Water Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Nia Griffith

Monday 25th November 2013 Commons Chamber

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

I welcome the Bill and would like to thank both my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) for their kind words about the work that my colleagues and I have done on the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. We must have done something right, as no fewer than four of our erstwhile colleagues serve on either the Government or the Opposition Front Bench. We shall obviously continue to maintain our rule of scrutiny with ever-increasing vigilance.

Today is the anniversary of the floods in Malton, Old Malton, Norton, Brawby and elsewhere in my constituency. In fact, I had to take a 10-mile detour because there was a lake outside my office, which I could not access as I normally would. The floods started in November and went on, intermixed with snow, until about March or April. It is therefore timely that we debate the Water Bill today. There is much in it to commend. It has been a long time in progress and, as the hon. Lady said, there remains a great deal of unfinished business from the Pitt review, the Walker review and the Cave review and, indeed, the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. The largest and most significant recent development since 2007 has been surface water flooding. It is a new threat, particularly with water running off the road in just about every constituency of every Member who has spoken in the debate thus far.

[Nia Griffith]

Given that the Flood Re scheme does not apply to properties built after 1 January 2009, does the hon. Lady agree that planning authorities need to be ever more vigilant not only in refusing to build on floodplains but in avoiding the knock-on effects of building in certain places that can have devastating effects on existing properties?

[Miss McIntosh]

I am grateful for the intervention, but I think the hon. Lady misses the point that so many other people do. Water running off the road in this way is a new development. While the water is on the surface of the road, it is the responsibility of the highways authorities, whether it be the Highways Agency, the county council or the unitary council. As soon as that water runs off the road and goes into a combined sewer, it most frequently becomes the responsibility of the water company.

I believe that the Government should look at the possibility of creating a statutory responsibility on highways authorities—and should be supported by the whole House in this—for surface water while it is on the road. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) mutters under his breath, “What will the cost be?” I do not care what it will be: if we are to have sustainable drainage systems, we have to look at creating a system that will retain the surface water on the road and stop it going into the combined drains and sewers. That has been happening since 2007, for nearly seven years. Surface water has been mixing with sewage and coming into homes, such as the home of Mr and Mrs Hinds, causing health-related and very antisocial problems. Successive Governments have failed to deal with the issue, but I believe that the Bill presents us with a unique opportunity to sort it out.

According to the Environment Agency, 2.4 million properties in England are at risk of flooding from rivers and the sea, 1 million of those properties are at risk of surface water flooding, and a further 2.8 million properties are at risk of surface water alone. The agency estimated that the cost of the 2012 floods was £600 million. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that we need not just to grow the economy, but to limit the damage caused to it by floods.

It is regrettable that the sustainable drainage system that was envisaged in the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 has still not been implemented. I understand that discussions are taking place and that it is all very difficult, but we must get our heads around this. It is not impossible, although the difficult aspects may take a little longer to address. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to rise to the challenge, and to introduce SUDS before April next year. It is unacceptable for my constituency and others elsewhere in the country to face a possible flood threat this very week because we have not put secondary legislation on to the statute book.

I am at my wits’ end because we have still not implemented the Pitt recommendation that the automatic right to connect should be removed. Sustainable drains are a significant aspect of that. The Environment Agency is already a statutory consultee, but we have not accepted that water companies should have the same status. I believe that they should be able to say, frankly and honestly, that in the case of major developments, there should be no ability to connect without a significant new investment.