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9.35 pm
Ms Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent, North): In the two or three minutes that I have, I am glad to give a warm welcome to a Bill that is long overdue. At the world summit in Johannesburg last year, it was made clear that 1.1 billion people worldwide were without clean water and 2.4 billion were without proper sanitation. It is right that the Government are going ahead with the best possible strategic framework for the management of our water in this country. That is good news as regards the River Trent, which goes through much of north Staffordshire.
In the brief time available to me, I shall flag up three issues. The first is that the Coal Authority will get new powers to deal with pollution from mine water. That should have come about at the time of the privatisation of the coal industry. It is long overdue and the measure will be welcomed across mining communities everywhere. It is good that it is in the Bill.
The second issue that I wish to raise with my hon. Friend is one on which I have been lobbied by the ceramics industry in Stoke-on-Trent. Everybody understands the importance of sustainable development and the need for balance. In earlier speeches, hon. Members spoke about how the right balance should be achieved in the legislation. Will the Minister meet representatives of the British Ceramic Confederation to discuss the guidance? There is a difference between the criteria for abstraction licences for water use and those for dewatering. That must be reflected in the detail of the guidance that is to be issued.
Thirdly, there is the issue of private sewers. Like many who have spoken in the debate, I believe that we should be bringing forward proposals for adopting private sewers. That is long overdue, and we have had to wait so long for the Bill. During the Committee deliberations on the Bill, will the Minister introduce proposals to address the problem of all those who cannot afford to deal with private sewers and who do not even know that such sewers belong to them?
If I have time, I should like to remind my hon. Friend of letters that I have written to him. Rats have not featured in the debate so far, but when we are discussing public health issues, there is a clear need for us to give statutory backing to the code on sewer baiting for rats. I know that voluntary guidance was issued by Water UK, but many local authorities have not heard of it. There are rats right across the country. Many of the water companies try to ignore the voluntary code. We could so easily give it a statutory basis in the Bill going through Parliament.
As we approach the magic hour of 9.40 pm, I shall end by saying that it would be a great pity if the Bill were hijacked entirely by the debate on fluoridation of the water supply. As someone with environmental concerns at heart, I want us to adopt the precautionary principle at all times and have a proper debate about how to deal with the appalling dental health care in many deprived parts of the country, including my constituency. I am not yet convinced that fluoridation is the way forward and that it would be compatible with the precautionary principle. I am grateful for the brief opportunity to raise those five issues.
9.39 pm
Mr. Bill Wiggin (Leominster): The Bill exemplifies the gulf between the theory behind the Government's best intentions and the reality of their long list of missed opportunities. There are changes to the excellent job that Philip Fletcher has done as regulator that will make it easier for the Government to control the water regulator by dispensing with the individual and replacing him with a board nominated and paid for according to the wishes of the Secretary of State. There are also increases in the power of the Environment Agency, whose board has four members whose political declarations determine that they have previously been members of the Labour party. Perhaps that is why the Government have strengthened the Environment Agency's powers. Indeed, the agency performs so many roles that the enactment of the Bill will make it policeman, accuser, advocate, judge, jury and executioner. There is a major missed opportunity—the opportunity to allow the new board of the water services regulation authority to act as an appeal judge in regard to the Environment Agency's decisions. Sadly, as the Bill stands they will be unchecked.
Of the 25 speakers in the debate, at least 14 wanted to discuss the addition of fluoride to water supplies. Speeches were time-limited, and to an extent the debate was hijacked by that subject. It is a great shame that the Bill did not contain a skeleton measure allowing proper consultation by strategic health authorities with the public. That is one of the biggest omissions: without such a measure, the quality of debate that has been denied to Members will also be denied to the public.
Views on fluoridation differ, but we heard the views of two Scottish Members who were passionate about the subject. I now know how to murder my wife and although the hon. Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Donohoe) mentioned adding Viagra to the water, he is also passionate about the anti-fluoride campaign. The right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) introduced the Welsh angle, and my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) described the problems with fluoride eloquently.
The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) also discussed those problems, but, more important, he said that only 2 per cent. of rainfall was stored, which had caused a water shortage in his constituency. In a helpful and sensible speech, the hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Crausby) said that he should be allowed to choose what he swallowed. He then unfortunately had to own up to the fact that he had not been allowed any sweets because of rationing during the war.
Mr. Wiggin: The second world war, I believe.
The hon. Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) clearly had not read the Bill. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey) adopted a scientific approach to the toxic benefits, or disastrous effects—[Interruption.] She was clear about the fact that toxic substances were of benefit if added to the water supply in sufficient quantities. What she did not tell us, and what I longed for her to tell us, was whether newborn babies could be given water with fluoride
added to it. There is a real danger that that may be so toxic that infants should be given milk diluted with spring water.The hon. Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis), who made an important speech about the bottling of water, unfortunately said that he would like mineral water to be sold in school vending machines. Although helpful, his speech prompted a question: if fluoride is such an important addition to water, should it not be added to mineral water?
The hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) had sent 1,200 e-mails to constituents asking for their views on fluoride. The hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) was passionately in favour of adding it to water, but ignored the fact that others had drawn attention to the quantity of sugar in people's diets, which might have a more significant effect on tooth decay.
The problem that the whole House faces is that there are huge gaps in scientific research. It would have been better if the Government had spent more money, or made more effort with their drafting, to ensure proper research so that the facts came out. Sadly, that has not happened.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has helpfully identified a deficiency in the failure to connect the Bill with the water framework directive. Indeed, the implementation in national law of some aspects of the directive, such as efficient use and water abstraction, is a missed opportunity. Some 16 out of 45 UK biodiversity action plan habitats are threatened by water abstraction, and there may be a need for a water saving trust. Such a body, which would be similar to the Energy Saving Trust, could encourage water-efficient technology, water conservation at home and the use of other methods to ensure that customers change their habits to preserve clean water. Sadly, all those things are missing from the Bill.
Another missed opportunity relates to the improvement of competition in the sector. We all want the benefits of fine pricing and higher efficiency, particularly as water customers cannot practically change their supplier and water companies still occupy a monopolistic position by default. What exactly is a licensed water supplier going to look like and how will it be treated for tax and other purposes? What is to prevent big water users from setting themselves up as licensed suppliers and writing off any losses against tax?
I am in favour of including the domestic customer in all price advantages, because I do not accept that discounts do not benefit home consumers, who are as price sensitive as any company and perhaps even more so. I feel that the Government have failed in their duty to look after the smallest consumer.
The soft drink sector is very successful, but it has high machinery costs and very high standards of cleanliness. The 12-year limit on abstraction licences will have a detrimental effect. About 1.4 billion litres of the 1.8 billion litres of water drunk in Britain is from Britain. Obviously, cutting from 20 to 12 years the period in which costs are offset will make UK-produced water more expensive and detrimental to those companies' competitiveness.
There is a significant lack of proportionality in the Bill, especially in terms of powers allocated to the Environment Agency. It is not true to suggest that
planners ignore the Environment Agency. If that is the problem, surely it is time to include in the Bill an obligation to take account of Environment Agency objections in planning decisions. For example, it could be allowed more influence in seeking to prevent damage caused by drilling into aquifers already used by a mineral water company that could damage water quality. The safeguards in the code of practice for well drilling are clearly inadequate, and the Government have been complacent in ignoring that in the Bill.I mentioned investment with regard to the bottled water sector. The quarrying sector will now also have to rely on the mercy of the Environment Agency—an issue that many hon. Members raised—which will have the power to vary or revoke abstraction licences. That is a substitute for allowing proper consultation on environmental impact during the planning process. That could have been included in the Bill.
There is a major failure to address the fundamental issue, which is compounded by the right of the Environment Agency to avoid compensating companies when it takes away their ability to conduct their business. That extra uncertainty further undermines investment confidence. Although the habitats directive allows compensation, the Bill does not. There is a presumption that the Environment Agency is flexible. It seems unlikely that it will move away from units of six years when issuing licences to tie in with the catchment abstraction management strategies. I have no confidence that it will issue meaningful licences for more than 12 years. Even if it does so, it will have the power to alter the licences, which will further undermine investor confidence.
The problem with the Bill is that the Environment Agency has a priority for natural water, known as green water, which it will place above blue water or drinking water. The Bill so strengthens the Environment Agency that I have serious fears about the cost implications for domestic customers. Throughout the Bill, the agency is given more power and more opportunity to devise its own method for testing sustainable development. How will its sustainability criteria differ from those used in planning?
The Bill falls short on a number of criteria, mainly because the Government have ignored large groups of interested parties, all of which have clear and valid arguments.
The Bill represents a whole series of missed opportunities, compromises and weak drafting. Despite the fact that water is such an important part of good health, and of life itself, the Bill is incompetent, incomplete and inequitable. It demonstrates that this Government cannot be trusted with even the most straightforward piece of legislation, and I urge the House to make them think again by voting it down.
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