturing business. We are talking about businesses with 700 staff involved in tooling up, buying in the resources and planning their production, yet we are facing the introduction of this VAT on 1 October. Let us imagine the impact on the supply chain; imagine the impact on ordering; imagine the eddies of people looking to beat the deadline and at the same time destock to make sure that they do not hold stock on 1 October when whatever product they have will be 20% more expensive and potentially unsaleable.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I have been listening very carefully to my hon. Friend. Is he concerned that, as in my constituency, the business plans for this year of businesses that have static caravans and want to increase their numbers will be completely in ruin?

[Mr Stuart]

My hon. Friend is right. We have heard examples of managing directors of companies being called in by their banks to talk about lending provision because of the threat and uncertainty that this measure brings. It will be extremely disruptive to a fantastic British manufacturing success story. Let me go through the process. The supply chain is in the UK. It is very much concentrated in east Yorkshire but hundreds of people are employed by suppliers elsewhere in Yorkshire and across the country.

Flood and Water Management

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Graham Stuart

Thursday 8th September 2011 Westminster Hall

[Miss McIntosh]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that point. I know Workington and Maryport extremely well, and our hearts go out to those colleagues, particularly in Cumbria, who suffered in the floods. If he will permit me, I will mention the role that farmers, landowners and, in particular, internal drainage boards play in dredging and maintenance. In the visits that I have made over time to areas that have been badly affected by flooding in my constituency, other parts of Yorkshire, Cumbria and elsewhere, I have heard anecdotal evidence of an absence of maintenance and dredging. I was shocked to hear recently that Cod beck, which caused the flooding in Thirsk and where flood defences have still not been built—the Minister might put that on the wish list that he will take away with him today; we are still anxious to get the flood defences built in Thirsk—has not had any maintenance for the past two or three years.

I might go further than my Committee colleagues and our conclusions in the report. I would like the internal drainage board to be allowed to agree a programme of maintenance and dredging with the Environment Agency. On the recommendations, it was the wish of Sir Michael Pitt that there would be an annual maintenance and dredging programme on the Environment Agency website, which the public would be able to see. We have established, however, that the moneys given by internal drainage boards to the Environment Agency, not least in my own region, are not being used for dredging, for a number of reasons. I want that money to stay with the IDBs for a programme agreed with the Environment Agency, but for the IDBs to use their resources and their engineers to maintain main watercourses.

I am a vice-president of the Association of Drainage Authorities, which has contacted me to express its disappointment that no new internal drainage boards have been created yet. I know that the subject is close to the Minister’s heart, so when he sums up, will he tell us the position on the creation of new internal drainage boards? All those bodies have a role to play, but it should not be the Public Bodies Bill that sets out the legislative provisions; they should all form part of the water Bill, which we anticipate keenly.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

I support that request and wish to reinforce the recommendation in the Committee’s original report. On IDBs, the Government response says that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is

“considering what changes should be made to funding arrangements”.

I hope that that review will happen sooner rather than later. IDBs do a fantastic job from the ground up, with a real understanding of the topography of areas such as Holderness, which I represent. I want local people to be able to hold the money and commission effective flood protection, whether from the Environment Agency or another body. I am convinced, as is my hon. Friend, that putting it in the hands of local people rather than the agency will be more cost-effective.

[Miss McIntosh]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point and for his invitation, which I was able to accept, to visit some of the areas that had been affected in Beverley.

Partnership funding for flood defences, which was introduced only this year, will of course be limited to the amounts that can be raised. The level of funding is the key to the success of our report and the message that we gave, as well as the success of the 2010 Act itself. I have a direct question for the Minister on the business of funding, particularly the levy-raising powers. I and many other hon. Members represent deeply rural constituencies. A concern has been expressed that, where there is not an established local levy, there may be constraints on the amount that can be raised. The Minister must realise that there is a limit to how much any individual local authority can afford because, as we note in the report, budgets have been reduced as a result of the comprehensive spending review.

We welcome the fact that regulations on the transfer of private sewers and lateral drains have proceeded, but the Minister must respond to the concerns expressed in our report, which are reflected across the country, about how we can recover the costs, which are either non-funded or underfunded. It will be helpful if the Minister responds to the water companies’ direct concern about that.

Colleagues would be disappointed if I did not mention sustainable drainage systems. We need to know the commencement date for the relevant provisions of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. Are we really looking at a delay until 2012, and if so, do we as parliamentarians accept that? I put it to the Minister that we do not. I do not think it would be appropriate to have a phased introduction of sustainable drainage systems. The country is crying out for sustainable drainage systems to be introduced with a specific target date—I hope, by the end of this year. When will the regulations be laid and what consultation period is required? The time needed for preparation makes those provisions coming into effect this year a very tight timetable, and there is concern that they will be postponed until next year.

I want to place on the record my views on misconnections and the ending of the automatic right to connect. Sir Michael Pitt was extremely clear and categorical on that. I am not sure that we have reached an end to the automatic right to connect. I would like to make water companies statutory consultees on the same basis as the Environment Agency is. Many water companies have loose arrangements with the planning authorities, but it is important that we enshrine that in law. Water companies should be made statutory consultees on any future planning applications to limit potential misconnections as far as possible. I touched on the maintenance of watercourses in response to the hon. Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham), but I repeat that we need as many engineers as possible and that we should use the internal drainage boards where they exist.

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[Mr Graham Stuart]

I wonder whether the Committee looked at bringing in national flood protection standards. As soon as flooding moves out of the public eye, and in the face of financial difficulties, funding tends to be cut, with a long-term deleterious impact. Holland has statutory national flood standards, which trigger investment and ensure that standards are maintained. Do we not need some fundamental reworking of protections in law to force Governments and funding bodies to ensure that we have a sustainable system? I fear that if we go for a period without severe floods, we will create the conditions for worse floods in the future.

[Miss McIntosh]

My hon. Friend pre-empts my next point. Why has there been a delay in the consultation on and implementation of national standards for SUDS? Many have expressed to me their real concern about that. When will the provisions on SUDS be implemented?