Middle Level Bill

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 29th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) on his opening remarks. I am delighted to see in his place my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham), because today is his birthday. That just shows how dedicated he is to his constituency duties. As he accurately identified, although his constituency is covered by the Middle Level Commissioners, this particular part of the navigation covers other stretches, including parts of the constituencies of my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay) who, as members of the Government, cannot speak directly to this Bill.

[Sir Henry Bellingham]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her extremely kind remarks. She will be aware of two things. First, she will know that quite a lot of the navigation traffic—boats and other craft—start their journeys in King’s Lynn or in my constituency and go upstream into some of these waterways. Secondly, on a point that I am sure she will come to, she and I share a passion for flood defences, and one has to remember that the extra money will be used to secure some of these waterways to prevent flooding. Flooding would obviously be devastating for all the surrounding farm areas and the many people who make their living in this area.

[Dr Coffey]

As my hon. Friend shows, he is assiduous in ensuring that people who start their journey in his constituency are well served. I recognise what he said about how the management of waterways can help with flooding.

The main purpose of the Middle Level Bill is to amend and update the powers of the Middle Level Commissioners to regulate navigation on the Middle Level of the fens in the city of Peterborough and the counties of Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. The commissioners are the navigation authority for these waterways, and have powers under a range of local Acts passed between 1663 and 1874. They are the fourth largest inland navigation authority in the country by length of navigable waterway.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay set out, the commissioners have previously lobbied my Department, which is the lead policy Department responsible for inland navigation matters in this country. They wanted us to take forward legislation to amend the navigation powers, but given the constraints on Government time for legislation and the fact that the focus of the provisions is local, it was on our advice that the commissioners brought forward this private Bill. I welcome the work they have done in bringing forward the legislation that we are considering today.

As for Government scrutiny of the Bill, as the Minister responsible for inland navigation matters, I want to be satisfied that the proposed legislation and the measures included in the Bill are fit for purpose. I believe that they are, because the existing legal framework that governs the commissioners’ navigation function is now considerably dated. Some of the current laws under which the commissioners are working not only date back more than 250 years, but do not align with modern requirements. Furthermore, the current laws do not align with the statutory framework applicable to other navigation authorities—including, in particular, the commissioners’ neighbouring navigation authority, the Environment Agency, which is responsible for navigation on the River Nene and the Great Ouse. This Bill will update this dated legislation.

Unlike many other navigation authorities, such as the Environment Agency, the commissioners do not have charging powers to license boats that use their navigations. The Bill will allow that to happen and give the commissioners powers to introduce a registration scheme for vessels using the waterways. It will give the commissioners powers similar to those already exercised by other authorities such as the Environment Agency, the Canal & River Trust and the Broads Authority in respect of their own navigations. Importantly, the Bill will not alter the commission’s existing duty to protect and maintain the navigations, or affect the public’s right of navigation on the waterways. The Government would consequently be content for the Bill to make progress.