Draft Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2016

Lord Mann Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 General Committees

[Rory Stewart]

Provided that the dredging work being undertaken was in the category for a registered exemption, all someone would have to do for works under 1.5 km is register that they were doing them and ensure that they had fulfilled the conditions of the exemption. They would then be able to proceed with the work. In the past, they would have had to make a bespoke application with a lot of detailed plans and drawings that would be considered on a case-by-case basis. We believe, though, that in low-risk cases of agricultural dredging that are not in areas of special scientific interest, it should be possible for people to fulfil a simple registration, follow the conditions and proceed. An example would be regular winter dredging.

There are essentially four different categories. The first, which I touched on briefly, is the excluded category, for which no permit at all is needed. For the second—the exempt category—people simply register online.

The third category is the standard rule permit, which requires people to seek permission—it is not just registration—and they have to follow standard conditions. For example, if someone is running an electric cable across the river, the conditions relate to putting it 1 metre or 1.5 metres under the river bed, starting around 8 metres from the edge of the river. There is, though, still a requirement for the agency—in this case the Environment Agency—to check the plans and drawings to ensure that the person has complied.

The final category is where the bespoke permits remain in place, but they are reduced to around half of cases.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

If one of my neighbours has a house adjoining the river, they potentially have a vested interest in any works that are done. What rights would they have to know about works being carried out and to object to the detail of how those works were done, in order to protect their own land and property?

[Rory Stewart]

The hon. Gentleman asks a very good question. We have to differentiate three different questions: first, the nature of that person’s interest in that river; secondly, the nature of the work being undertaken; and, thirdly, the existing procedures to go through some form of objection.

I will take the categories in turn. To take the most simple case in the exempt category, for someone putting a ladder in the river that is removed at the end of the day, the answer to the neighbour is that that is an exempt activity, and the neighbour would have no opportunity to object.

For the second category, let us imagine that someone is running a more complicated utility across a river, such as an electric cable. If it was covered under one of the exempt categories, a registration would be submitted and there would be a possibility to examine that registration. If the activity registered did not comply with the standard conditions, such as if that cable had not been put 1 metre under the river bed or placed 8 metres from the edge of the river bank, there would be the possibility for the Environment Agency to intervene.

For the third category, which is more complicated work—not a simple wooden footbridge, but the insertion of a larger single-span bridge, perhaps with concrete piles—it would be necessary to go through a procedure and to understand the rules under which such plans would need to be submitted, and the Environment Agency would review.

Finally, if it was a very complex piece of work that would require a bespoke permit, a full case-by-case examination would have to take place.

We are simplifying the paperwork, and the benefit of that is that we move away from a complicated application for flood defence consent in which people were forced to fill in detailed plans and drawings, even for quite trivial works in the river. There were two problems with the complicated application. First, in certain cases, people were wasting a lot of time and energy, spending half an hour filling in the form and hours preparing their plans. The second probably more serious problem was that, in many cases for trivial works, people probably simply circumvented the law and did not fill in the documents in the first place, which was not to be encouraged.

We are moving to a situation where we will be much clearer that simple trivial works are exempt. If, on the other hand, people need to proceed, we have a much simpler form. People tick what they are doing, such as “repair of the floodbank”, and fill the form in. It takes about five minutes. For those simple types of work that will not have a significant impact either on the flow of the river or on floodwater moving around the side of the river, there should be no serious impact.

The second thing we are doing is that we are rationalising some of the legal anomalies in the environmental permitting regulations. For the 5% of cases where it was necessary in the past to apply for two separate permits—people had to fill two separate application forms and receive two different permits: one environmental permit and one flood permit—we are putting regulations in place that will allow people to have a single process with a single permit and a single application form. By doing so, we will ensure that the Environment Agency is focused on the most risky, most serious activity and that it does not waste its time looking at trivial things. It will therefore have a better quality of attention, which will be better for our environment and our flood risk. With that, I commend the regulations to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Mann]

Thank you, Sir Edward. It is delightful to speak under the chairmanship of my neighbour in a flood risk area, with the River Trent between our constituencies. I want to congratulate the Minister on what is an excellent set of proposals, not least due to the possibilities contained within them of repair and protection of banks using natural materials and repair of bank slips and erosion.

Stripping out some of the bureaucracy for the many watercourses that flow into the Trent through Bassetlaw has been a significant issue over many years in the many villages, including my own, that have suffered from flooding. The losses, of course, are to the householder, the employer and the community in terms of amenities, particularly when such problems result in damage to property. The council bungalows in Habblesthorpe, in which pensioners abode, are a good example of where effective work in advance of the kind being exempted in the regulations would have made a likely difference. I therefore congratulate the Minister.

Before I wholeheartedly welcome the regulations on behalf of the people of Bassetlaw, I want to check there is nothing in them that will lead to increased financial charges for anyone attempting to do anything. If there is, we ought to be made aware of it, because it would be a bad thing and would negate the Minister’s brilliance in bringing forward this set of proposals.

[The Chair]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. The Trent may divide our constituencies, but it can never divide our friendship.