Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
WEDNESDAY 28 APRIL 2004
MR GRAHAM
SETTERFIELD AND
PROFESSOR CHRIS
BINNIE
Q1 Chairman: Can we welcome the patient
members of the audience to this session? I am sorry it has started
a little behind time, but a combination of votes and our wish
to have a presentation on the matter before we started has delayed
us. May I welcome the first of our two sets of witnesses this
afternoon, the Institution of Civil Engineers? Mr Graham Setterfield
is the Chairman of the ICE Water Board—I did not know you
were a private water company, but there we are. You are accompanied
by Professor Chris Binnie, who is a member of that board. In your
evidence you say "The Foresight project into flooding is
a template that we recommend be adopted for climate change as
a subject in its own right".[1]
Then you say delphically "The support of the Government Chief
Scientist would be welcomed". Do you think the Government
Chief Scientist is not on side with this Foresight report and
if so, why?
Mr Setterfield: No, no. I think
the Government Chief Scientist is very much on side with the Foresight
report on flooding. His interest is something which lots of us
have commented upon. I am sure he is very interested in a whole
range of matters. You have raised a particular one, which is climate
change and water security. The Foresight template, which has brought
together some of the most pre-eminent scientists, engineers, experts
in their field, is a very good report. There are some issues associated
with climate change and water security. It is a very long-term
issue and the Foresight template is dealing with a topic which
is a long-term issue. Our view is that it does that pretty well.
Q2 Chairman: It has been said, only
to me personally I have to say, that you engineers are the "concrete
pourers", the people who will look at engineering solutions
to all of the problems which are raised as a result of a combination
of climate change and the need to secure water and to deal with
flooding issues. I suspect you might want to rebut such an assertion,
so now is your opportunity.
Mr Setterfield: I would most wholeheartedly
rebut it. It is a view which pertained perhaps some 20 years ago,
but pertains less and less these days. Certainly as the Water
Board of the Institution of Civil Engineers, we spend a lot of
time dealing with the environmental issues and these days it is
very much about managing the environment in a sustainable way;
sustainability is the by-word really. We are not looking to concrete
anything, we are just looking to make sure water resources are
there when they are needed.
Q3 Chairman: We have a water industry
which seems to the non-experienced eye by and large to look very
similar to the way it was many years ago. We have dotted round
the country lots of reservoirs, lots of pipes, we have water treatment
works and the whole lot merrily goes round and round. However,
there are some challenges as a result of global warming. Take
me through a 20- or 30-year perspective. What will change or is
it just a question of carrying on as we are?
Professor Binnie: May I just go
back to one of the earlier issues, demand management? We were
very supportive of demand management; we very much pushed for
demand management, leakage reduction, all of those elements. When
the Environment Agency took up that banner, we very much supported
it. However, we do believe that leakage has come down a great
deal, it is now down at economic levels or close to economic levels
and the further measures which can be done on demand management
are quite often quite small and quite slow. Changing the cistern
in one's toilet for instance is a very good way of reducing demand.
However, you change those about once every 50 years, so it will
be a good step but it will take a long time for significant benefit
to come through. We do support economic demand management, but
we do think the future benefits of that are going to be much slower
than we had in the past. In the longer term, with climate change,
we believe that the rainfall in the summer will go down, we do
believe that the river flows will go down even more and summer
river flows can go down by something like 30% on average from
what they are currently. That will mean that water supplies which
come from direct abstractions from rivers are going to be affected
because the environmental part will not change. If anything the
environmental flows will have to go up in order to provide sufficient
oxygen in the water for the environment, so that will go, so the
reduction in that available for water supply is going to be far
more affected for direct extractions and also for single season
reservoirs. They rely partly on the water which is in storage
and they rely on the water which is going to run into them during
the relevant dry spell. If the run-offs come down to the extent
that they are expected, that means that single season reservoirs
will have somewhat lower yields. We believe that there is plenty
of rainfall, there is plenty of water available, because the country
only uses something like 10% of the available river flow; more
important will be storing the increased winter run-off for use
in the summer.
Q4 Chairman: Do you think that the
government and regulators are showing signs of recognising the
type of scenario you have just enunciated? Are they well enough
prepared to respond to the challenges you have just put before
the Committee?
Mr Setterfield: They are beginning
to recognise it. Certainly the Environment Agency have identified
climate change in their requirements for water resources plans
and the water companies in preparing their plans have been able
to make allowances for climate change. So that is good. In terms
of the economic regulator, if the Environment Agency allows the
water companies to make that inclusion in their plans, then the
economic regulator will fund it. It is a long-term issue and economic
regulation is done in five-year batches, so it is really quite
hard to say how well that is being dealt with, with something
which is so long term. One of our major concerns on the whole
topic of climate change is that the planning and promotion and
arranging for new water resources are very long term and we do
believe the evidence points towards the fact that more winter
storage will be needed. Coming back to your previous question,
looking 20 years ahead, we would hope that we start to see evidence
that we are storing more water because it is not an option to
run out of water.
Q5 Chairman: May I just pick you
up on a point? Water UK, our next witnesses, said in their evidence
to the Committee that the current five-year periodic review of
water industry prices and investment does not encourage long-term
investment.[2]
Mr Setterfield: I am agreeing.
I am sorry if I did not make it clear. It does not encourage long-term
investment, it encourages a quinquennial approach to it. The Environment
Agency has said in the water resource plans, which are 20- to
25-year plans that the water companies may make an allowance for
climate change. That is at the far end of that spectrum.
Q6 Chairman: In your opening remarks
you put emphasis on demand management and I suppose there are
two key sets of demanders: there is the business user of water
and there is the private user of water. From your analysis do
you think that those two types of users are waking up to the fact
that they have a part to play in responding to this challenge?
Mr Setterfield: The answer to
that is that as the Institution of Civil Engineers we have not
done analysis. We read the analysis other people do and we have
a personal interest in the activities of water companies. The
industrial users, because of efficiency, because of the price
of water, have woken up to trying to be efficient and others can
speak better about that. I think some of your subsequent witnesses
might well be able to speak about precisely how much industrial
usage has declined. They understand that, but probably driven
by economics; equally corporate social responsibility and all
that goes with that makes them a little aware. As for domestic
customers: We still only have some 25% of the UK domestic customers
being metered. If you are not metered, it is only as and when
water companies make pleas for water efficiency or children go
home from school having had a lesson about the water cycle and
these sorts of things that gradually it enters into the psyche.
I would say that on the domestic front the education process has
begun, but we are not there.
Q7 Chairman: In terms of looking
at best practice outside the United Kingdom, as engineers in this
field, are there any other countries where you look with interest
to see how they use engineering as a contribution to dealing with
the types of issue which you have put before us, particularly
in terms of water management, better catchment and so on, which
we might take due note of in the course of this inquiry?
Professor Binnie: Singapore. I
lived in Singapore for some time. Water there is much more constrained,
because most of it is imported from Malaysia. There, if you have
a factory, you have to get a licence to demonstrate that you are
using water in the most efficient way and you are subject to inspection
every year for your water efficiency and if you are not up to
then current practice, you are forced to put in the new practice
or else your licence to use water will be taken away. That is
something which is way ahead of what we are doing in this country.
Q8 Chairman: I presume they have
a system of benchmarking best practice, do they?
Professor Binnie: Yes, they have.
It is in the public sector there and the Public Utilities Board
makes sure that the industries are the most water efficient they
can be.
Chairman: If you have any access to that
and might care to send us a little note developing that point,
I think the Committee might well be very interested.[3]
I hope you do not mind me burdening you with another task.
Q9 Mr Mitchell: That means increasing
regulation in the future, does it not? More metering and charging
more. Which parts of the country are going to be most affected
by water shortages?
Mr Setterfield: All the evidence
points towards the South East.
Q10 Mr Mitchell: Is that particularly
London?
Mr Setterfield: The South-East
part of London and the southern counties, Kent, Sussex, East Anglia;
it is that South-East corner of the country. If you take the whole
of the London area, that is not quite as seriously affected. It
is the result of a combination of effects. It is the climatic
conditions, it is the water resource conditions and it is demographic
conditions. The sustainable communities plan of course is pushing
more and more houses into that sector of the country and it is
that sector which finds itself under pressure. There are other
pressures which are running in parallel to climate change. The
low flows which occur in the chalk streams, for instance in Kent
which I know very well, mean that the Environment Agency are keen
to see the water companies taking less water from the chalk, leaving
more water in the rivers and that is terrific, that is a good
thing, but the water companies do not have an option of saying
to their customers, actually we do not have any water left, we
have run out because we want to support the environment. There
really are huge pressures. The evidence when you look at the plans
produced by UKCIP[4]
or others points towards the South East suffering significantly
more. That does not mean there are going to be no problems elsewhere,
as we saw in the autumn drought only last year where the problems
were widespread across the whole country.
Professor Binnie: The phrase is
not "suffering"; the phrase is "greater effort
will be needed in order to augment the water resources which are
available".
Q11 Mr Mitchell: What you are saying
is that there is no difficulty if we can catch the necessary proportion
of precipitation, but there is going to be a problem in needing
to store it from winter for summer, which I presume points to
more reservoirs, so you will begin pouring the concrete at some
stage. Where are those likely to be?
Mr Setterfield: The reservoirs
we know water companies have presently included in their draft
business plans are not yet in the public domain, but we do know
some of them. Thames Water have included for a reservoir, Kent
Water have included, Southern Water have included the raising
of a reservoir, Portsmouth Water have included for a reservoir.
These we know about; there are studies going on in other parts
of the country. If you think of that geographically, it does point
towards additional work being needed in the South East. I have
to say that leakage amongst many of those companies in that southern
area is amongst the very lowest in the country and has been for
some time. So the effort has been going on for some considerable
while. I was very involved in the droughts in 1989-90 in Kent;
I was the local director of Southern Water. Our leakage at that
time was low and fortunately we had a large reservoir which was
built in the early 1970s which was our salvation because the water
in the chalk and other aquifers just was not there.
Q12 Mr Mitchell: It is really a question
of distributing their reservoirs where the demand is. It is not
a question of building more in the North and long supply chains.
Mr Setterfield: No.
Q13 Mr Mitchell: It is localised
reservoirs.
Mr Setterfield: It is. Local sources
are still the most cost effective way and the most efficient way,
subject to the water being available, to provide local water resources.
We are really not about covering the South East of England with
concrete; we really are simply saying that we need water resources
for future generations.
Q14 Joan Ruddock: I think the South
East of England is going to be covered with concrete to a degree.
Mr Setterfield: Not by us.
Q15 Joan Ruddock: I am connected
to the Thames Gateway with my constituency at one end of it. Having
raised this question of sustainable communities, are you having
sufficient input into these plans to have confidence that the
water supply will not be an issue? We are talking of hundreds
of thousands of new homes.
Mr Setterfield: The members of
the Institution of Civil Engineers work in a variety of organisations
and it has become realised that water is one of the key factors
in sustainable communities. I have to add that when the first
announcement was made, there was no mention of water. The Institution
of Civil Engineers, as well as several water companies, were very
vocal in their comments about it and I am pleased to say that
it certainly seems to have been picked up. A number of people
can add to that.
Professor Binnie: You can plan
for population in maybe a decade. If you are planning for water
resources you may need two decades or more. It is important that
you get those in sync. Secondly, they will not be concrete reservoirs,
they will be earth reservoirs; so they will not be looking like
stark walls, they are embankments. Many of the reservoirs which
have been built since the Second World War are now SSSIs or Ramsar
sites because of the environment benefits they bring and they
also bring sailing, fishing, canoeing, bird watching, walking.
It is not quite the environmental total degradation that one might
think.
Joan Ruddock: I must say that the concrete
I meant was the concrete homes.
Q16 Chairman: Could I ask you for
some help with paragraph 2.1 in your evidence? You made a very
interesting statement. It says "However it can be said that
England and Wales only utilise less than 10% of available water".
Could you just help tease out what you mean by "available
water"?
Professor Binnie: That is the
water which runs in the rivers down to the sea.
Q17 Chairman: So it is purely water
courses.
Professor Binnie: And recharges
the aquifers.
Chairman: Right. To me "available
water" apart from the water courses—and I suppose you
could say that all water does eventually end up there—includes
the question of what you do with run-off and water which has been
through industrial processes, but that does not count. I presume
you would end up double counting the amount of water if you included
that in your figure. It is purely a question of 90% of what is
in rivers, streams, etcetera still being available and that leads
us perhaps into capture and reservoirs and David.
Q18 Mr Lepper: What a wonderful link.
It flows so nicely. You do say in your evidence to us that whilst
more reservoirs are needed, and you have described to us how several
of them eventually become an important part of the landscape and
you talked about some which are SSSIs, there is still often resistance,
for instance from the Environment Agency, from conservation groups,
when there are proposals for new reservoirs. Could you tell us
a bit more about that? In particular, since you have referred
to proposals which are already there, which, if not made public,
are in the planning for several of the water companies' new reservoirs,
are those kinds of hostile reactions already anticipated where
the new reservoirs are concerned?
Mr Setterfield: Yes. If I could
just deal with that very last point, the reason that the reservoirs
are identified so far in advance of their actual requirement to
be filled with water is because it is anticipated that there will
be a hostile reaction and it is beholden upon everybody to do
thorough studies. It is beholden upon them to do thorough economic
studies and thorough environmental studies to make sure there
is no environmental degradation, in fact you would be looking
for environmental improvement with the construction of a reservoir.
Q19 Mr Lepper: May I just interrupt
for a moment? What kind of timescale are we talking about?
Mr Setterfield: A 20-year timescale
if you are building a new one; if you are raising an existing
one it would be less than that. Even so, I certainly know that
Southern Water, in raising a reservoir, have to seek parliamentary
approval, which is not a short process, and planning and all that
goes with that. That is on an existing site.
1 Ev 1 (para 1) Back
2
Ev 15 Back
3
Ev 14 Back
4
UK Climate Impacts Programme. Back
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