Water Industry (Schemes for Adoption of Private Sewers) Regulations 2011

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats I, too, am very happy to support the regulations, which are long overdue and welcome. The Explanatory Memorandum suggests that up to 50 per cent of properties are connected to private sewers in one form or other—which is a very large number. Under the regulations, 220,000 kilometres of private lateral drains and sewers will become the responsibility of the water and sewerage companies. At a guess, that is five times the circumference of the earth. I do not know how far it is to the moon, but 220,000 kilometres is a long distance. Therefore, this is not a trivial measure; it is extremely important and welcome.

I share some of the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Knight, about the impact of the costs. It is clear that they will impact mainly on property owners whose drains and sewers are already the responsibility of the water and sewerage companies under the 1936 Act. I would like a reassurance that the regulations being discussed today will solve the problem once and for all and that the problem will not start again after the regulations lapse in 2018. This must be a permanent solution. Future regulations that apply to new developments through the other Act, which we discussed before the election, will sort this out. We should not need to come back in 30 years’ time to try and solve another 30 years’ worth of problems. I think I know the answer, but it would be helpful to have that reassurance on the record.

I am not sure—clearly I have missed something or perhaps I have not understood it—what the relationship is between the lapsing of the regulations at the end of June 2018 and the date of 2016 to which the Minister referred. Perhaps he will explain that. In particular, in the years between 2011 and 2016 or 2018, what is Government’s timetable for bringing in the schemes for each of the water and sewerage companies? Will they all come in at the same time or will they differ? How long will it take? Clearly, the quicker this can be done, the better.

The other questions I want to ask are complicated but crucial. How will the new schemes apply to local properties? I have before me a plan of some properties which it would be nice to distribute to Members of the Grand Committee, but I am not allowed to do that, so I shall have to try to explain it. I apologise to the Minister for not giving him advance notice of these questions, but I have only just received this submission from an interested party.

How will property boundaries be defined? If you buy a property which is served by an adopted highway and the lateral drain of what is at the moment a private sewer goes into the adopted highway, I presume that anything under the adopted highway will be assumed not to be within the property boundary, even though the deeds of that property may state that the property owner owns that part of the adopted highway. Because it is a highway maintainable at public expense, I assume that it would not be included. Therefore, if a private lateral drain goes straight out of a property on to a public highway and then joins the public sewer—the sewer that is already vested in the sewerage undertaker, say, along the middle of the road—the section of the lateral drain which is under the highway will now be vested in the water and sewerage company, whereas the section in the front garden will not. I assume that that is fairly straightforward.

What is the position if the public highway is unadopted? A section of it is likely to belong to the property from which the drain comes out. It may well have a sewer along it which is the responsibility of the sewerage undertaker. Will sewers under unadopted highways now be the responsibility of the undertaker? I assume that they will, because they will be in the same position as private sewers which serve more than one property. What is the position in relation to the lateral drain coming out of the property? Will it still be the responsibility of the property owner until it plumbs the sewer, which may go down the centre of the road?

I hope that what I am asking is clear. I think it is, but I am looking at a plan which makes it all very clear. This is a question about unadopted public highways—not their relationship to a sewer that serves more than one property, which will now be the responsibility of the undertaker—but what happens if it is a lateral drain serving only one house? I have been involved in these things at the local level in the past, and I am afraid that it lives with me. That is my basic question, because I think I understand how the rest of it will work at the local level. Having asked these technical questions, once again I would like to say that the regulations are extremely welcome in general. A lot of people around the country will be grateful that the Government are bringing them in.

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Knight, and my noble friend Lord Greaves for taking part in this debate and for the warm welcome they have given these regulations. I acknowledge the work of the previous Government in getting us a long way down the track towards them. The principal issues raised were as follows. The noble Lord, Lord Knight, referred to the lengthy time spent in consultation before the regulations were produced, and no one can disagree with that. One can only hope that as a result, as my noble friend asked, the regulations will indeed be effective and stand the test of time.

The noble Lord, Lord Knight, raised a question about the recovery of costs, how much they will be and who they will affect. Before he arrived for the debate, I had explained that the water and sewerage companies will obviously recover their costs through charges to customers for sewerage services. I indicated that it is estimated that transfer will add an average of £5 to £8 per annum to water bills up to 2018, in a range from £3 to £14. While increases in charges are never welcome, they will be up to or a little over £1 a month. Those are relatively modest annual increases, which is to be preferred to a system in which the costs fall unequally across water charge payers or unfairly on individuals. Overall, they represent a sound investment in the future maintenance of essential assets.

The transfer exercise does not itself trigger major expenditure on those parts of the system that are working satisfactorily, and it is for the water and sewerage companies to assess and prioritise what is essential short-term maintenance, repair or replacement. I understand that everyone will pay within the range of £3 to £14, and that there is no difference between business and domestic customers.

The noble Lord, Lord Knight, raised the issue of the south-west, which is of course particularly important. We are looking at the somewhat complex issues around affordability in the region. The particular issues regarding private sewers have not affected our thinking in this respect, and the Government are committed to supporting households facing water affordability pressures. On 5 April, we published our consultation on water affordability, including recommendations in relation to the south-west region. It invites views on options to reduce the bills of all household customers of South West Water as well as options for providing additional assistance to low-income households. As pledged in the Budget, additional assistance will be provided through public expenditure and our proposals will be set out in the water White Paper due in the autumn. The noble Lord asked about Crown leasehold land and transfer there. Leasehold arrangements in respect of Crown land will not result in exclusion from transfer.

My noble friend Lord Greaves made some important points. I certainly agree with him that this is not by any means a trivial matter. He asked whether the regulations will solve the problem once and for all. We believe them to be a permanent solution; that is the basis on which we are going into this. He also asked about conflicting dates and was quite right to do so. The correct date is 2018.

My noble friend also asked a couple of questions about boundaries. Guidance on the regulations is being prepared and is expected to be published during the summer, in time for transfer on 1 October. I take to heart his comments, which will be considered in the preparation of that guidance. It is intended that property boundaries should be at the junction with the street—the back edge of the pavement. I can also tell him that sewers under unadopted roads will be transferred.

Where points have been raised in the debate to which I have not responded, I will of course write to noble Lords. To conclude, the transfer is intended to put right the anomaly that, subsequent to the Public Health Act 1936, even where adoption agreements were reached, the adoption process was not concluded. Transfer will relieve individuals of the burden and expense of maintaining private sewers where access and cost recovery can be difficult. It will achieve a better integrated and more consistently managed sewerage system that is more resilient and better able to adapt to future challenges—for example, climate change.

With regard to costs, the relatively modest annual increases that are estimated to arise from the transfer, fairly shared among water charge payers, are, as I have said, a sound investment in the maintenance of vital assets. Transfer will remove the unfair cost subsidy whereby pre-1937 drains are maintained by statutory sewerage undertakers while the owners of post-1937 drains are obliged to contribute to this upkeep through sewerage charges but, in addition, are responsible for the upkeep of their own private sewers. It will place those with post-1937 sewers on a similar footing to those with pre-1937 sewers.

The regulations will provide the reassurance that companies will work to minimum standards of service and costs, regulated by Ofwat. Parliamentary approval of these transfer regulations will mean that transfer can go ahead as planned on 1 October. I beg to move.