Draft National Policy Statement for Waste Water Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Lord Teverson
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Draft National Policy Statement for Waste Water
Lord Teverson Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Teverson
My Lords, as everybody else seems to be hesitating, I shall just make a couple of comments. I thank my noble friend the Minister for his introduction to this debate. First, it is interesting that the documents and the draft statement include and spend time on two particular projects: Deephams and the Thames Tunnel project, both of which are most important to waste water issues in the capital and need to move forward quickly. I should like to hear from the Minister whether there are other schemes. How often are such schemes likely to come up? I think that the cut-off point is a project serving around 500,000 people, but I would be interested to know how frequently the department sees such projects as being likely to come along.
I should also like to understand, through this statement and in being able to get on with these projects, whether the infraction proceedings by the commission, which I think have already started, will be met. Will the commission then see the actions being taken as sufficient at least to stall those proceedings, so that UK taxpayers do not have to pay any fines for contravention of the urban waste water directive? I was particularly interested to see on page 3 of the document, in paragraph 112, that the Thames Tunnel project, important though it is to the capital, does not meet the thresholds contained in the Planning Act. If that were laid down in primary legislation, I do not, therefore, understand how the Government could remove the matter from local planning issues and put it to the current planning commission. Under what powers are the Government able to do that?
However, I certainly welcome this statement. Waste water is an important issue. With continued flooding and development, it will be an even more important issue for the future. It is good to see that the Government have a comprehensive strategy for this, to ensure that decisions can be made in the proper way.