Managing Flood Risk

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 3rd March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I was not aware that there was a time limit and will race through my final remarks.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Just to help the hon. Gentleman, there is a voluntary time limit of about 10 minutes.

[Richard Benyon]

I will be as quick as I can, Mr Deputy Speaker.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton makes an important point. It is a matter of regret that we have not yet brought forward the sustainable drainage provisions, which were the subject of much discussion. I can assure her that I wish we had brought them forward sooner. When they are brought forward, they will make life much better. On the automatic right to connect, I am also on record as agreeing with her on many points.

My most important point today is that we should not look at England’s flood problems through the prism of one area’s hydrology—particularly that of the Somerset levels, which have a complex hydrology. Looking at the Somerset levels as one cohesive hydrological problem is a mistake: parts of them did not flood, or did not flood so badly this time, possibly because of actions that had been taken.

The most important thing we can do is listen to the experts. A very good report was published last week by the Chartered Institution for Water and Environmental Management. We do not use CIWEM enough; its 10,000 real experts are at the beck and call of the Government, the Opposition, companies and local authorities. They have produced a really important report. I brought it with me, but someone has nicked it. [Laughter.] That is what people get if they leave their papers in the House. The report is really good and I suggest that hon. Members read it if they have not done so already. It shows some of our difficulties in managing flood risk and the problems of dredging indiscriminately.

We all have experts in our constituencies. One of mine is Dick Greenaway, who was the surveyor for the Thames Conservancy but has now retired. He has fascinating knowledge of the history of flooding. After the 1947 floods, an enormous amount of dredging took place in the River Thames. A lot of the experts of the time said that it would not work and it was being done for political rather than proper hydrological reasons. The dredging was picking up bronze-age remains close to the surface of the river bed, showing that it had not changed for a long time. Dredging can cause more problems. Since we stopped dredging the Thames to any large degree, the base of the river has dropped because of the action of the river and the change in climate. We ignore people such as Dick Greenaway at our peril.

In conclusion, we should now turn our attention to land use. We have an enormous amount of work to do in joining up land use issues, common agricultural policy reform, the drainage activities of some landowners and land managers and our management of rivers in respect of the water framework directive or flood problems at a certain point or further downstream. Some of what I have seen around the country has been very damaging in terms of flood problems lower down. We have to address that.

National Policy Statement (Waste Water)

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 19th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Minister is being his usual modest self in saying that he was not au fait with the subject. He is now up to his knees, if not his waist, in the subject, having dealt with the Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill last week and in introducing this debate. I believe that the Select Committee had some doubt about major projects being included in the NPS. For the avoidance of doubt, are the Government unshaken in their view that projects such as the Thames tunnel and Deephams sewage works should be included in the NPS? Whatever the final decision on the route and the detail, it is important to be clear—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I will make the judgments about the length of interventions, thank you. We want short interventions. I presume that the hon. Gentleman has got to the end of his.

[Richard Benyon]

I think I got the gist of it. I will come on to cover the key points that were made by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and to explain what the waste water national policy statement is. I think that I will address the hon. Gentleman’s points, but I am happy to let him intervene again.

In laying the waste water national policy statement before the House for approval and in having this debate, we are meeting a Government commitment to mirror the new requirements of the Planning Act 2008 that will be brought into effect next month under the Localism Act 2011. Those procedures are intended to make national policy statements more democratically accountable to Parliament.

The Government are committed to making the planning system more open, transparent and fast, and to ensuring that all those who want to get involved in the process can do so, whether it relates to an application to extend a property or to a project of national significance, such as the Thames tunnel. The abolition of the Infrastructure Planning Commission brings democratic accountability back into the determination of nationally significant infrastructure projects by giving decision-making powers back to Ministers, who are answerable to Parliament. Ministers will also have regard to recommendations made by the Planning Inspectorate.

National policy statements are a key component of a more open and accountable planning system. They will set out Government policy clearly on particular types of infrastructure of national significance, having been subject in draft form to both formal consultation and parliamentary scrutiny. National policy statements provide a framework for preparing, considering and deciding development consent applications. This national policy statement is therefore primarily for planning purposes and does not claim to be a complete statement of Government policy on waste water.

Effective waste water infrastructure is vital, because without suitable treatment, the waste water we produce every day would damage the water environment and create problems for public health, water resources and wildlife. The proper collection, treatment and discharge of waste water, and the correct disposal of the resulting sludge, helps to protect, maintain and improve water quality in the UK.

The criterion that we have used in the national policy statement for the demonstration of the need for nationally significant infrastructure projects is that the projects have been included in the Environment Agency’s national environment programme. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee recommended that that issue needed to be clarified and I believe that our approach now addresses its concerns.

In addition to establishing the need for waste water infrastructure, our national policy statement sets out impacts that will be relevant for any waste water infrastructure, including details on mitigating adverse impacts. Those are issues that the Planning Inspectorate and Ministers will have to have regard to when examining and determining applications.

The national policy statement does not describe how any waste water projects of national significance should be developed. I think that this addresses in part the point made by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter). How such projects are developed is up to the project promoter before they place an application for development consent, which from April this year will go to the Planning Inspectorate.

The waste water national policy statement details two proposed projects of national significance: the sewage treatment works scheme at Deephams in north-east London and the Thames tunnel. The justification for both developments and the consideration of alternatives to the Thames tunnel are fully explained in the document.

Currently, only the proposed upgrade of the Deephams sewage treatment works can be considered a potential nationally significant infrastructure project, as it meets the criteria in the Planning Act 2008 for waste water treatment facilities serving a population equivalent of 500,000 people. We will shortly lay a draft order before Parliament for its approval, to amend section 14 of that Act to enable a waste water transfer and storage project such as the Thames tunnel to be classed as a nationally significant infrastructure project.

London’s sewerage is under considerable pressure, due to a system that is close to capacity, changing land use in London and population expansion. That leads to frequent spills of untreated waste water containing sewage into the tidal reaches of the Thames, which has a negative impact on its water quality. Resolving that problem has been the subject of extensive and comprehensive studies, including the consideration of a wide range of alternative solutions, for more than a decade. As a result, the Government are satisfied that the development of the Thames tunnel, when compared with the alternatives, is the most cost-effective and timely solution to the problem of untreated sewage discharging into the River Thames. That is demonstrated in the waste water national policy statement.