Water Industry

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Andrew Percy

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

I would like to go further in the debate and mention some of the powers that I think the water industry needs. I will focus my remarks around the Water Bill, and the fact that as with any industry, resources are scarce. It by no means passes the public by that their water bills go up, yet now and again we have hosepipe bans and so on because—let us be honest—of the mismanagement of our water resources. It does not help, however, when developers take no notice whatsoever of reports from water companies about the impact that their developments may have on the surrounding area. My constituency of Elmet and Rothwell is badly affected by such situations.

I recently had discussions with some people from Yorkshire Water about a small village in my constituency called Walton. It has a couple of houses that are badly affected by heavy rainfall and flooding. Yorkshire Water effectively said that a scheme to save two houses would cost £1.8 million—not in the region of something it could afford do—but that the problem came about in the first place because the original barn should never have been converted into a house. Messages to that effect were put forth at the time, but the conversion went ahead. The house was sold on in good faith and no matter what the situation in trying to alleviate the problem, Yorkshire Water is fairly certain that the water will always end up in that place. No one particularly noticed when it was full of cows, but when it is someone’s house, they tend to notice. That is a prime example.

My constituency is under unprecedented pressure for housing development. Figures from Leeds city council state that 12,500 houses could be built across my constituency. One place currently under great scrutiny is an area of Kippax called Sandgate drive. Some 260 houses are to be built at the back of some houses—by that I actually mean built on a hill behind those houses. Yorkshire Water has said that the water that will run off would be unacceptable and that it would put huge pressure on the water courses to deal with that run-off of water—something the developers appear to be ignoring.

The Environment Agency deals with water that floods off land and is taken away in rivers, but it is down to the water companies to deal with the surface run-off and to get it to the rivers. The current development plans do not help water companies in the slightest, which means two things: first, that resources that should be used to repair the network so we can use our resources more efficiently get soaked up in flood alleviation solutions; and, secondly, that people’s bills rise constantly, with no further improvement.

In an area of my constituency in the town of Wetherby, there is a planning application for 400 houses at the top of a hill. There have been problems with the water pressure in Wetherby. Yorkshire Water had to take measures on the Thorpe Arch trading estate to ensure it had proper pumping facilities to get the water to the top. That has been resolved, but only last week a resident told me that, last summer, on a very warm day, the water pressure dropped off when everybody in the area used the water. The developers have taken no notice of that, which means that Yorkshire Water must spend more of its resources dealing with the further drop in pressure, because it does not have the detonator to say, “That development cannot go ahead unless the developer is willing to spend huge amounts on the water infrastructure.”

A huge development—a dual carriageway ring road—is taking place to the east of Leeds. Back in the storms of 2007, my constituency, like that of my hon. Friend for—

[Andrew Percy]

Brigg and Goole.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I cannot believe I forgot the name of my hon. Friend’s constituency, but there we go. Like his constituency, my constituency had a huge amount of water flooding through it during those storms. Fundamentally, the river valley could not cope with the amount of water. Nobody can do anything about such one-off events, but we can avoid exacerbating the situation. There is a live planning application for a development on the floodplain in the village that was 6 feet under water that day, which is disgusting. Yorkshire Water should have the ability to turn around and say, “No. That area will not be developed.” The developers can put in any flood protection scheme they like on their new development, but they do not give a tinker’s cuss what happens 100 metres down the road, where the houses will be flooded.

Those problems can be alleviated if the water industry has the ability to work hand in hand with the developers. I mentioned the ring road, which should have a flood alleviation drain built under it. The proposal will have a huge impact on my constituents, who have had to deal with flooding and must now deal with extra housing. We are talking about investment in the water industry and how it best uses the money it gets from water bills. Given the pressures of development, we need to ensure that the industry has every ability to work hand in hand with developers.

One village in my constituency, Methley, suffers from huge toxic, rancid smells from a pumping station for sewage. Yorkshire Water believes that that happens because there is a kink in the sewage pipe somewhere in the two miles of road by the village. It does not have the resources to dig up the road and find the kink—it says that the number of people affected does not justify the amount it would need to spend. That is an example of the pressures the water companies are under.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Andrew Percy

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

I am just a lowly Back Bencher. I cannot answer that question, but the right hon. Lady has made her point and no doubt Ministers will respond to it when they come to the Dispatch Box.

It is important to remember that the subject of the Bill is not one that electrifies the public. We are all in agreement about that. In the Dog and Duck they do not talk about it. In my village the pub is well known—the Percy Arms—and the topic does not come up a great deal there. It is not something that people are talking about or that is tripping off people’s tongues, but that does not mean it is not important. It should be debated properly. Perhaps that is a partial response to the right hon. Lady’s point.

I have been staggered by some of the comments by Opposition Members—the feigned outrage about a five-year term. Many of them were in the previous Government over the last five years—[Interruption.] Sadly, the country knows what it was like as well. I want a four-year term because the experience of the last Government, and perhaps earlier Governments, shows that a five-year term is not necessarily in the best interests of the country. Governments generally expect to go to four years, although there is no requirement for them to do so. When they have run to five years, it is usually because they have known that they were about to be booted out by the electorate. We thus end up with a year of incredibly poor decision making, and this Government have to deal with the consequences of the appalling decisions taken in the last year of the Brown Government.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

On my hon. Friend’s point about Governments campaigning in the last year, one of the things that I find most disturbing is the premise that in a five-year Parliament, Members take no notice of their constituents until the last year. That may explain why the majority of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) fell to just 714.

[Andrew Percy]

I hope that politicians on all sides take notice of their electorate at all times. The problem with going to a three-year term is that they may take less notice of their constituents and a great deal more notice of the newspapers. Given that Governments tend to be most responsive to newspapers in the last year or six months before an election, the risk with a three-year term is that the Government would be beholden to the newspapers and chasing headlines for the entire term of office.

On the clash of elections, I have sympathy with those representing countries with devolved Assemblies. I would not want a Welsh Assembly election or a Scottish Parliament election on the same day as a general election, but it is a bit inconsistent for some on the Opposition Benches to suggest that a clash of elections is always bad news, because they deliberately arranged for that by holding European and local government elections on the same day, using two different voting systems. However, that is best avoided. I accept that the case for a general election is a little different and that a general election should be held separately from the elections in the devolved regions.

I have no academic or study to quote on the four-year term; I just feel in my gut that it is the right length of time for a Government. A four-year term is better because it would fit with local government elections and devolved assemblies. The Canadian Government changed from five to four years a couple of years ago, and we have heard about the three-year terms that exist in Australia and New Zealand. For me, four years would be a more appropriate term for us to be in office. There is an acceptance that after being in power for five years, we tend to be a little too detached from the electorate, and consequently end up making bad decisions. However, I cannot support the three-year term proposed by my near neighbour, next door but one, in Great Grimsby. That would throw us into a perpetual state of elections. It is often said about US congressional elections that American Congressmen are in a perpetual state of election, which is why they have so many earmarks and pork barrelling; they have no sooner got themselves to Washington DC than they have to run back to their electorates to try to gain election.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Andrew Percy

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

My hon. Friend may be suggesting something similar to mid-term elections, but one of the problems with the Bill is that it proposes a five-year cycle. If we are to opt for the system suggested by my hon. Friend, we really need a four-year Parliament with the council elections two years in, and unfortunately the Bill will not give us that.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I was going to raise that point later in my speech and say that it was a matter for further debate, but I take my hon. Friend’s point very seriously.

One of the problems of annual council elections is that they lead to short-termism. One councillor has said:

“We have try to engage our electorate throughout the year. Every month we get out on the streets to remind them of the work we are doing. We want them to remember our work when they go to vote in May.”

The first couple of sentences are laudable—indeed, I hope that everyone will do as the councillor suggests—but surely people should behave in that way as a matter of course, not just because they face elections in May.

In my city of Leeds, councillors are elected annually for four-year terms by thirds. Each election costs council tax payers £600,000. The introduction of a system of all-out four-yearly elections would save them at least £1.2 million. Leeds is one of five unitary authorities that make up West Yorkshire. According to a recent figure issued by the West Yorkshire electoral offices, the cost of an election for police commissioners could be as high as £1.5 million. That sum could be almost recouped if just one of those authorities was included in the election.