Water Industry

Debate between Frank Dobson and Alec Shelbrooke

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Frank Dobson]

The next word in my notes is “reservoirs”. Every substantial reservoir that the water companies use was built when the industry was in the public sector. The private sector has not increased reservoir capacity in this country since privatisation in 1989-90.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I stand to be corrected, but I understand that only 1% of rainfall is captured for domestic use. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman has found that during his research.

[Frank Dobson]

God knows; it would depend on when, if the hon. Gentleman sees what I mean.

The bulk of the reservoir capacity and the pipework was provided when big cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds and the Metropolitan Water Board in London were trying to look after the interests of the people of their areas. They created the reservoirs and laid the pipes.

During the arguments about the privatisation of the water industry, I received a letter in beautiful copperplate handwriting from an ancient ex-councillor in Sheffield. He said, “All the people at Yorkshire Water are doing is collecting water in reservoirs we built and sending it along pipes we laid. I speak as the former chairman of the water committee in Sheffield.” He pointed out that while the chief executive of Yorkshire Water was getting several hundred thousand pounds a year, when he had been responsible for it he had been paid “nowt” and the job had been done properly, whereas it had not been done properly ever since.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Frank Dobson]

Surely Yorkshire Water has access to a device that will identify where the aforesaid kink is and does not need to dig up two miles of road.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

One would have thought so, and I have had meetings about that. Unfortunately, Yorkshire Water is uncertain about where the sewer actually runs, and that is a consequence of decades gone by when there was not proper mapping. That shows the problems the privatised water industry has come up against when dealing with a legacy of poor investment and poor records.

Incidents such as the one in Methley are a blight on people’s lives. I have stood there and the smell is appalling—people are prisoners in their own homes. We have to ensure that water companies have a say over inappropriate developments. There are 4,500 houses in Garforth and 1,000 house Rothwell, but no consideration is given to water in planning developments. The developers do not care and leave it to Yorkshire Water to deal with. The time water companies have to take to deal with such issues means that they are not able to deal with historical issues, such as ensuring efficient water use, repairing collapsed sewers and so on.

I urge the Minister to take those points into consideration during the passage of the Water Bill. For my constituents, the ability of the water companies to make their lives better cannot come quick enough.