Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make it her policy to require utilities companies, highways authorities and developers to ensure that new drainage and sewerage systems have sufficient capacity to accommodate the rainfall volume experienced on 26 December 2015.

In March, the Government published ‘Enabling resilience in the water sector’ (see: www.gov.uk/government/publications/water-sector-improving-long-term-resilience) which sets out our expectation that sewerage companies will show leadership in working with the wide range of actors with an impact on drainage systems to assess future pressures and will undertake the necessary long-term planning and investment to meet their duties.

Under section 94 of the Water Industry Act 1991, a sewerage company has a duty to provide a sewerage service so as to effectually drain its area. This duty does not mean that sewerage companies must prevent sewer flooding in all circumstances as it would not be practicable to build sewers to a capacity necessary to cope with the additional load of extreme rainfall events.

Working in partnership with other risk management authorities, water companies also have a wider role to play in flood risk management including helping manage the risks associated with very heavy rainfall and flash flooding. They must exercise their flood risk management functions in a way which is consistent with national and local flood risk management strategies.