Water Companies: Licence Conditions
Baroness Uddin Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)
The Government have a very clear idea about the information that they are reviewing because every single water company, like every other public company, has its accounts audited. That information is publicly available, and I refer the noble Lord to the public audited accounts of all those water companies.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I support everything said by my friend the noble Lord, Lord Sikka. I wonder what regular representation, if any, the Government make about the quality of the water provided to us via various water authorities. I do not know if the Minister is aware that there is an exponential rise of allergies and eczema in east London. The water quality there is poor; I have raised these issues privately and on previous occasions. Can he assure me and this House that the water quality is as important as the profits that the water companies are making?
Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)
I absolutely assure the noble Baroness and the House that that is the case. I was not aware of the issue that she outlined around the outbreak of eczema. I am not sure if that is related to the water, but I can certainly look into that matter for her. The Environment Agency spends a great deal of time on this, and it is one of the issues that we can be really proud of. We get an unbelievably good service provided in terms of clean water that goes into every household across this country for a very modest price.
Storm Babet: Flooding
Baroness Uddin Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Lord Benyon (Con)
I thank my noble friend for her continued interest in this matter. She has reminded me that I did not respond to the point that the noble Baroness asked about building on flood plains. If we said that no more properties were to be built on flood plains—I know that this is not what she or my noble friend would say—we would be saying that there should be no more houses built in York, Leeds or even London and a great many other communities. What we want to see is flood-resilient homes being built, and there are plenty of examples in this country and around the world where you can build, in certain circumstances, flood-resistant housing on flood plains. But, by and large, we do not want to see this. The National Planning Policy Framework is very clear about this, and we have underpinned that recently.
My noble friend is right that Flood Re relates to houses built before that date, and that is one of the levers we are trying to apply to prevent the wrong kind of houses being built in the wrong place, but I will certainly look at the point she raises. Prior to Flood Re, 9% of policyholders with a prior flood claim could obtain flood insurance quotes from two or more insurers, and no one could get quotes from five or more. Following the scheme’s launch, most customers can now get more than 10 quotes. It has been a resounding success in supporting people for whom the fear of floods was dramatic; we would all like to see it extended. I point out that the Build Back Better scheme gives an added value of £10,000 to a household not just to restore a house after flooding but to make sure that it does not flood again. I note her point about Schedule 3, which she constantly raises. She knows that we are consulting on it, and the Government have given a clear commitment to bringing that into force.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I send my respects to all those who so tragically lost their lives in Storm Babet, and to those who face such enormous challenges in rebuilding their lives. I thank my noble friend Lady Hayman for her outstanding response to the Government’s Statement. As well as thanking the Minister, I will ask a general question about flood defences in all areas of London, particularly the Thames Barrier. I heard some reports about it during the discussion of Storm Babet, and I want to understand what assessment the Government have made to ensure the barrier is safe and strengthened given, as he said, the extreme rain we have experienced of late.
Lord Benyon (Con)
In the wider context, the Government are investing £5.2 billion to build flood and coastal erosion schemes to better protect communities, and almost 60,000 properties are better protected. We tend not to tell the story of the houses that are not flooded; for obvious reasons, we concentrate on those that are. Some 314,000 properties were better protected through the Government’s £2.6 billion investment between 2015 and 2021. The Thames Barrier is vital to the security of this global city that we are in now, and some long-term work is going on around future-proofing it to adapt to rising sea levels and the constant improved data we have on east coast tidal surges. We have had some narrow misses in some communities up the east coast in the past. The Thames Barrier has worked, is regularly reviewed and is expertly managed, but in time, unless we can contain this planet to 1.5 degrees of warming, we have to look at that kind of infrastructure as something that we will need to modify and possibly replace with a larger scheme further on down the estuary.