Water Bill

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

When the House considers options on the enhanced affirmative procedure there is a range of processes that can be used, but we believe that the affirmative procedure is the correct one with regard to most of the changes that we have discussed this afternoon. I thank hon. Members for their contributions to the discussion on this group of amendments. I hope that the House approves the amendments and that we can agree the changes made in another place.

Lords amendment 15 agreed to.

Lords amendments 16 to 30, 32, 33, 43 to 64, 101 to 103, 107 to 147 agreed to, with Commons financial privileges waived in respect of Lords amendment 142.

Clause 8

Bulk supply of water by water undertakers

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

The Minister will move Lords amendment 1 formally. [Interruption.] I am sorry, Minister, I did not intend to cut you off. I meant to say that the Minister will move Lords amendment 1.

[Dan Rogerson]

I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am delighted that the Chair has such confidence in what happened in another place that she does not need to hear anything further.

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to consider Lords amendments 2 to 14, 31, 34 to 42, 65, 66 and 104.

[Dan Rogerson]

As you have shown, Madam Deputy Speaker, there are many amendments in this group, so I shall try to make my explanation as brief as possible, as I sense that that will be popular.

This group of amendments was tabled in the other place to build on and strengthen further the existing environmental protections under the Bill and to provide reassurance regarding the timetable for abstraction reform and its relationship to the upstream reforms in the Bill. In particular, this group of amendments reinforces environmental protections under the bulk supply and private water storage regimes, improves the resilience duty and the strategic policy statement, and places a new duty on the Secretary of State to provide Parliament with a progress report on abstraction reform.

This group also contains a number of minor and technical amendments. As before, I will not dwell on them, but I am happy to consider any points that hon. Members wish to make. The Government welcome the scrutiny that the Bill has received, and we have listened carefully to all the speeches made in this House and another place. Protection of the environment is close to my heart, and it is important to the Government too. Indeed, one of the Bill’s main objectives is to increase the resilience of our water supplies to ensure a future in which water is always available to supply households and businesses without damaging the environment. I am therefore delighted to bring back a number of important amendments that will ensure the continued protection of the environment.

First, the Government have strengthened environmental protections under the bulk supply regime under clause 8. There are already several bulk supply agreements in the current system and there is a number of environmental protections in place. However, we have listened to the concerns raised on this issue during the passage of the Bill and have enhanced those protections accordingly. Ofwat can only order, vary or terminate a bulk supply agreement at the request of one of the parties, and after consulting the Environment Agency or Natural Resources Wales. Our amendments strengthen the consultation requirement by clarifying the fact that Ofwat can take environmental considerations into account before ordering, varying or terminating a bulk supply agreement. The amendments add a requirement for Ofwat to consult the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales before it issues the codes in this area.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

With this we may take Lords amendments 68 to 100, 105 and 106.

[Dan Rogerson]

This group of amendments is mainly to do with flood insurance measures, and includes the Government’s response to the recommendations on flood insurance from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. It also includes a small number of minor changes.

Lords amendments 70, 75, 81 to 83 and 91 to 95 are in response to the Delegated Powers Committee’s recommendations on the flood insurance measures. The amendments include changing the scrutiny procedures so that the affirmative resolution procedure is used for all regulations—in certain cases on first use only—and placing some definitions in the Bill.

We agree with the Delegated Powers Committee that the definitions are important. However, it was not possible to include all of them in the Bill as they require further consultation and, in the case of “relevant insurer”, have separate meanings for Flood Re and for the flood insurance obligation—the alternative proposal. By defining those terms in regulations that will be subject to the affirmative procedure, Parliament will be able fully to scrutinise these definitions in due course.

The Delegated Powers Committee also recommended that the powers to make regulations to provide for the sharing of council tax data should be subject to the affirmative procedure. However, to meet the commitment to establish Flood Re in 2015, we need to release the council tax information as soon as possible after Royal Assent to ensure that IT systems can be put in place. Lords amendments 77 to 79 place that data-sharing power in the Bill. I hope that hon. Members will see that that is necessary owing to the challenging timetable to deliver Flood Re. Lords amendments 74, paragraph (ab) to amendment 93 and amendment 100 make consequential changes based on the new power. Although that power does not mandate the release of data, the Government are committed to doing so. They also give a power to add to the list of data releasable in the future. If we do that, the powers also allow for the application of a criminal sanction—for example, where the additional information is of a particularly sensitive nature warranting the protection of a criminal sanction for misuse. It is right that we have powers to protect the release of public information, but the sanction is not automatic and we will consider whether one is necessary following consultation.