Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

Debate between Baroness Parminter and Lord Krebs

Committee stage
Monday 12th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, for introducing this amendment so eloquently. I have added my name to it. In fact, I felt that the amendment was almost unnecessary because, earlier this evening, the Minister referred to precision breeding as being used to create public good—I think I am right in saying that. The amendment tries to flesh that out and ask what is meant by “public good”.

It goes without saying that one objective of farming is to produce food or other farm products. Precision breeding will be used to increase the efficiency, and maybe the productivity, of farming in this country. My noble friend Lord Curry of Kirkharle, who is not in his place, made a useful comment earlier about what is meant by productivity in farming.

It goes without saying that one objective is to increase efficiency and productivity: that is the “more” bit of “more with less”. Equally important, and what the amendment is about, is enshrining the “less”: less harm to the environment and to people. We have been through many times the kind of harms to the environment that intensive agriculture has delivered, and we hope that precision breeding will be used to reverse those harms rather than augment them.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, also raised the important point of how bits of the jigsaw fit together. She referred to Henry Dimbleby’s national food strategy. I would be interested in knowing from the Minister whether some of the recommendations that Henry Dimbleby made will be implementable or, indeed, supported by the Bill if it goes through—as I hope it will, possibly with some modifications.

In a way, this is almost uncontroversial. We all accept that there have to be public goods that are supported by precision breeding; that has to be balanced with increasing productivity and efficiency of agriculture; and what we are trying to do here is spell out what those public goods are and should look like. I very much look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I want to say how much I support this amendment, which has been introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, that it was a very eloquent introduction. It should indeed be uncontroversial, for two reasons.

This Government have committed themselves to a number of welcome targets on climate change. We have not quite got there yet on the environmental targets, but the Secretary of State says that we will perhaps have them by next week. We also have the food strategy. If not set targets, we have a clear direction of travel. If the Government are committed to those targets, be it in the social, environmental or climate sphere, then they have to will the means to deliver it. Whether we are talking about a procurement Bill or this Bill, the Government have all these levers to pull to deliver the outcomes.

It would be almost a dereliction of duty not to will the means in a Bill like this to deliver the environmental, climate and food targets which the Government have so welcomely committed themselves to on the record in other places. If the Government were to miss the golden opportunity to embed this commitment to a public benefit in this Bill, I feel it would leave Members around the Committee worried that some of those commitments were perhaps not as deep as we all were hoping.

Moreover, in the way that the Agriculture Act did, there is an opportunity to shape the market by saying that we will rightly give farmers funding to produce the public goods that we want. The mirror approach here is saying that we will provide this new regulatory framework to regulate the benefits and risks of this new procedure. We will allow companies the investment and growth opportunities if it is clear that they are delivering public goods. It is about shaping the market in a way that delivers those public goods.

Environment Bill

Debate between Baroness Parminter and Lord Krebs

Report stage
Wednesday 8th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for moving the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bird. I support the sentiments and the important issues that it raises and thank her for her remarks and her support for my Amendment 20.

The point of Amendment 20 is to help the Government’s policy statement on the environmental principles to put environmental protection at the heart of government decision-making. Currently, the principles ask departmental Ministers to consider the least environmentally damaging option when they are looking at a range of policy options. However, not all Ministers are obliged to take that policy statement into account. The MoD and the Treasury are exempted because defence and tax and spending have a disapplication from the existing statement on environmental principles.

I thank the Minister and his colleagues for meeting me over this summer to discuss this matter, but I am disappointed that we have not made as much progress as I thought we might, and I reserve my right to test the opinion of the House on this matter. As the noble Baroness said, the Minister said in Committee that the reason for this exemption was that it could restrict our response to urgent threats. I accept entirely that the MoD will have urgent threats which it needs to respond to, and I would support the Government coming forward with a targeted disapplication to enable that to happen. However, this is not a targeted disapplication; it is a blanket disapplication for the MoD. The MoD has a third of all the UK’s SSSIs—our most special land for habitats and for environmental protection. In addition, there are all the tenanted farmers, the ancient woodlands and all the land that could deliver so much in terms of natural resource protection on the 2% of the UK land mass which is the military estate in the UK.

There are plenty of examples in pockets of the MoD where it shows that it can marry together environmental protection and the protection of the state. However, unless we change this clause as it stands, I fear that the description in the National Audit Office review in 2020 of environmental protection in the MoD as a Cinderella service will not change. Equally, since then, in March of this year, the Minister Jeremy Quin MP and others launched the MoD’s new climate change and sustainability approach. It says:

“The response to climate change and sustainability in Defence must be led from the top and applied across all areas and at all levels.”


Without this amendment, that cannot be delivered.

As regards the exemption for the Treasury and for tax and spending policy, given the importance of tax policies and departmental budgets to deliver environmental targets when we are looking at managing the land for protecting the environment, it is almost unbelievable that there is that exemption. It means that Ministers will not have to consider environmental matters when they are looking at spending issues such as roads. As the noble Baroness said, the Minister’s response was that the exemption was to allow maximum flexibility. In the Government’s response to the Dasgupta review, which was produced earlier and to which the Government have signed up, they accepted that nature was a macro- economic consideration and supported setting out steps to align national expenditure with climate and environmental goals. Without this amendment, that cannot be delivered.

It is not just me saying that; since we last met in Committee, the office for environmental protection has given its first advice—at the request of the Government—on the draft environmental principles policy statement. I will quote from the chief executive offer of the OEP, which we will come on to in the next group of amendments. Natalie Prosser said that

“there are such important benefits to be reaped should policy-making across all departments embrace and live by these principles.”

That is all departments—not some departments. It would be a very worrying sign if the Government were to refuse that first piece of advice from the OEP.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and I have put my name to Amendment 20. I will be very brief, because I had a real moment of joy and optimism this morning when I read the latest Defra briefing notes, called Key Facts on the Environmental Principles. I will read out two sentences from this factsheet, which lead me to believe—if these really are facts, as it says —that the Government have changed their mind. First, “Ministers across government”—I emphasise that—“will be legally obliged to consider the principles in all policy development where it impacts the environment”. Secondly, “All government departments” —I emphasise that—“must consider the environmental principles policy statement when developing policy”.

I assume that unless the key facts are not key facts, the Government have indeed accepted Amendment 20, and I very much look forward to the Minister confirming that in his response.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Baroness Parminter and Lord Krebs

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to be speaking between the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, with whom I sat on the House of Lords committee that produced the report Hungry for Change, about which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and other noble Lords have been so complimentary.

I speak in support of my Amendment 169 in this group. I am grateful for the support of other noble Lords who have added their names to it. It addresses how, if we are to be food secure in this country, we need to ensure that the minimum amount of food is wasted—yet, in the list of data that will be provided in the food security report to inform policy thinking on our future resilience and food security, there is no mention of food waste.

There are currently significant levels of on-farm food waste in this country. In 2019, WRAP estimated that about 3.6 million tonnes of food is surplus, and waste occurs on farm every year. That is equivalent to about 7% of the total annual UK food harvest. There is huge potential to reduce the amount of surplus and waste by promoting best practice, with new insights being good for growers, businesses, the climate and feeding our people.

One of the priority areas in Clause 1 of the Government’s Environment Bill is resource efficiency and waste reduction. We need better synergy between the Environment Bill and the Agriculture Bill, and a way to achieve that is for us to see where the main problems with food waste are in the supply chain. To do that, we need the data to cover each part of the supply chain. My amendment would provide for that, so that we have a food security report that does the job that we need it to do.

[Lord Krebs (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 173, so excellently introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. Many of my comments will echo hers.

As an aside, it is perhaps worth clearing up a point of definition. In the debate so far, we have heard the terms “food security” and “food insecurity” used in two distinct ways. First, we have heard “food security” as it applies to the nation as a whole: do we have a system that can guarantee a supply of food for the country as a whole? Secondly, as referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, we have heard “food insecurity” as it applies to the individual or household that cannot afford enough to eat.

The chief executive of one of the UK’s food companies told me a couple of years ago that when he asked at No. 10 what the Government’s food strategy was, he received a blank look. The question had simply not occurred to the people in No. 10. Fortunately, things have moved on since then with the establishment of Henry Dimbleby’s national food strategy, of which we have already heard quite a lot. I have no doubt that the Dimbleby report, and its interim report due out in the next week or two, will be an excellent piece of work and will have much to say about the issues covered in this amendment,

I would also like to mention the recently published report Hungry for Change: Fixing the Failures in Food from the Select Committee on Food, Poverty, Health and the Environment, which I had the privilege of chairing. This report has already been referred to in this debate by the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, Lady Parminter and Lady Boycott. The latter two sat on the committee with me. I would like to highlight just three points from our report.

First, as we have heard, food insecurity—that is, worrying about not having enough to eat—is a big problem in this country. We do not yet have official figures, although, as the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, said, we should soon have them. However, the UN has estimated that the number of people suffering food insecurity is at least 2.2 million. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, said, the Food Foundation estimates that more than 5 million people worry about not having enough to eat. This is shocking but not surprising, given that one in five people in Britain live in poverty, according to the Government’s own figures. Furthermore, as we have already heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, Covid-19 is almost certainly making things worse.

Secondly, poor people tend to have less healthy diets, not through any fault of their own but because the way in which food is manufactured, marketed and priced conspires against healthy eating. Without the time, resources or emotional bandwidth, the least well-off people find it hardest to swim against the tide of cheap, accessible, tasty, heavily marketed and unhealthy junk food.

Thirdly, we know what kinds of measures would be effective in changing our food system for the better. We know that it will not happen by voluntary industry action or by public information campaigns. It will need a more interventionist approach from government on promotion, advertising, reformulation and perhaps taxation on less healthy food. The soft drinks industry levy shows how successful strong government intervention can be, but up till now the Government have been unwilling to do more. This inaction is inexcusable because it condemns the poorest, most disadvantaged children in Britain to a life of ill health followed by an early death.

We are all placing a lot of hope on the Dimbleby report, but there is a risk that it will make excellent recommendations only to gather dust in a corner, following the fate of many other earlier reports of the same kind. Our Select Committee report suggests how this might be prevented. The Government are already committed to publishing a White Paper on the food strategy, but the delivery of the strategy should, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, said, be monitored by an independent body, analogous to the Committee on Climate Change, reporting regularly to Parliament on progress.

Furthermore, the problem of food and poverty covers several different government departments. Therefore, there is a need for a high-level ministerial co-ordination group to ensure that actions are properly joined up across Government.

This amendment provides an opportunity for the Government to make a radical shift in their approach to food policy. Let us not waste the opportunity in the way that we waste a lot of our food.

Conservation of Habitats and Species (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness Parminter and Lord Krebs

Wednesday 6th March 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction. This statutory instrument brings over legislation from the nature directives, which have been the bedrock of nature protection in Europe and the UK for many years. We know that species resident on sites protected by the habitats directive are recovering more strongly than species on sites that are not covered by it. The nature directives are the bedrock of protection and are important for species such as the bittern, which has recovered far more strongly by virtue of the habitats directive.

I shall give credit where credit is due. As the Minister rightly said, this statutory instrument was removed and relaid after concerns were raised by the RSPB and other environmental stakeholders. That is a model of how such matters should be treated. I commend the department on that, and I will not be opposing this statutory instrument.

I shall touch on a particular issue the Minister raised. He did not quite address it to my satisfaction, so I shall press him a little further. It is about reporting under these regulations. The Explanatory Memorandum makes it clear that the reporting requirements will be carried across, and I pay tribute to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee which teased out a bit more from the department on that matter to make sure that there was greater clarity about the format of those reports. The formats for reporting are very clear under the directives, but they are not clear in the statutory instrument or the Explanatory Memorandum. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee got the department to put on record that the formats for reporting will be agreed with statutory agencies and the devolved Administrations. That is to be welcomed. However, there is no clarity on the provision for reviewing those reports and highlighting any failures for action. The Government say that they will meet their international obligations, which is welcome, but there is no guarantee that that reporting will be timely or at a pace that will allow failures to be rectified speedily. At the moment, the EU has the power to enforce action for failures. Is there any sufficient capacity to enforce, including by fines for breaches of the regulations?

When he sums up, will the Minister say a bit more about how the Government see these vital reporting requirements being reviewed and how we can be sure that transgressions against them are speedily rectified? I am sure the Minister will talk about the office for environmental protection, which we hope will be forthcoming in due course, but it will not be truly independent since the Government will appoint its board and will be responsible for its budget. Discussion so far suggests that there will be insufficient enforcement mechanisms. For example, there is no power to call the Government to hearings or, as a last resort, to levy fines. We do not have the office for environmental protection yet, so what will happen to reporting in the meantime? If the Minister could offer us some reassurances on how reporting will be reviewed and how we will rectify any failures, I would appreciate it.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

I welcome and appreciate the Minister’s introduction. Overall, what he said is reassuring. In addition to the point that has already been made, I want to pick up on scientific input, which was mentioned in the Minister’s introduction. Will he clarify in a little more detail the point that changes will be allowed only due to “technical and scientific progress”? The statutory instrument does not specify where the expert input will come from and whether it will involve the statutory nature conservation advisers. Will the Minister elaborate a little on the nature of the scientific input, how it will be taken into account, the degree of transparency in the publication of any scientific advice and how it will work across the four nations of the United Kingdom?

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Baroness Parminter and Lord Krebs

Tuesday 10th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords, we return again the to the issue of building the homes that we need, ensuring at the same time that we contribute fully to meeting our greenhouse gas emission targets and lowering fuel bills.

I am very disappointed to see that the Government and the other place did not feel able to accept the amendment that we proposed. In lieu, the Government are proposing a review. I remind noble Lords that the zero-carbon homes standards were agreed during the time of the coalition, with industry-wide support. Again, we ask why there is a need for a review. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, so powerfully asked last week: how many more homes will have to be built before this review and the implementation date and any action coming out of that review takes place? Given that we are looking to build a million new homes, how many more of those homes will have to be retrofitted—at great cost to individual home owners—because we have added a requirement for a review, when we know what we need to do now? There is no guarantee of action at the end of the review proposed by the Government. Indeed, the Government are obliged anyway to review the building regulations by June next year as a condition of the 2010 energy performance of buildings directive.

Finally, on that point, given that it was the Government and the Chancellor who scrapped the zero-carbon homes last year—the Government throughout the process of this debate have refused to engage on anything other than the viability issues around the housebuilding industry; again, the Minister chose to quote only from the housebuilding industry this evening—it gives this House little confidence that the review will look, alongside viability for housebuilders, equally at the need to ensure that we meet our greenhouse gas emission targets and lower the energy bills of people so that we can contribute to meeting our fuel-poverty targets. Given that a third of our greenhouse gas emissions in this country come from buildings and two-thirds come from homes, my contention is that this is too important to leave to a review.

I accept, however, that at this late stage there is a need to move to a compromise. Therefore that is again what I have done today. The amendment before your Lordships is a compromise. At the last stage we were proposing carbon standards of 60% for detached properties, 56% for attached properties and 44% for flats. This compromise would set the reductions at 44% in greenhouse gases on the basis of comparison with the building regulations in 2016. That is the level that the Government recommended during their time in coalition as the on-site zero-carbon standards, which would take effect from this year. It is those standards that a growing number of local authorities were setting as a condition of giving planning permission, until they were scrapped by the then Secretary of State, Eric Pickles, last year. I point out that, between 2007 and 2014, 79,000 homes in England and Wales were built to this standard. Further, Scotland has introduced this standard already, last October, and the volume of houses to this standard is growing. Therefore, the standard is proven to be both effective and achievable.

As I told the Minister, I trawled through the Conservative manifesto this morning to study exactly what their commitments were in this area. The Conservative manifesto made a clear commitment to the legally binding climate change targets and to tackling fuel poverty. It made a very clear commitment—some of us in this House may not have liked it—to offer no further public subsidy to wind farms. That was the Government’s priority; it was in the manifesto and this House can therefore understand it. However, while they made no commitments on rowing back on building standards, they made a commitment to deliver on the greenhouse gas targets and to tackle fuel poverty.

Throughout this debate, all sides of this House have challenged the Government endlessly to make quite clear, if they intend to meet their greenhouse gas targets and are not prepared to accept this amendment, how they will meet those targets. The Bill is an opportunity to provide us with the sustainable homes that we need. This compromise amendment would put us back on the right trajectory towards getting more zero-carbon homes. It would help deliver on our greenhouse gas targets, ensure that people’s fuel bills were lower and at the same time deliver the homes that we need. I beg to move.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment. I, too, am sorry that the Government have not accepted the compromise that has been brought forward from our previous discussion.

The Government’s reason for rejecting the amendment is that it would increase burdens on housebuilders and threaten delivery of the large number of new homes that is proposed, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, pointed out, how can this be true if 79,000 homes have already been built to this standard? The Scottish Government have adopted this standard; it is lower than the standard that has been adopted in London; and it is already being adopted by an increasing number of local authorities in their local plans. All that evidence seems to fly in the face of the Government’s objection. I find it hard to accept that it is a burden that the housebuilding industry would not be able to cope with and that it would threaten the delivery of new homes; the evidence on that just does not stack up.

We are offered instead a review. As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, the problem with a review—we have the evidence, but let us say that we agree a review—is that we do not have a clear date for completing it nor a clear set of actions that will arise from it, and a review would not add to what is required under Article 4 of the 2010 energy performance of buildings directive. I hope that the Minister will give us some tighter commitments on the nature of the review that the Government are proposing. When will it be completed? Who will take part in it? What actions will flow from it? How does it go beyond what is required in the 2010 directive?

I do not want to reiterate the arguments that we have had, but we have not heard any argument throughout the passage of this Bill that says that this is not the right thing to do. We know that it is the right thing to do to cut our greenhouse gas emissions and to help to resolve the issues of fuel poverty. All the arguments against it have been obstacles such as, “It’ll be too difficult. The industry won’t like it. It’s all going to need more analysis”—paralysis by analysis, as we often hear. We know that it is the right thing to do. We know that if we do not do it now, we will have to come back to those houses that have been built and retrofit them with improved carbon standards in the future. The Minister should give us as much hope as possible that the Government are really committed to cutting our greenhouse gas emissions through buildings as well as through other sources—in this case, through buildings—and she should go further than simply offering yet another review.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords, this amendment and the previous debates concern ensuring that the homes that we want deliver sustainable drainage, with the benefit of protecting home owners from floods and wider amenity benefits to communities and to biodiversity. I am disappointed that the Government and the Commons did not feel able to accept amendments that this House voted for to end the automatic right to connect for housebuilders. However, I thank the Minister for what is being proposed now in terms of a concession on the review, which we believe will demonstrate all too clearly that the evidence on the ground that we have heard about in this Chamber on numerous occasions shows that SUDS are not being delivered.

However, the amendment we propose is to ensure that the review will be thorough. First, it would ensure that the review looks not just at policy but at actual developments; and that there is a robust sample size, taking into account the proportion of new developments and the type of SUDS being implemented. Secondly, it would ensure that the review is timely. The Climate Change Committee will report to Parliament next June. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, will want to say more about this. It will consider the penetration of sustainable urban drainage. It is therefore vital that any review undertaken can report so that the adaptation sub-committee has that information, can assess it and provide appropriate advice to Parliament by the time the report is published in June.

I hope that the Minister, in summing up, will be able to reassure the House that the review will indeed be thorough; that she will reassure the House that the Government accept the strength of feeling on this issue that the House has demonstrated on numerous occasions; and that we will be able to deliver the sustainable urban drainage systems that we all want to see. I beg to move.

[Lord Krebs]

My Lords, I should declare that I am the chairman of the Adaptation Sub-Committee, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, referred. Listening to what both she and the Minister said, I did not think there was too big a gap between their amendments. The Minister said that the review of policies would be robust and evidence-based. For me, part of the evidence base will be whether the policies are working on the ground. I hope that, when the Minister sums up, she will say that the review will also include looking at evidence of what is happening on the ground.

It is important to recognise that this is not just evidence from high flood risk areas. According to figures that I have been given from the insurance industry, 70% of claims for flood damage come from buildings outside high flood risk areas. This is because surface water flooding does not necessarily occur in the same place as coastal or fluvial flooding. If we could get confirmation on that point, it would be extremely reassuring both to me and to the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter.

On the question of timing, as the noble Baroness has said, my committee will submit its statutory report to Parliament next summer on the Government’s progress in preparing for the impacts of climate change. This includes the impacts of flood risk, which are likely to increase in future. In writing our report, it would be helpful for us to have the output of this review available at some time in the spring of 2017. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Baroness Parminter and Lord Krebs

Wednesday 4th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords, the new homes we wish to be built must, at the same time, meet our greenhouse gas targets and contribute to lowering fuel bills. It is right that we help to ensure that those homes are financially viable for the people who are going to build them. As the Government have accepted, the on-cost for building homes to this standard is £3,000 for a three-bedroom semi. That figure, as the Government again have accepted, comes from a report in 2014, since when costs have come down dramatically. But we also need to ensure that we help the poorest in our communities to save on their energy bills. It is accepted that introducing these standards would result in a saving of £330 per annum for households, compared to houses built to existing building regulations. Equally, it would save those households any retrofit costs in the future, given that the Government have not ruled out raising building standards.

The Government have said that this is a regulatory burden on the small developer, although I remind noble Lords that these standards were agreed by the industry before they were withdrawn by the Chancellor. This was not the evidence given to the House of Lords Select Committee on National Policy for the Built Environment, where it was made clear that small housebuilders were saying that access to finance and the price of land were the major constraints on housebuilding. Let us be clear: regulations are not always to be seen as a burden. Regulations deliver a level playing field across the housing industry and drive innovation. It is regulations that will cut the fuel bills for the poorest in our community and help us to meet the greenhouse gas targets that this Government committed to so strongly and so welcomely in Paris. It is the job of this House to ensure that the Bills that leave here contain good regulation. That is what this amendment would do. I beg to move.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. As she has said, it is meant to be helpful in the context of our legally binding commitment to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. The important thing to remember is that the new houses which are to be built now will be around for a long time—probably 100 years or more. It is inevitable that over time, we will need to tighten our greenhouse gas emission standards and move towards a zero-carbon homes standard. If, in building them, we do not meeting that standard today, they will have to be retrofitted in future. It is all very well to say, as the noble Viscount did, that we will undertake a review, but in the time it takes to carry out that review, many homes will be built. We will be storing up trouble with the homes we build while carrying out yet another review.

In the other place, it was noted that this requirement would “slow down or prevent” the building of new homes. Let us look at the counterfactual: let us say that we do not implement this amendment and go ahead rapidly with building new homes, but that those new homes are not fit for purpose in the future. Surely, that cannot be a good principle. If we are to build new homes now, we should think about their long-term implications for both greenhouse gas emissions and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, the energy bills of those who will live in them. Finally, we have the chance now to legislate to make greenhouse gas savings through this measure, and if we do not, the country will have to make them elsewhere. In the debates in Committee or Report, nobody has said, “Okay, we’re not going to make the savings here—but here’s where we are going to offer up savings elsewhere in the country”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, the purpose of the amendment is to ensure that the new homes that we want are built with sustainable drainage, protecting home owners against flooding and delivering wider environmental benefits to the community—and, indeed, for biodiversity.

At Report, the Government’s response was that we should wait to see how the presumption in planning works, given that it has been in place for only a year, but the evidence that we had in Committee, at Report and since is that it is not working. Since Report, Hampshire County Council, Essex County Council and South Tyneside Council have joined every water company and the National Flood Forum, which has links with local councils all around the country, to say that the problem needs sorting, and sorting now.

The amendment, which we proposed at Report, is a simplified version of an amendment that we moved in Committee. I humbly disagree with the Minister: the amendment does not increase bureaucracy but gives local authorities more powers in discussions about planning permissions to deliver the increase in SUDS we need. It gives them the power to talk to developers at the earliest opportunity about sustainable urban drainage solutions. That is what the amendment, which removes the automatic right of connection, would do: make sure that housebuilders consider urban drainage at the beginning of the process, not at the end.

There has been overwhelming support from a variety of organisations, which we cited at Report and which I will not, for brevity’s sake, repeat this evening. The House of Lords Select Committee on National Policy for the Built Environment supported such an amendment. Again, we must think of home owners. Yes of course we must think of home builders but, as I said, this is not extra bureaucracy; it is a reasonable amendment. The Government’s very welcome Flood Re initiative, which came into effect last year and will give low-cost insurance for home owners, excludes homes built after 2009. By introducing the amendment, we will be increasing the amount of sustainable urban drainage and providing what the Government accept is a low-cost route to the protection that householders need and which we need for our environment.

Given that Ministers have been quoting other industry sources, I end by quoting the Construction Industry Council, which states that, “Maintaining the automatic right provides a get-out for developers by not requiring them to think about how they manage surface water”. It is time to end that automatic right. I beg to move.

[Lord Krebs]

My Lords, I shall be very brief in speaking in support of this amendment, because we have heard the arguments in Committee and on Report. As chairman of the adaptation sub-committee of the Committee on Climate Change, I simply make the point, which I made before, that this is about looking not just now but into the future, when we understand from the climate models that flash surface-water flooding will become more of a problem. It is already a major problem and one of the major sources of flooding in this country and it is going to get worse. So it is rather like the zero-carbon homes amendment that we discussed a few minutes ago. Why on earth would we want to build new developments now that are going to present the residents of those developments with problems with flash flooding in future, when we know that there are straightforward solutions? There is the solution of sustainable urban drainage, not removing the right to connect to the drains altogether but making a presumption—because that right is not automatic—that developers will use sustainable urban drainage where possible.

If, as the Minister said in the introduction, this amendment is both unnecessary and unworkable—and he gave various reasons—I ask myself why so many professional bodies and why the water industry itself, as the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, support it. Those are the people who really understand, and who are real experts, and it is clear that they think that that is workable and desirable and will achieve greater sustainability for the new developments that will be built in the coming years as a result of the initiatives in this Bill. So I hope that noble Lords will listen to the argument that the noble Baroness made and will recall the arguments heard in Committee and on Report and will support the amendment.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Baroness Parminter and Lord Krebs

Monday 25th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, the aim of this amendment is for new homes to contribute to meeting our greenhouse gas targets and to help lower fuel bills. In Committee the Minister argued that homes had to be financially viable to build, yet conceded that the extra build costs to meet carbon compliance standards are under £3,000 for a three-bedroom, semi-detached house. That figure comes from a Zero Carbon Hub report published in 2014, which forecasts a continuing reduction in those costs until 2020. Indeed, the managing director of Zero Carbon Hub said last month that today’s costs are dramatically lower than in 2014 due to the industry’s greater proficiency at building energy-efficient low-carbon homes.

The Government also argued that the amendment imposed a regulatory burden, but these standards, withdrawn by the Chancellor last year, had industry-wide support. If the Government’s priority is to support small housebuilders, it should be noted that they themselves cite that the major constraints on their building more homes are land prices and access to finance. This was the evidence given last October to the House of Lords Committee on National Policy on the Built Environment by representatives from both the Home Builders Federation and the Federation of Master Builders. The committee concluded:

“We disagree with the Government’s decision to remove the zero carbon homes policy and the Code for Sustainable Homes. These decisions are likely to add to long-term housing costs through a reduction in energy efficiency, and we have heard no clear evidence that they will lead to an increase in housebuilding”.

Since the Committee stage, the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee has added its voice to the call for a reinstatement of the zero carbon homes policy.

Let us not forget home owners in all of this. The annual energy bill for a family living in a zero carbon three-bedroom, semi-detached house will be £1,220 less than that for a Victorian home and £330 less than for a home built to existing building regulations. The amendment would also avoid retrofit costs, given that the Government are not ruling out raising energy standards in the future. It is a long-term saving not just to the home owner but to the environment.

Higher regulatory standards should be considered not as burdensome red tape but as a requirement that is essential to reduce both energy costs and to tackle the threat of climate change. As Mike Roberts, the MD of small housebuilder HAB Housing, said, there should be no exemptions: volume housebuilders have the scale and resource, whilst smaller companies are light on their feet and more able to react quickly. We urge the Government to back up the commitment that the UK made at COP21 in Paris and make higher carbon standards mandatory as soon as possible. I beg to move.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, for introducing this amendment, and I thank the Minister for meeting us last Thursday to discuss this and other amendments.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, has already mentioned, the UK has signed up to the Paris agreement on climate change and, importantly, we have our own national legislation—I declare an interest as a member of the Committee on Climate Change, established under that legislation—which commits us to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In a few weeks’ time the Government are due to accept the fifth carbon budget proposed by the committee, which will commit us to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 57% below 1990 levels by 2030—on the cost-effective path to our ultimate target in 2050.

At the end of June, the committee will publish its annual report on progress towards this target. The analyses are still going on, so I cannot leak the final results, but I can inform noble Lords of one fact that is highly relevant to this amendment. Last year—2015—emissions from buildings actually increased by 4% and, even adjusting for annual variation in temperature, the decrease was only about 1%. This is not a one-off. There has been very little reduction in emissions from buildings over the past 10 years. If we are to meet our legally binding obligation, emissions from buildings will have to decrease substantially, and at a much higher rate in the years ahead.

Part of the problem is that we have old building stock and many poorly built houses that are energy inefficient. This underlines the importance of not adding to the problem with new homes, when we do not need to. That is why this amendment is so important, not just for the short term but for the long term. If we do not require the zero carbon homes standard today, we will have to introduce it at some point in the future.

As we discussed in Committee, there are differences between what the Government are proposing and the standard in this amendment. For example, in the 2006 Part L requirements, the Government’s proposal amounts to a 44% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, while this amendment suggests a 52% reduction for attached homes and a 60% reduction for detached homes. How would these greater reductions be achieved? An important element is on-site renewable energy generation—for example, by solar panels or other renewable sources.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, mentioned, there was considerable discussion of costs in Committee. We know now that from October this year in London all new homes will have to meet the zero carbon home standard and the GLA has calculated that for a three-bedroom semi the extra build cost will be between £978 and £2,702. For this additional investment to be cost optimal, the savings, discounted at an appropriate rate, should exceed the initial investment through the life cycle of the building. The calculations show that even with modest savings on energy bills of £100 a year, the investment would be cost optimal, and if the price of carbon is included—as it should be, according to the Treasury Green Book—the balance shifts even further in favour of zero carbon homes. The cost argument simply does not stack up if we take a life cycle view.

There was also a suggestion in Committee that making homes zero carbon would introduce an additional problem: if we make our buildings too energy efficient, they may be prone to overheating. It is true that one consequence of future climate change is that we probably will have to make our buildings more resilient to hot weather. However, this is not incompatible with zero carbon home standards. Professor Philip Eames of Loughborough University, an expert in renewable energy and building physics, says:

“The problem of overheating in new build can be an issue if the design is not appropriate ... we can quite easily improve the energy efficiency of new build significantly without suffering from this problem. It just needs attention to detail in terms of design”.

Finally, we have heard—as indeed the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, has mentioned—that the requirement would be too onerous for small builders. Here, I would make the following observations. As has already been said, at least some small builders do not see it as a problem. Furthermore, given that one of the simple measures to achieve the zero carbon home standard is the installation of rooftop solar panels, it is hard to see why this is a regulatory burden, since it is a routine procedure. Even if the amendment would pose a challenge to some small builders, we should be asking them to up their game.

There are compelling reasons to accept this amendment, in terms of both our climate change commitments and cost effectiveness. The objections raised in Committee seem to me to not stand up to scrutiny. I very much hope that noble Lords will agree that this amendment should be accepted.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Baroness Parminter and Lord Krebs

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful that we have the opportunity to discuss these amendments this evening. While my name is to both of them, I shall speak only to Amendment 119.

The Government have rightly launched a national flood resilience review, which is due to report in the summer, but that review will come too late if the Bill paves the way for 1 million new homes without due regard for their flood resilience. New homes increase flood risks for developments and for surrounding communities. Concreting over a catchment speeds up run-off, increasing the likelihood of flooding. After the 2007 floods, the flooding review by Sir Michael Pitt recommended sustainable drainage as a way forward, which moved the Government to bring forward the Flood and Water Management Act. It was suggested in the Act that there should be further use of SuDS, with soakaways such as swales, ponds and other natural means to ensure that sewer networks were not overwhelmed during periods of heavy rainfall. We all know that well-designed SuDS can contribute to water quality, to coping with overheating and to biodiversity. But this Government delayed implementation and then abandoned that approach altogether, in favour of an “expectation” that major planning applications would include SuDS.

This was not because of the costs. Defra recognised, in its own consultation document, that,

“sustainable drainage systems are generally cheaper to build; and maintaining them will be cheaper (or need be no more expensive), than the … cost … required”,

in conventional drainage. The result of this expectation that the SuDS approach would work is that last year Barratt Homes, the UK’s leading housebuilder, included no provision whatever for sustainable drainage in a third of its developments. The Committee on Climate Change has analysed 100 planning applications in areas of flood risks and found that fewer than 15% proposed SuDS. If the Government wish to challenge that evidence, what monitoring are they doing at a national level of the uptake of SuDS?

The National Policy for the Built Environment Committee of the House of Lords, on which I and other noble Lords sat, has looked at this issue. In its report last month, it argued that the Government should take a more proactive approach to the provision of SuDS. In legislating to provide for new homes, we must seek to contain the time to plan for them—absolutely. But we need a process ensuring that new homes are built to a standard that will protect them from flood risks and not exacerbate risks for established communities. I shall not list the many organisations which have written to the Minister in support of this amendment, because we do not have time. I will merely beg to move and hope that other Members might pick up some of the points that I know need to be raised.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to this because the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, has made most of the points that I would want to make. My name is also on Amendment 119 and I would like to go on to refer to Amendment 120, on which my name comes first. But to add briefly to what the noble Baroness has said, the real problem is that developers still have the automatic right to connect to the existing sewerage system. We know from estimates that more than half the existing sewers are already overloaded. While developers have the automatic right to connect, they are not incentivised to look at other ways of managing surface water flooding. Furthermore, when SuDS are installed, there is no clarity in the current regime about who should pay for the maintenance once they have been built. In any case, the current guidance applies only to developments of 10 homes or more, so small urban infill developments which could be creating some of the biggest long-term problems are not covered. Around 100,000 minor planning applications are approved each year which are not subject to the new safeguards.

So the aim of this amendment is to ensure that SuDS are the default option in new developments and to help achieve this by removing the automatic right to connect to existing sewerage systems. Connecting new developments to existing sewers should be the absolute exception, once other options have been exhausted.

I turn to Amendment 120 on developer liability. This amendment focuses on the long-term costs for society arising from continuing development in the flood plain and presents a simple, workable proposal to address the current lack of incentive for developers to make new properties safe and resilient to flooding. We know that, at the moment, more than 100,000 homes have been built in the flood plain since 2008—28,000 of these in areas at a greater than one-in-100 annual chance of flooding, taking into account the protection provided by any flood defences. The consequences are that, in the long run, owners of new homes are being exposed to unnecessary flooding risk.

A one-in-100-year chance sounds very small. We have to remember that this is the chance of flooding in a particular place. If there are 100 such places, then there is the likelihood that someone will get flooded every single year. In fact, in this century, we have already had 12 significant flood events in 15 years. If we carry on as at present, we can more or less guarantee that someone, somewhere, is going to suffer the trauma of flood damage each year.

Data are not collected on whether or not new homes that are built in flood plains are made resilient. I declare an interest as the chairman of the adaptation sub-committee of the Committee on Climate Change As has already been mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, our data suggest that fewer than 15% of new homes have been built with sustainable urban drainage systems.

Are we putting too much faith in flood defences to protect new developments, when they are typically built to a one-in-100-year standard? There is evidence that developers and planners are taking what might be called a compliance approach to flood risk— following the process but putting too much faith in limited protection from flood defences and not taking into account the uncertainty in even the best flood models.

A recent example, of which I am sure noble Lords are well aware, is Bridge End Court, a residential care home and sheltered development in Cockermouth. It was built in the meander of the River Derwent, on land that had flooded badly in 2009, on the very edge of a flood zone 3, where it would not have been deemed appropriate development. After the 2009 flood, the local authority had the chance to require the development to go elsewhere but it allowed it to go ahead in the same place. In spite of the ground floor supposedly being set above the height of even a one-in-1,000-year flood, the care home was flooded in December and the residents had to be rescued.

What constitutes a one-in-1,000 standard is highly uncertain. This is where developers come in. Developers are required to produce a flood risk assessment for a site, but they bear no liability if they take risks or simply get it wrong. The assumptions in the flood models that underpin a flood risk assessment can be selected either to increase the assessment of flood risk or to make it appear lower than reality. I should emphasise that I have seen no evidence that developers are manipulating flood risk assessments but, in principle, they could.

It is worth noting some Environment Agency figures. The Environment Agency has to be consulted on developments and it objects to about 3,000 applications per year on grounds of flood risk. In a sample of nearly 1,700 objections between 2009 and 2013, 20% of those objections were because the developer had produced no flood risk assessment whatever and 54% of them were objected to because the flood risk assessment was unsatisfactory. Among the reasons they were unsatisfactory were that they did not take into account future sea level rise, future increases in river flows or future increases in surface water flooding.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Baroness Parminter and Lord Krebs

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, the Government’s attempt to solve the current housing crisis needs, at the same time, to address the issue of what types of homes are built. They should be of high quality and high energy efficiency standards which drive down future energy bills, help to protect against fuel poverty and provide healthy living environments. The Explanatory Notes to the Bill make it clear that its principal aim is to bring forward proposals that make homes more affordable. This laudable aim was dealt a serious blow by the scrapping of the zero-carbon homes policy by the Chancellor last July. Without this standard, which until last July had cross-party and cross-industry support, the new homes promised by the Government will not be as affordable as they might be. They will lock their owners into a cycle of higher fuel bills and the need for costly retrofits. The amendment requires that all new homes built in England from 1 January 2018 achieve the previously agreed zero-carbon homes standard.

Reinstating this housing standard will not only help keep homes affordable for the long term, it will help meet our legally binding climate commitments. We are committed to reducing UK emissions by 50% by 2025. Buildings accounted for 34% of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2014, with 64% of building emissions coming from homes. It is in the building sector that most of the cost-effective potential carbon savings are to be found. Housebuilding must, of course, remain financially viable for the private sector, which will deliver the bulk of future housing. Yet the scrapping of zero-carbon homes by the Chancellor was not accompanied by any evidence that building homes to that standard would affect the speed at which the UK can build new homes. Indeed, evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on National Policy for the Built Environment showed that the removal of the zero-carbon homes requirement has generated uncertainty for homebuilders. Moreover, they were provided with no clear evidence that the removal would lead to an increase in housebuilding. This evidence persuaded the committee—and I declare an interest as a member—to call on the Government to reverse the decision to remove the requirement for new homes to generate no net carbon emissions.

Reinstating the zero-carbon standard would help deliver affordable homes for the long term, and not burden occupants with needlessly high energy bills. This would also make the UK’s statutory greenhouse gas emission targets more achievable. Post-Paris, it is surely time for leadership and not backsliding. I beg to move.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment. I put my name to it because I believe that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, we have an opportunity to ensure that the proposed 1 million new homes are not just suitable for their immediate occupants but for the long term. I declare an interest as a member of the Committee on Climate Change and the chair of its adaptation sub-committee. The committee, established under the Climate Change Act 2008, is the statutory body that provides advice to the Government on how to achieve the legally binding target, already referred to, of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. The adaptation sub-committee advises the Government on how to prepare for the inevitable impacts of climate change.

Water Bill

Debate between Baroness Parminter and Lord Krebs

Tuesday 8th April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and I return again to the issue of the use of any surplus reserves for Flood Re. I will not repeat the arguments we advanced in Committee and on Report. I feel that the House is clear that our aim is to ensure that any significant surplus funds can be used by Flood Re to encourage householders to adapt to the impacts of climate change and flooding, and so manage down risk.

I am grateful to the Minister for meeting the noble Lord, Lords Krebs, and me last week to discuss the matter again. We accept that decisions cannot be made now—pinning down in legislation what level of reserves should be built up and what should happen to them. However, we need clarity about the decision-making process that will condition what happens to surplus funds. Will the Minister confirm that Flood Re will have to draw up a strategy to manage surplus funds and that it will be published? Equally, we seek confirmation that the approach of “invest to save” is not ruled out if significant surpluses are built up. By this I mean spending on property-level protection where the economics of that approach show that it delivers the best value for money in managing down risk. Given that it has been shown that such an approach delivers a benefit of at least £5 for each £1 invested, it is too important an approach to discount. It could make a decisive difference to individual householders and their protection. It will also benefit the insurance industry by reducing the level of overall claims. It is, therefore, in the interests of a smooth transition at the end of the process of Flood Re. To that end, I beg to move.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for meeting the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and me to discuss this amendment. I do not wish to say anything at length but I shall make a couple of simple points. If we accept that Flood Re, according to the Government’s own figures, will build up a reserve, we can ask what this surplus might be used for. It could be used for future discounting of policy charges; it could be saved up for—excuse the pun—a rainy day when the call on insurance may be greater than anticipated; or, as our amendment suggests, it could be used to manage down future risk. As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, this is in effect a proposal that Flood Re should invest to save, to reduce both its own future costs by encouraging household-level protection measures and to help those householders to exit at the end of the period of operation of Flood Re.

According to the work of the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Committee on Climate Change, which I chair, about 190,000 properties could benefit from property-level protection. It would seem reasonable that some of the money that accrues as a surplus in Flood Re should, given the returns on investment to which the noble Baroness has already alluded, be used to help some or, I hope, eventually, all of these 190,000 properties to become more resilient.

Water Bill

Debate between Baroness Parminter and Lord Krebs

Monday 31st March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, the aim of Flood Re is to provide affordable insurance for flooding and to transition to risk-reflective pricing. If a surplus of funds were built up, that could help to manage flood risk down by encouraging householders to adapt to the impacts of climate change and flooding.

Funding for Flood Re will be via a levy, set as part of the five-yearly review by government. The Bill makes clear what would happen if there was a deficit—namely, a further levy on the insurance companies—but it does not make clear what would happen if a significant surplus built up. In Committee I outlined the potential, on the basis of the Government’s own figures, that at the end of year 1 it could have at least £100 million in reserves. In the early years, the aim would be to build this figure up to meet potential claims. The maximum reserves that Flood Re should need in any one year, after paying for reinsurance and administration, is an amount equal to the reinsurance policy threshold. This is due to be £250 million. If there is a sizeable flood during the lifetime of Flood Re it will need to pay the first £250 million, with the rest paid for by a claim on the reinsurance policy. It will then need to build up the reserve again the following year.

Ministers and insurers may well want to build up a slightly higher reserve in order to protect against a possible deficit if there are two bad years in a row, so there may be no surplus, as my noble friend Lord Cathcart rightly pointed out in Committee. Over the lifetime of the scheme, though, there may be a build-up of reserves if there are fewer claims than anticipated. Given that the ABI is now saying that the number of households it expects to be underwritten by Flood Re is 350,000 rather than the original figure of 500,000, which was the basis of the Government’s impact assessment, that is certainly possible. The ABI made it quite clear to me that its intention was for any surplus to be returned to ABI members. We need to ensure that Flood Re does not inadvertently lead to insurers profiteering from excess levy income being returned to them. It may not be passed back to customers automatically but could lead to a reduction in the future levy on bills. It would be better for the levy to be reduced in advance if a reasonable reserve has already been built up or, better still, for the excess to be spent on managing down the flood risk. I am envisaging paying not for flood defences but for things like grants to low-income households for home flood protection measures. I would not want to pin down in detail in this legislation what levels of surplus of reserves Flood Re should be able to build up or what will happen in those circumstances but a marker needs to be put down that, if significant reserves are secured, such reserves may be used to incentivise Flood Re policyholders to fund household resilience measures.

This amendment, which I am glad to say has the support of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, allows this issue to be explored by the Government and Flood Re administrators during their five-yearly review of the scheme. It gives flexibility but encourages managing down flood risk if, and only if, significant surpluses are built up. I beg to move.

[Lord Krebs]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, has said, this amendment is concerned with the possible surplus or cash reserves that Flood Re might build up. We have to recognise that although Flood Re is being designed as an integral part of the insurance industry it will be a public body spending public money and will operate on a not-for-profit basis. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, has indicated and the Government’s own figures suggest that there might be reserves of more than £100 million after one year. If that surplus exceeds the amount that is required to cover claims in any one year—again, the noble Baroness indicated a figure of £250 million—it would seem perfectly reasonable for that money to be used to manage down Flood Re’s own exposure to future claims and it could do so in a highly cost-effective way. This is about value for money. One estimate is that £4,000 spent on a property could prevent a number of claims on Flood Re averaging £45,000 a time, so the return on investment is going to be enormous.

The adaptation sub-committee which I chair has estimated that there are 190,000 properties in England where fitting flood-protection measures would be cost-effective, but progress in fitting them at household level has been very slow. In fact, the rate of uptake would need to increase by a factor of 20 to fit all such measures within the lifetime of Flood Re. This amendment recognises the potential to do more to protect high-risk households and the opportunity that the surplus reserves might represent. Investing in resilience now would leave high-risk households better able to afford flood insurance once Flood Re has withdrawn and, rather than adding to the cost of the levy, investing in this way promises to help minimise the costs of Flood Re over the lifetime of the policy.

Water Bill

Debate between Baroness Parminter and Lord Krebs

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords, briefly, I support my noble friend Lord Shipley on this important amendment. We are rightly spending the majority of our time today discussing a financial vehicle to deliver affordable flood insurance, but the planning system has a vital role in making our country more resilient for the future. On the potential effects of cuts in local authority budgets on their ability to undertake their important planning functions, which my noble friend mentioned, I add that a review in 24 months’ time is sensible, given that in the intervening 24 months there will be further significant cuts to the Environment Agency’s budget, with an expected cut of more than 550 staff.

Given the scenes we have seen in recent days, it would be only too easy for people, rightly, to make the case that we must protect front-line staff in the Environment Agency. However, it is equally important to look appropriately at people in the back room who are working hard on the consultations on significant planning applications for developments of more than 10 houses or one hectare. Equally, it is important that the national flood management strategy, which the EA devised in 2011, is carried forward.

I add my support. The timeline that my noble friend Lord Shipley has suggested of 24 months is apposite given the need to review some of the resource constraints that both local authorities and the Environment Agency will face in the forthcoming months.

[Lord Krebs]

My Lords, I too support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. I have already declared an interest as the chairman of the adaptation sub-committee of the Committee on Climate Change. The sub-committee has a useful data set that could be brought to bear were this review to happen. It has developed a set of indicators, which are published, for the resilience of planning decisions in relation to present and future risks from flooding, particularly from future impacts of climate change. For example, it has looked at the implementation of SUDS, at the implementation of household measures that could provide protection at the individual property level and at planning decisions to develop in the flood plain. As has already been said by the noble Lord, development in the flood plain has been going ahead faster than development elsewhere, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. If the properties are appropriately protected, either by community-level measures or by individual household measures, the risks can be managed. The sub-committee has a data set and a set of indicators that could be useful were the Government minded to accept the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley.