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7.42 pm
Mr. Lawrie Quinn (Scarborough and Whitby): I speak on behalf of my constituents. Earlier speakers said that they had received no correspondence from their constituents about this vital matter, but, as I can prove, I have received many letters, especially about the equity of the current system.
I especially wish to mention a public house in Staithes, in my constituency, called the Captain Cook inn. It is a business, but, for rating purposes, it is also a domestic establishment. The landlord, Mr. Scott--who is also a ratepayer--has made many attempts to secure equity in terms of water use. The simple reason for his problem is that he has his own natural spring. He claims that he takes
water from it, and he feels that Yorkshire Water is charging him unfairly for the water that he uses. Earlier, the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake)--the Liberal Democrats' spokesman--referred to abstraction licences. I hope that the Committee will consider that issue, which is particularly important to areas such as my constituency, where many people abstract their own water.
I commend the improvements made by my local water company as a result of the marketplace--as a result of the change in the culture. Given that I am talking about Yorkshire Water, many hon. Members may be surprised by the progress that has been made. As will be recalled, not so long ago there were drought problems, but--as, I believe, with Severn Trent--many changes have been made to the management ethos and the culture in the company. I commend Kevin Bond, who was managing director of Yorkshire Water, for the changes that he brought about.
Being on the coast, those living in Scarborough and Whitby are obviously concerned about the disposal of foul water--sewage. Again, I commend Yorkshire Water for the vast amount that it is investing in Yorkshire coast care. I do not think that would have happened without a change of ethos and emphasis that led to connecting with the community.
Mr. Cynog Dafis (Ceredigion):
I welcome some of the provisions in the Bill. I agree strongly with what the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake) said about the increase in metering and about council tax banding, but I shall say more about that later.
My main objection to the Bill is that, yet again, a key policy measure bundles Wales and England together in an entirely inappropriate way--in this instance, an especially inappropriate way. Things will be different for Scotland, although I understand the insistence of the Scottish National party that the issues in the Bill ought to be left to the Scottish Parliament. That, in effect, is what I shall say about the Welsh Assembly.
There is, of course, a reference to Wales in clause 14 of the Bill, which mentions the possibility of transferring functions from the Secretary of State to the Assembly. The sooner the better, I would say. It strikes me as essential that Wales should be free to devise its own policies, within the framework of a sustainable water strategy--a strategy that should exist within the wider framework of a sustainable development strategy, which, under the Government of Wales Act 1998, the Assembly is obliged to draw up. The Assembly should, of course, have the function of constructing such a sustainable development strategy for Wales.
I admit that it is not clear to me how much discussion the Bill will allow the Assembly in regard to the drawing up of a strategy, and I should be grateful if the Minister
would elaborate. I do not suggest that Wales should be allowed to do what it likes, regardless of the ecological effect; no country should be allowed to do that. Wales, and the Assembly, will have to work within the framework of international agreements in respect of water conservation, biodiversity and so on.
It is well understood that water will become an increasingly important consideration in environmental sustainability during the next century, but, within that framework, Wales should have maximum autonomy and the power to develop and conserve its water resources as a vital environmental and economic asset, for that is what water is. I need not tell the House that water is a sensitive issue in Wales. In recent decades--or at least within my lifetime--we have seen the destruction of Welsh communities to enable the building of reservoirs for supplies to English cities. That has been enormously controversial, and has had profound political consequences for Wales.
We need distinct policies in Wales for practical reasons. In the first place, Wales has a plentiful water supply. To give just one example, between 1989 and 1998, there were eight years of below average rainfall and three of those were years of serious drought, but, in the area of Welsh Water, during that whole time, there where no hosepipe bans and no drought orders. The Environment Agency says that there are no low-flow rivers in Wales, so we have a water-rich environment.
In those circumstances, the argument for encouraging metering, which seems to be what the Government's policy is about--they view it as something that should be spread far and wide--to impose discipline on consumers is much weaker, but it will be advanced. As long as owners of new homes have no other choice, there will be a shift, or a slide, towards metering. We need to allow owners of new homes to choose not to have meters. That provision should be in the Bill.
We need to move as quickly as possible to an alternative method and we have had some debate on that. I do not want to say much more about it, except to mention that the bills of 91 per cent. of Dwr Cymru--Welsh Water--customers are calculated according to rateable values that were last assessed in 1973. As has already been said, support for the council tax banding method is wide. There is much to be said in favour of moving towards that soon. The point is that that decision should be taken by the National Assembly for Wales.
There are likely to be different investment priorities in Wales. Where there is a plentiful water supply, the problem of leakage may not have such a high priority. It is expensive to correct and, in Wales, it might be preferable--it would be preferable--to invest in higher-quality sewage treatment. We have such a programme in Wales through the green seas project. Priorities for investment should be decided by the Assembly and by the Environment Agency in Wales, in consultation with Dwr Cymru, and local authorities and others who have an interest in the matter.
I suppose that some people might argue that we need to reduce consumption in Wales as much as possible, so that we are better able to export water over the border, but it might be decided that we had better not say that too loudly. That brings me to the important issue of water transfers, particularly in the context of climate change.
Climate change in the United Kingdom, as elsewhere, if it is going to happen--I believe that it is on the cards--will by and large increase demand for water, while reducing supply. That will cause significant problems for certain areas of the UK, particularly the south-east of England, but not just the south-east.
Projections by the National Rivers Authority in 1994 gave figures for deficits in the water supply in 2021 under scenarios of high and low growth in demand. More recent information on climate change will probably make those figures even more daunting. According to those figures, the Thames region will have a projected deficit, even under conditions of low-demand growth. In a high-growth scenario, that was also true of the Severn Trent, Anglian and Wessex regions. Wales would have a surplus, even in a high-growth scenario.
In those circumstances, it is clear that there will be pressures to transfer water from Wales to parts of England--not just from Wales; perhaps from some northern regions of England as well--through impounding, the construction of reservoirs or simply transferring water from river to river through pumping schemes and such methods. It is important to say that that would be unacceptable because transferring water has biological, ecological and political consequences.
I make it clear that the days when Wales could be used as a convenient source of primary products for export--whether minerals, timber, agricultural products or water--must and will come to an end. The sensible thing, and what is in Wales's national self-interest, is not to move water to enable increased development elsewhere, whether we are talking about industry or housing, but to move the development to where the resource exists. In this case, it is water, but, increasingly, that will also mean energy. Energy will be generated on a dispersed basis and development will migrate towards places where the sustainable energy system exists.
To give just one example, it is probably better to grow vegetables and other such food products where there is adequate water supply, rather than to transfer water to provide large-scale irrigation to grow them in an arid part of south-east of England. Climate change projections show that parts of south-east England will become arid in 20 or 25 years. Other industries besides those, of course, need a lot of water. The priority for Wales, then, must be not to export water, even if we have a fair price for it--that has been the theme--but to add value to water while conserving it and the ecology that it supports.
That has significant economic and, over time, political implications for Wales and perhaps for the UK too, but it is important to recognise that we are not just talking about self-interest. It is better in every sense to do what I suggest. It is environmentally more benign and it would contribute to creating a more dispersed pattern of economic activity and prosperity. It would help to counteract the unhealthy concentration of everything, whether wealth, power, population or activity of all sorts, in the south-east of England.
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