Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th May 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Viscount Trenchard]

372ZA: Clause 138, page 169, line 37, at end insert—
“(e) protection for chalk streams in England so as to reduce the harmful impacts of excessive abstraction and pollution and improve their physical habitat”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment will ensure that the impact on chalk streams of relevant projects is explicitly considered, avoided wherever possible, or mitigated.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise that I have not participated at Second Reading or earlier in Committee on this landmark Bill, but I am grateful for the opportunity to move my Amendment 372ZA, which seeks to secure greater protection for our wonderful chalk streams, which I believe play a uniquely important part in England’s landscape and natural environment. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for adding her name in support of the amendment. I declare an interest as the owner of a short stretch of the River Rib, a chalk stream in Hertfordshire. I salute the hard work and commitment of my right honourable friend Sir Oliver Heald, Member of Parliament for North-East Hertfordshire. I declare another interest, in that I am the president of the North-East Hertfordshire Conservative Association, which has recently adopted Sir Oliver as its parliamentary candidate at the next general election. Sir Oliver’s work to improve the environment, particularly the quality of the eight chalk streams in his constituency, is supported by very many of his constituents, of all political persuasions.

In his speech in another place on 25 April, my right honourable friend observed:

“The Government have taken powers in the Environment Act 2021 and the Agriculture Act 2020 that would enable a catchment-based approach to tackling the range of issues involved in river quality. The water plan, which has been released recently, shows where the investment would be, with fines imposed and money reinvested in improving water quality. One of the main recommendations was to have some sort of protection and priority status for chalk streams”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/4/23; col. 619.]


Some of Hertfordshire’s chalk streams are in a worse state than others. I am fortunate in that the Rib, where it runs past my house, has never run dry, although abstraction undoubtedly contributes to a worryingly reduced flow in midsummer. Some 85% of the world’s chalk streams are in England, and the remainder are in northern France and Denmark. Many of the rare and beautiful habitats that our chalk streams undoubtedly provide suffer a daily onslaught of pollution and over-abstraction.

I welcome the Government’s decision to support the chalk stream restoration strategy published by Catchment Based Approach’s chalk stream group. CaBA is supported by and works with all the major stakeholders, including environmental NGOs, water companies, local authorities, government agencies, landowners, angling clubs, farmer representative bodies, academia and local businesses. Its chalk stream restoration strategy, published in November 2021, sets out how England’s chalk streams can be restored to a near-natural state.

A 2014 review of England’s chalk streams found that 77% failed to meet the required classification of good ecological status as assessed by the Environment Agency, 75% had been significantly modified from their natural state and 55% were at risk from over-abstraction. The primary recommendation of the chalk stream restoration strategy, entitled the “one big wish”, which is supported by all the organisations, companies and agencies involved in the report’s development and by the consultation responses from stakeholders, is for

“an overarching statutory protection and priority status for chalk streams and their catchments to give them a distinct identity and to drive investment in water-resources infrastructure, water treatment … and catchment-scale restoration”.

The Government’s response so far to the one big wish reads:

“Defra is currently looking for opportunities to deliver on this recommendation. The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill provides an opportunity to consider how stronger protections and priority status for chalk streams can fit into reformed environmental legislation”.


In addition, chalk streams have been given priority status in the stormwater reduction plan. Is the intention still to use the REUL Bill to achieve this goal? Does the Minister agree that, as this Bill already deals with the reform of some relevant retained EU environmental legislation affecting planning decisions, my amendment provides a good opportunity for the Government to achieve their stated objective of protecting chalk streams? It would ensure that the impact on chalk streams of relevant projects is explicitly considered, avoided where possible, or mitigated.

An enhanced status for chalk streams, including within the planning framework addressed by the Bill, would drive the investment and resources that have been severely lacking, not only for chalk streams but, as the report by the Environmental Audit Committee of another place made clear, for the protection and enhancement of biodiversity more broadly. It could mobilise resources from several sources, including the option contained within the ELM scheme for chalk stream investment.

Noble Lords may wonder why my amendment covers only chalk streams, as other types of rivers and streams are also in great need of investment. An integrated approach to restoring all types of habitat and associated species through the restoration of natural ecosystem function, particularly natural catchment function, helps to deliver multiple biodiversity benefits alongside a wealth of natural capital associated with restored aquifer recharge, tackling pollution at source and natural flood management, as argued in a Natural England report in 2018.

Nevertheless, the chalk stream restoration strategy argues that the global rarity of English chalk streams provides a potent justification for singling out this river type among others. There are other justifications—for example, the fact that chalk streams are under particular stress because many of them flow through a highly developed landscape; they have been particularly stressed by the myriad ways in which their channels have been modified over time; they have distinct biodiversity, cultural and heritage value; and, for hydrological reasons, they are far less capable of self-repair than higher-energy rivers. Very few chalk streams enjoy protected site status, and an additional degree of protection would act as an exemplar to show how such an integrated approach can be used for these streams, ultimately showing the way for natural recovery of all rivers, streams, fens, lakes and other freshwater habitats.

There is a wide divergence of outcome to be shown with abstraction. All the designated chalk streams have abstraction targets within the CaBA chalk stream group target of no more than 10% of catchment recharge but, on the most extreme examples of the “ordinary” chalk streams, over 50% of the effective catchment recharge—in other words, the rainfall that sinks down into the aquifer—is abstracted, and in dry years that becomes all the effective recharge for those aquifers.

To take another example: on the few designated chalk streams, between 75% and 90% of sewage works remove phosphorus through advanced tertiary treatment. That proportion falls to between 18% and 30% on the ordinary chalk streams. This is why all the partners in the CaBA chalk stream group identified a higher status of protection as key to delivering the aims of the strategy.

The chalk stream restoration strategy sets out a comprehensive and interconnected series of recommendations, covering a range of actions across the catchment needed to restore chalk streams to ecological and functional health. They encompass abstraction reform, water quality, species and habitat improvements in both variety and abundance, land management and development. The Government have shown a commitment to support the recommendations of the report, subject to consideration, and to the suggestion of a specific category of protection. There is a need to ensure that the Government deliver on those commitments. Incorporating my amendment into the Bill would support that aim. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

A decade ago, we provided a mechanism whereby overextraction would require action to be taken, in this case by water companies. It was a fairly geeky measure called the abstraction incentive mechanism, and it worked. Countless other measures can and should be taken, and our direction to Ofwat and the commitments in our Plan for Water will drive this forward, as will our abstraction reforms.

Rivers such as the Kennet can be affected by something incredibly small. Three miles of the Kennet’s ecosystem was destroyed about seven years ago by about an egg cup of a chemical called chlorpyrifos, which went through the drainage system—which is the responsibility of the local authority and the water company—into the river. That tiny amount wiped out life for about three miles. That is an indication of how fragile these systems are and how we must have protections that can trace this, make the polluter pay and make sure that this never happens again. It is incredibly important that we do this.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate. I am greatly heartened by the universal tone of the speeches and contributions made.

I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for his support. It is most unfortunate that his local chalk stream has the name it does; I do not know how easy it will be for him to change it, but I imagine there is some kind of complicated procedure for changing names—there is for roads, so there should be for rivers as well.

I am also very happy to have received support from some noble Lords whose support I am unaccustomed to receive—in particular, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and my noble friend Lord Deben. To answer my noble friend’s point, I am sure that my noble friend the Minister, together with his officials, could prepare a comprehensive list of defined chalk streams, because I am sure that we have not quite caught all of them. It may never be a perfect list, but at least, as my noble friend said, it would be a pretty good and near comprehensive one.

My noble friend Lord Caithness made a strong, comprehensive speech of support, for which I am most grateful. I agree with what he said about the Environment Agency and how it conducted itself immediately after its establishment, because I had to deal with it at great length over developments in the River Tamar. I also endorse entirely what he said about the small group of determined people who work so hard to protect our beautiful chalk streams.

I was also grateful to my noble friend for riling the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, into supporting my amendment—I think riling is the right word in this context.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

There was no need for riling.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

If it should be necessary for me to bring back this amendment on Report, I shall be happy to receive the noble Baroness’s support.

I am also most encouraged by the support that my noble friend the Minister has given to my amendment. I had heard from my right honourable friend Sir Oliver Heald that he and the Minister visited the Mimram together, which is one case of a chalk stream whose condition has improved, and I am grateful to the Government for the support that they have given to date. I am particularly grateful to my noble friend for the support that he has given today. I think he stopped short of committing to provide the specific statutory protection that chalk streams deserve, but I am grateful for his offer to engage in “granular” consideration. I am never quite sure what “granular” means, but it is one of those words that is used more and more nowadays. Anyway, I am very happy to accept his invitation to do that.

I would like to wish my noble friend tight lines as he casts his fly again next weekend. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 372ZA withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 18th July 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Viscount Trenchard]

102: Clause 143, page 172, line 9, at end insert—
“(e) protection for chalk streams in England so as to reduce the harmful impacts of excessive abstraction and pollution and improve their physical habitat”Member's explanatory statement
The amendment will ensure that the impact on chalk streams of relevant projects is explicitly considered, avoided wherever possible, or mitigated.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 102 is identical to my Amendment 372ZA, which was debated in Committee on 18 May. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Taylor of Stevenage and Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, and my noble friend Lord Caithness, for adding their names in support of this amendment. I declare my interest as the owner of a short stretch of the River Rib in Hertfordshire.

I was heartened by the strong support I received from noble Lords on all sides of the House when I debated this amendment in Committee. I believe the case for special protection for our beautiful chalk streams was well made and widely supported then, and I will not repeat it at length today. I was also grateful for the support of the Minister, my noble friend Lord Benyon, for the aims of my amendment and for his absolutely clear commitment that further conversations would be had with myself and others about chalk stream restoration and how the Government could better make sure that it continues to be a priority.

I was less than wholly happy that the Minister stopped short of committing to bring back the Government’s own amendment to give chalk streams the protection they uniquely need. I am a little concerned at his statement that, given the need to capture the environment as a whole in these provisions, he hoped that I would accept that it would not be appropriate to draw out granular considerations in this definition.

I thank the Minister and his Defra officials for keeping their promise to meet me to discuss further why I believe it necessary to give chalk streams the special protection that inclusion in the Bill would provide. I do not think that many noble Lords disagree with the need to protect our beautiful chalk streams, which are unique to north-east Europe and of which some 85% are located in England. The Minister is a keen fisherman and I hope that, as he has been casting his fly over the last few weeks, he has pondered this question further. I know how supportive he has been of the tireless work done by Charles Rangeley-Wilson and others who developed Catchment Based Approach, a partnership with the Government, local authorities and other interested organisations.

As I mentioned in Committee, CaBA has developed a chalk stream restoration strategy, the primary recommendation of which was “one big wish”. This is supported by all the organisations, companies and agencies involved in the strategy’s development, and by the consultation responses from stakeholders. “One big wish” calls for

“an overarching statutory protection and priority status for chalk streams and their catchments to give them a distinct identity and to drive investment in water-resources infrastructure, water treatment … and catchment-scale restoration”.

I remind your Lordships of the Government’s response to “one big wish”:

“Defra is currently looking for opportunities to deliver on this recommendation. The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill provides an opportunity to consider how stronger protections and priority status for chalk streams can fit into reformed environmental legislation”.


However, as I expect my noble friend Lord Caithness will tell your Lordships, on 23 June, the Minister said in reply to my noble friend that the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill is no longer being considered as a means to address this issue. He said that the Government continue to support the work of the chalk stream restoration group and are committed to looking for opportunities to deliver on the Defra-led recommendations in the strategy.

At the launch of the chalk stream strategy implementation plan eight days previously, on 15 June, my honourable friend Rebecca Pow announced that the Government’s response to this one big wish would be the creation of a chalk streams recovery package by the end of the year. She revealed that the exact identity and contents had yet to be determined, but essentially this package represents, as an answer to the one big wish, a collation of existing and potential or planned policies, levers and economic drivers that can be used to effect the restoration of chalk streams. The chalk streams recovery package, however, may not provide the clear designation and protection called for in the one big wish, but it is intended that it should have the same outcome by means of a more disparate range of levers.

--- Later in debate ---

I pay tribute to my noble friend for bringing this amendment forward. I hope he will continue to work with me to ensure it meets our shared intention of protecting England’s chalk streams.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his extremely welcome reply, and I thank all noble Lords who took part in this short debate. I also thank my right honourable friend Sir Oliver Heald, who is in his place on the steps of the Throne, for his tireless work in supporting our chalk streams, of which I think eight flow through his constituency. We should also remember the late Lord Chidgey, who did so much good work campaigning for chalk streams.

I clearly should have placed more trust in my noble friend to bring back the right answer. I thank him warmly for his very welcome words; I take them to mean that he will table an amendment at Third Reading that is substantially the same as mine and that will recognise chalk streams as a different and specific part of the environment, deserving special protection. Taking his most welcome answer, for which I am most grateful, into account, I therefore beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 102 withdrawn.