Water Industry (Specified Infrastructure Projects) (English Undertakers) (Amendment) Regulations 2020

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am most grateful. I welcome the regulations and congratulate my noble friend the Minister both on introducing them and on the wide and full consultation on their implementation.

I will focus my brief remarks on my noble friend’s references to new reservoirs and water transfer. In particular, I draw his attention to the work and investment of Yorkshire Water. It set up and invested heavily in a regional grid, enabling water to be transferred into one of the largest areas of water supply, and from areas of plenty to areas that are under more stress. Perhaps that could be rolled out across regions in future. I also draw his attention to the Slowing the Flow at Pickering project, which includes not just a reservoir but other soft natural water defences and which could also be used as a pilot scheme elsewhere.

I was particularly taken by my noble friend’s remarks referring to building regulations and labelling, which do not require primary legislation. I firmly support him in that regard—that is, being able to roll out more, with a particular ability to make houses more resilient to floods, encourage more water metering and reduce leakage.

I also draw my noble friend’s attention to the Government’s current review. The current Defra and Environment Agency guidance refers to reservoir owner and operator requirements, which were updated on 15 April this year. It states:

“You must meet certain requirements if you own or operate a reservoir, or intend to build one.”


Currently, there are different requirements for large reservoirs above ground level of more than 25,000 cubic metres and those holding less. Further, in a letter from Parliamentary Under-Secretary Rebecca Pow in response to a colleague on 1 May, the Government asked the expert Professor Balmforth to lead a second-stage review with a wider assessment of reservoirs, including their safety legislation and its implementation. This begs the question—I hope that my noble friend will be able to answer it this afternoon as I gave him prior notice of it—of how water storage will be regulated under the environmental land management scheme, which pays and rewards farmers and landowners for possibly storing water on their land. Currently, the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 allows for this monitoring and control to be reduced to reservoirs of 10,000 cubic metres or more. I urge my noble friend not to implement that part of the Act for the moment to ensure that more small-scale reservoirs can be built—that is, reservoirs not on the scale of the Thames tideway tunnel before the House today but smaller-scale ones that will prevent downstream communities flooding.

I, for one, welcome the fact that the sunset clause is being removed in the instrument before us. I wish my noble friend’s Motion speedy passage.