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Mr. Fabricant: Does my right hon. Friend agree that--disgraceful though the recent action of South West Water is--at least it is in the public domain because it is a public company and has to make reports according to the Companies Acts? Is it not the case that similar accidents occurred before in the days of nationalisation, but that often the accidents were covered up and never came to light?
Mr. Gummer: My hon. Friend is right to point to the fact that it is a much healthier system to have public companies in the private sector, which have to report and can be seen to report, so that independent regulators can ensure that those reports are accurate. That must be sensible and it would have been better had we had that system before.
The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras is right that we must go on pressing about leakage, and the only issue between us is how best to do that. It would be
perfectly possible for someone outside, without detailed knowledge of local circumstances, to set mandatory targets. The only trouble is that it would not work, and I am rather keen on making things work. It would be much more sensible for each water company to propose what it thought that it could do, and for each of them then to go into detail, part by part--there are different areas of different water companies, as we found clearly in Yorkshire--with the regulator, thereby arriving at the maximum and best improvements that could properly and sensibly be made. If the water companies are not prepared to do that, I have the powers to force them to take such action. I have said repeatedly that I shall use those powers.
It will be much more effective to use my existing powers, having argued matters through and pressed a case, so that we get the best response possible, than to come in flat-footed from outside, having said to everyone, "We don't listen to experts." That is what the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras said a week or two ago. He does not listen to experts. No doubt he would know exactly what the right leakage rate is for Sutton, Stretford and even St. Pancras. He would know. He would be able to tell others exactly what they should do. The hon. Gentleman wants mandatory rules that he sets out.
I do not believe that any sane person would consider the hon. Gentleman to have the ability to make such decisions. I do not consider his approach to be a proper way in which to proceed. I have powers and I shall use them. I shall use them, however, having sought to ensure that every effort has been made to use all the opportunities, the expertise and the willingness to meet demands that are available.
Mr. Dobson:
If the idea of the Secretary of State setting mandatory targets is so stupid, why were such targets recommended by the National Rivers Authority? Before the right hon. Gentleman continues with inaccurate quotations, let me make it clear that I have never said that I do not listen to experts. I listen to them, but I do not necessarily agree with them.
Mr. Gummer:
I do not want to quarrel with the hon. Gentleman. I hope that he will read again what he said. What he said may have been inadvertent. Many of my hon. Friends were present when he made the statement. We heard what he said, and it was repeated by my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans). My hon. Friend gave plenty of space to enable the hon. Gentleman to correct him, and he did not.
Mr. Dobson:
The right hon. Gentleman is wrong.
Mr. Gummer:
It is all very well the hon. Gentleman saying, "The right hon. Gentleman is wrong," from a sedentary position. That is the basis of his arguments generally. The hon. Gentleman had better look up the record for himself.
Mr. Gummer:
I am happy that the hon. Gentleman was so worried about it that he had to look it up. The House certainly gained the impression that he was not very keen on listening to experts.
As I said, I have mandatory powers and I shall use them. The only thing between us is whether we get a better answer in every area by going water company by
water company and part of water company by part of water company, or whether we splash targets around and hope that things will work out in a reasonable way.
Mr. Burden:
First, will the Secretary of State explain clearly the nature of the mandatory powers that he already possesses? Secondly, on what occasion has a Labour Member suggested uniform leakage targets throughout the country? Mandatory targets are entirely different. Thirdly, if the right hon. Gentleman is talking about Members being believable--he presumably wishes his concerns on these matters to be believable--why is it that the Government have not allocated any time for my private Member's Bill, the Water (Conservation and Consumer Choice) Bill, which would allow a proper debate to take place on all those matters and enable all the difficulties to be ironed out? Leakage, abstraction licences, water efficiency in the home and consumer choice on charging could all be discussed. Why is he scared of the Bill even being discussed in the House?
Mr. Gummer:
The hon. Gentleman knows that what he has said about his private Member's Bill could be said about any private Member's Bill on an important topic. Time is allocated for private Members' Bills, and the hon. Gentleman has part of that time. I have no doubt that he will use his time as effectively as possible. No Government, including the Labour Government, ever found it possible to provide time for all private Members' Bills or for any private Member's Bill in the circumstances that the hon. Gentleman outlined. The nature of all such Bills is that they are promoted. They relate to many and varied issues and they are considered extremely important by those who promote them. If we provided time for all private Members' Bills, we would not have time to do what the hon. Gentleman would like us to do, such as improving the construction industry by means of the Bill that was presented to the House only yesterday.
If all that the Opposition mean by mandatory targets is that they would work out targets in every area with the water companies, and if the companies did not meet those targets, they would impose them, we do not disagree. That is precisely what the Government are doing. I have the necessary powers to do that and those are the powers that I shall use if the Director General of Water Services fails, with the water companies, to deliver the targets that I think are satisfactory.
There was a serious part in what the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras had to say, which concerned me and will concern many people outside the House. Leakage is the only subject on which he can wax lyrical, and he is right to say that we should reduce leakage as much as possible. It is possible, however, to put leakage at the top of our agenda only because of the investment that has already been made, to raise the standards of drinking water so that they will begin to be as high as those that prevail in the rest of Europe. Investment has been made to clean up our beaches and to ensure that waste water reaches reasonably tolerable standards. Investment has begun so that the infrastructure can be replaced in a way that the great Thames ring main exemplifies.
The improvements that I have outlined could not have been achieved unless we had started with the investment that has come about only because of privatisation. The only thing that the hon. Gentleman can talk about is
leakage, even though rates of leakage are those inherited from the long period during which his system of running the water industry prevailed, when he never complained about leakage, and his one-club approach does not command very much confidence outside the House.
I accept that the hon. Gentleman talks about some other issues. He seems not to do so, however, within the context of other Labour spokesmen in any other capital city of Europe. Extreme damage is being done to the Labour party's reputation and I want to help it bring the damage to an end.
If the hon. Gentleman were to talk to members of the Finnish Labour party, they would tell him that they are in favour of water metering because of the need for sustainable development, the requirement to take into account environmental needs and the recognition that it is the proper way to ensure that resources are properly used. Finland is not a country that is known for its hot summers. Neither is it a country where water resources are as tight as in many other countries. As I said, however, the Finnish Labour party would be entirely in favour of water metering for environmental reasons.
The same is true of the hon. Gentleman's German socialist colleagues, as it is of his Belgian, Greek, Italian, Austrian, Portuguese, Danish, French, Swedish and Spanish socialist colleagues. In 75 per cent. or more of those countries, water charges are based on the volume used, and all his socialist colleagues would say, "We need to have some form of water metering if we are to protect the public from the loss of water resources."
The hon. Gentleman could say, "I am in favour of water metering, but I need many protections." The hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms Ruddock) would say that she needed protection for the very poorest people. Most of the countries that I cited do not have such protections. The hon. Gentleman might say that we should have more generalised arrangements in some cities. He might want metering entirely in new houses. He might say any or all of those things. That would be reasonable. I believe that because we have been so late in dealing with those matters, we must proceed with care and with great concern, to ensure that our proposals are socially equitable and the like. I also believe, however, that not to accept that it is necessary for the resources to be properly husbanded is to hold a view that is inconsistent with any environmental concern.
The trouble with the hon. Gentleman is that he will not even look across the sea to France. When President Mitterrand, the socialist President, considered these matters, for environmental reasons he deliberately chose to end the flat-rate system that was prevalent in many areas in order to help manage water resources. Obviously, according to Walworth road, if it was not invented here--even if it was invented by a foreign socialist--it cannot be applied here.
The reason why I have taken some trouble to help the hon. Gentleman is simply this. The Labour party is now seen as--well, its politics may be red, but it is brown environmentally. It has not a shred of a reputation in any of the environmental bodies in this country or abroad. I have just returned from a meeting of the Commission on Sustainable Development in the United States, where Britain took the lead in changing the way in which we deal with the pollution of the oceans. Water was a major topic of discussion.
I must tell the hon. Gentleman that not only our national environmental groups, but international groups, ask me what I am going to do about the fact that the Labour party--the party that forms the official Opposition--is so deeply opposed to the environment. It does not care about the environment. Its leader has made only one speech about the environment, and that was a copycat speech, featuring things that we had said some time ago. In so far as the hon. Gentleman is known for anything, he is known for being the least environmentally friendly socialist in the least environmentally friendly party in Europe.
The hon. Gentleman may giggle. That is his answer to any serious criticism: all that he does is sink into his beard and giggle. The fact is, however, that this is doing enormous harm to Britain. Matters that are common ground between the parties in other countries--environmental matters on which socialists and conservatives can work together in Germany, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Austria, Portugal, Denmark, France, Sweden and Spain--cannot be dealt with in the same way here, because the Conservative party is in favour of environmentally friendly action and the Labour party would not know it if it saw it. The truth is that the Labour party is deeply opposed to the environment, and deeply brown in all its reactions. It shows no sign of improving a terrible reputation and a very bad history.
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