Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th May 2023 Lords Chamber

The point I am trying to make, which I hope the Minister will accept, is that we need to be absolutely certain that proposed new Section 96D(5) is not used as a lever to exempt plants which otherwise should be properly brought up to standard and made compliant with the regulations. I hope the Minister fully understands that I am probing a situation which at the moment is ambiguous and very much a commercial pressure point for the companies operating these plants. I seek an assurance from the Minister that he has heard what has been said will perhaps be able to come back on Report with something accurately reflecting the nature of the debate we are having.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, in her Amendment 390, to which I have added my name. It is a really important amendment as we struggle to meet the Government’s environmental target and our need to build more homes and develop our land. We have to do that in a way that understands there are fundamental environmental problems we need to address, particularly nutrient pollution.

It is clear that we need a statutory underpinning for nature-based solutions because, without that, they are not going to happen. We have evidence of that. You only have to look through previous price reviews, in which Ofwat turned down recommendations from water companies for nature-based solutions because, on a crude cost-benefit analysis, putting in a grey concrete storm tank was a damn sight cheaper than wetlands and various other proposals. If my memory serves me right, Ofwat turned down some very detailed and thoughtful proposals from Anglian Water because of the cost. Unless there is statutory underpinning, Ofwat will just carry on with its usual economic model.

This amendment is an important way of ensuring we get that win-win of nature-based solutions as we seek to address our nutrient pollution problems. It is an elegant way to move forward on the Dasgupta review, which talked about finding new ways to build nature into our economic model. Giving this a statutory underpinning would, as I have just made clear, give Ofwat the confidence to build into its economic models support for nature-based solutions. We know these are going to be fundamental if we are going to get to our 30 by 30 target.

The only thing I want to say, because it is late and so much has been brilliantly said by the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, is that you would expect us to say this. We are the usual green environmentalists. But I hope the Minister hears that we are also saying that we understand why this is important. We need development, and there is stalemate in many housing developments because the nutrient pollution issues cannot be solved. We are trying to be constructive in resolving that problem. We are not just saying this with our usual green hats on. We realise that this is a tricky issue which needs resolving.

It is not just us in the environmental groups, such as Wildlife and Countryside Link. The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee did an excellent report on nature-based solutions recently. Again, this underpins the support for this amendment. The Government’s own environmental improvement plan talks about the benefits of nature-based solutions. If you are going to deliver on your own words, then you should be supporting this.

For me, the most important and powerful thing is that the water companies support this amendment. In addition to the comments made individually to the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, Water UK put out a release saying that the water companies want this amendment. It would be wonderful to be able to say that this amendment has been supported on a day when the water companies have said, “Mea culpa”, said sorry for the appalling way that they have handled our sewage problems, and promised that they will put £10 billion-worth of new investment into this area. This would ensure that we get the win-win, both to overcome some of our problems with building the homes we need and to ensure that we get the benefits we need for our hard-pressed nature.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions. I will come to the various points but, first, I say that I agreed with nearly everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, particularly the quotation from Dasgupta. But her criticism of Ofwat is slightly out of date: I had those arguments with it a decade ago. It liked a bit of concrete and steel then because it could measure water going into it and the quality going out, and it did not trust nature-based solutions because it could not get that degree of measurement of asset value. There has been a sea-change in how we do that, but I agree with her in every other respect.

On this group on nutrient pollution standards, I begin my remarks with Amendment 390. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, and others that we should ensure that water companies deliver this new statutory duty in a timely way. Throughout the delivery of the Water Industry National Environment Programme, the Environment Agency regularly liaises with water companies to ensure progress and to address risks to delivery. Under Section 202 of the Water Industry Act, the Government have the power to request that water companies provide information regarding the delivery of improvements to wastewater infrastructure, and we intend to use these powers if necessary.

Should it become evident that a delay in upgrading a particular wastewater treatment works is unavoidable, the legislation makes provision for the Secretary of State to disapply the requirement placed on local planning authorities to assume that the upgrade will be delivered by 1 April 2030 for the purposes of a habitats regulations assessment. The Secretary of State must notify local planning authorities accordingly so that they can factor this into their planning discussions.

I agree with the noble Baroness that we should ensure that water companies are delivering against this duty in a way that maximises benefits for the environment, and ensure that nature-based solutions are a vital part of our sewage treatment infrastructure. The Government want to see water companies making use of these solutions as part of the treatment processes that they apply. In the strategic policy statement for Ofwat, we set out that water companies should

“increase … the use of nature-based solutions where appropriate”.

The new statutory duty has been designed to ensure that water companies can use nature-based solutions as part of the wastewater treatment process—for example, water companies may use integrated wetlands to remove nutrients from wastewater. The legislation also allows water companies to use nature-based solutions as part of this process. I am repeating myself, so I will move on, as the hour is late.

In the most recent strategic policy statement for Ofwat, the Government set the clear expectation that it should continue in this form. Therefore, I assure the Committee that sufficient provisions are already in place to ensure that nature-based solutions are taken forward where appropriate.

I turn to Amendment 391 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock. Upgrading wastewater treatment plants smaller than a plant capacity of 2,000 population equivalent would require significant investment in new infrastructure and deliver minimal environmental benefit, and it is therefore unlikely to represent value for money. However, we have provided a power for the Secretary of State to lower the plant capacity in individual catchments so that, where appropriate, we can require upgrades at smaller treatment works too.

Although I welcome Amendment 392 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, it is unnecessary because the Secretary of State will of course consider all relevant information and advice before making any exemptions from achieving the nutrient pollution standard. In addition, if a wastewater treatment plant is exempt from this statutory duty, the Environment Agency will still make use of environmental permits to set limits on the quality of wastewater being discharged, thereby ensuring that the water environment is protected.

In relation to Amendment 393, I reassure the Committee that wastewater treatment plants with a capacity of less than 250 population equivalent can already be designated as not exempt where appropriate. If the evidence shows that it is necessary to put enhanced treatment in place at a wastewater treatment plant with a capacity of less than 250 population equivalent, the legislation allows for the Secretary of State to do so within a set timeframe.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, that we should ensure that nutrient pollution standards for wastewater are protected. However, as already made clear, wastewater treatment works that are exempt will still be subject to all the other existing standards set by the Environment Agency on a site-specific basis, but I am happy to continue discussions on this as the Bill progresses.

Amendment 400 raises the issue of accurate monitoring and reporting. I agree that this is critical. Under this Government, we have gone from just 7% of storm overflows being fitted with event duration monitors in 2010 to over 90% today, and by the end of this year that will rise to 100%. The Environment Agency already regulates many water quality monitoring stations through permits to ensure that they operate to established regulatory standards. We aim to bring forward regulations to implement a new duty on water companies to report data on sewage discharges from storm overflows in near real time. In those same regulations, we will implement a duty to monitor the water quality impacts of those discharges. That will make the UK world leaders in understanding the impact of sewage discharges on the receiving environment. I therefore reassure the Committee that this amendment is not necessary, as the Government are already taking steps to ensure the accurate and timely reporting of monitoring data from wastewater treatment works. The Committee should expect further announcements on this soon.

Considering Amendment 401 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, I will assume that she is referring in it to the environmental improvement plan. The plan includes the steps that we are taking to meet the legally binding long-term target to reduce phosphorus loadings from treated wastewater to the water environment. Every five years, the Government must review the environmental improvement plan and update it as necessary to ensure that it contains any further policies needed to achieve long-term and interim targets. It is therefore important that we retain flexibility to update the actions in the plan rather than setting them on a statutory footing, so that we can ensure that the actions reflect the most appropriate path to achieving our policy. It will be for this and the other place to hold Ministers to account on this in future years.

Government Amendments 393A to 393J will improve the enforceability of these provisions by making it clear that the Environment Agency needs to treat excess nutrient pollution discharge which results from the failure to deliver upgrades on time as environmental damage. The sewerage undertaker would then be liable to remediate the excess nutrient pollution determined as having been discharged. For the reasons set out, which I hope provide sufficient reassurance, I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, to withdraw Amendment 390, and noble Lords not to move the other amendments in their names and to support the government amendments.