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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 558-iv House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS
CLIMATE CHANGE, WATER SECURITY AND FLOODING
Wednesday 19 May 2004 BARONESS YOUNG OF OLD SCONE, DR DAVID KING, MR IAN BARKER MR ELLIOT MORLEY, MP, MR RICHARD BIRD Evidence heard in Public Questions 294 - 377
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on Wednesday 19 May 2004 Members present Mr Michael Jack, in the Chair Mr Colin Breed Mr David Drew Mr Mark Lazarowicz Mr David Lepper Mr Austin Mitchell Diana Organ Joan Ruddock Alan Simpson Paddy Tipping Mr Bill Wiggin ________________ Memorandum submitted by the Environment Agency Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Baroness Young of Old Scone, a Member of the House of Lords, Chief Executive, Dr David King, Director, Water Management, and Mr Ian Barker, Head, Water Resources, Environment Agency, examined. Q294 Chairman: Good afternoon. Can I welcome our witnesses from the Environment Agency. Baroness Young, the chief executive, an old friend of the Committee, welcome to our proceedings. Welcome, Dr David King. We had another David King last week so we will have to remember not to call you "Professor." Baroness Young of Old Scone: We call the other one "Super Dave". Q295 Chairman: Mr Barker, you do not feature on my list of forthcoming attractions. What do you do? Mr Barker: I am head of water resources at the Environment Agency. Q296 Paddy Tipping: Sir David King was with us last week and we talked about the Foresight Project. It is early days yet. Clearly, you have seen it. What are the implications for the Agency? Baroness Young of Old Scone: We have been delighted to be part of the Foresight process. Indeed, we have been beginning to use the sorts of Foresight scenarios in our water resources work for some considerable time, but this was a useful addition in that it looked primarily at flooding issues. Clearly, we are still absorbing what it says. The key messages for us are that we now need to be sure that our future longer term planning for flood defence work takes account of the Foresight propositions, bearing in mind the wide range that they cover. Also, though we do not absolutely have clarity about the size of the resource that will be needed to cope with the climate change impacts on flood risk management, it is clear that there needs to be an increase of a substantial size in the resource given to that. We were very pleased that Super Dave, if we can call him that, endorsed that point. Dr King: The key message coming out for us is that, irrespective of what scenario that you take, risk will increase. Secondly, there is a continuing need for investment. Thirdly, in terms of flood risk management, it is about a palette of activities. It is not just about flood defence. We need to look at land management as well. Clearly, there needs to be more rigour in terms of development in the flood plain and also consideration to flood resilient properties etc. Those would be the principal messages we would take from it. Q297 Paddy Tipping: Let us stick with flood defence for now. If there is to be an increase in resources and I suspect what will be forthcoming over a period of time, you need to be in a position to make judgments about how best to use those resources. There is a lot of demand on you from a lot of communities all over the shop saying, "We need this. We need that." There are not enough resources around. How do you make decisions about priorities, to begin with? Secondly, just talk to me a bit about how you can protect the urban communities but smaller, rural communities, for example, may be lower down the list. Finally, people talk to us a lot about hard defence systems. A lot more could be done with softer approaches, using the flood plains more effectively. Perhaps you would talk us through that as well. Dr King: In terms of setting national priorities, we have a well established procedure. We have a medium term plan which looks out ten years. That plan identifies the need. We overlay on that, depending on the resources that are made available to the Agency a priority system. Obviously, every scheme has to be tested as to whether it is environmentally sound, whether it is economically viable and whether it is technically acceptable. There is a well tried process and the Agency operates through a system of committees. Each of the regions of the Agency has a system of committees, so there is an input locally into how those priorities are shaped. As far as using different techniques, rather than just hard engineering, clearly there are opportunities for soft engineering solutions and, as part of our planning process, whether we are looking at a catchment management plan for flooding or whether we are looking at shore line flooding, we look at the options and where there are opportunities for using more sustainable soft engineering solutions. There is an expectation that that will grow as we go forward. Where you have small communities, it is about looking at the tool kit that you have available. Sometimes it will be about self-help. Over the last number of years, we have seen the Flood Forum being very active. That is about promoting what you can do at an individual household level. It is about improving our warning system. It is about flood awareness and of course there may be the option of a scheme but it has to be accepted that it is not always possible to build a capital scheme. There is a basket of things we can do. Q298 Paddy Tipping: There are small communities down the Severn and the Trent -- Gunthorpe, for example, in Nottinghamshire - that have very small populations and a risk of flooding. In priority terms, they are pretty low down and they are pretty desperate about the way forward. What should we do to try and help communities like that that, in reality, if we are straight with them, do not have the prospect of any defence for many years to come? Dr King: If you look at it in terms of hard defences, that may well be true. We have also seen - indeed they were tested in our most recent flooding - the deployment of temporary defences. These are obviously a much cheaper solution but nevertheless effective. Each individual case has to be looked at. Baroness Young of Old Scone: We very much sympathise with these smaller communities, many of whom have identified the need for some time. I think everyone would accept that we need to spend public money on a prioritised basis, where it can give the most benefit and where there are the highest risks. It does reflect on the fact that the overall quantum of resource needs to increase. Clearly, we would get to those smaller, less high priority communities quicker if we were building up the quantum. We were delighted to get additional funding from government in the last spending review, but we need that sort of growth, particularly in view of the Foresight Project, to keep on an upward trajectory. Q299 Paddy Tipping: Are we saying the only way of providing flood defence is through the Environment Agency and your own resources? What about things like planning gain? What about the proposals that, if you are not going to live in the flood plain, you ought to make a contribution yourself and one could develop a notional pot of money so that there is matching money towards that? Baroness Young of Old Scone: One of the issues that is quite important for us is, if we are going to see an increase in the resource coming into flood risk management, where is it going to come from. It may be possible through agreements with developers to build in the real cost of the increased flood risk management of that development. There was a proposition at the time that the funding streams were reviewed for a connection charge which still has not been taken forward, but that raises comparatively small amounts of funding. I think we need to look at other ways in which we can get resources into flood risk management if it is not going to be straight grant aid from the Treasury. We were delighted that local government, in spite of the fact that the funding streams were centralised last year, did continue to top up from local resources. Obviously, if there are particularly deserving cases that are high priorities for a local authority, we would be delighted if they felt able, either through agreements with developers or raising local resources, to contribute. The one thing we do not want to do is to give developers the impression that you can buy the right to develop in the flood plain, because there are some sorts of development in the flood plain that we would absolutely not want to see, particularly vulnerable households and vulnerable facilities. There are also developments that we would not want to see, which is where basically it destroys the ability of the flood plain to act as a flood plain and protect other homes and businesses. The idea that if you pay enough money you get to build we really must resist. Q300 Paddy Tipping: Finally, let me turn to a specific which is the Thames Barrier and ask you about your thinking and planning on this. The Thames Barrier is being used more and more. It is getting out of date. It is going to have to be replaced. What is the target for replacement and are you on track for achieving it? Baroness Young of Old Scone: There was press coverage recently which talked about the Thames Barrier being worn out. I think that was the implication. I do not know what the words were that were used, but the implication was that it would be US by 2020. That is not the case. We have known for a long time that there would be sea level rise and climate change implications - particularly sea level rise implications - for the Barrier. What we are not talking about is junking the whole Barrier and starting again. That is not the name of the game. It is about improving the standards of the Barrier and improving the standards of the flood defences all down the Thames estuary and a whole load of other, concomitant works. There was a piece of slightly bizarre press coverage that implied that the total investment in the Barrier was going to be junked after 50 years, which is not the case. Dr King: When thinking about the estuary, it is important not just to focus on the Barrier. The Barrier is a very important component but there are seven other barriers. There are 500 kilometres of embankment and something like 400 different sluices and gates that all operate as part of the tidal system. We are very fortunate in the design of the Barrier and indeed the other barriers that there is quite significant headroom, if you like, built in. The Agency has started a major study that is looking at the future flood risk management for the estuary. That study kicked off at the back end of last year and it will cost in the order of £16 million. It will take something like four years to complete because there is a significant amount of detail but the product of that will be a flood risk management plan for the estuary that will cover the replacement and the enhancement. The expectation is that we will start that programme of works in about 2015, but that would take us through defences right to the end of the century. That is not to say we will not do anything in the meantime, but in terms of having an overall good, strategic view and plan of the estuary, that is the timescale. Q301 Paddy Tipping: What are the threats to your plans? Dr King: Obviously there is significant development planned for the gateway and, as part of that planning, probably for the first time flood management has become an integral part of the planning infrastructure. It is very important that the decisions that are taken in terms of moving the gateway forward do not compromise what we need to do in the longer term, but we have been working very closely with developers, with the ODPM and others in ensuring that is the case. Q302 Paddy Tipping: Could you say that in plainer language? Are you saying that all this extra housing that is going round the estuary potentially causes a flood management risk and what you are trying to do is to work with the planners, work with the ODPM, to ensure that does not happen? Dr King: Clearly, if you add the quantum of houses which is something of the order of 150,000 into the estuary, it will increase the risk but what you have to remember is that the estuary, with the exception of the Kent Marshes etc., is defended today to 1,000 and 2,000 year standards. There is a very good level of protection. Obviously the risk increases because the consequences of failure are greater. Baroness Young of Old Scone: Could I comment on some of the things that are needed in the gateway if we are really going to keep the options flexible for the future? Clearly, we need to get to a level above individual development zones within the gateway so that we have a proper, spatial plan and can anticipate where development can usefully happen, set back from the river, where we need to protect access so that we can ensure that circulation and access are still protected if there is a flood incident and that we also see flood resilience planning of the actual buildings and developments in the gateway. We need a strategic approach. We need some strategic routes protected. We need to make sure we do not put vulnerable communities and developments in the wrong place and we need to make sure that the individual construction schemes are well managed. Q303 Paddy Tipping: Is all that happening? Baroness Young of Old Scone: We are working very closely both with the arm's length development bodies and the ODPM on how we can make sure that we do have all of those layers in place. Clearly, development in the gateway is going to be quite an economically tight issue because much of the development is on brown field sites and that is quite a costly process to remedy. There is an anxiety about what the on costs of both flood defence and sustainable construction would look like in the gateway. We have to be mindful of the fact that we cannot design solutions that are going to mean that economic development simply cannot happen. It would be inconsistent for us to do that when there is already a considerable amount of development protected to one and 2,000 year standard. Providing both sides of the equation, the development equation, the environmental equation and the flood risk equation, respect each others' viewpoints as we move forward, we are working very closely. Q304 Mr Drew: In a sense, the more constrained we are by resources because of the macro schemes, the big schemes which may include the really big schemes like the Thames Barrier, the more difficult it is for us to deal with the micro schemes, the ones Paddy referred to, either higher or lower down the Severn. That has an implication for the ability to do anything with those areas. In reality, we are just going to use them as part of the flood protection, the natural flood plain, but the problem with that is you end up continually reviewing these schemes rather than doing them. It is a bit of a myth to pretend you are going to get any private money in because you have effectively precluded all development in that area. Can you see that there is a bit of a vicious circle there for some communities? They now do not have what they effectively thought they were promised, which is not hard schemes but just getting the banks repaired and so on. That has not happened. They probably will not get access to private money, so they are left in limbo. What sort of good news can you give to those communities? I have to go and meet one of them along with the Environment Agency, and they are saying, "We were promised this 18 months ago. It is further away today than it ever was." Baroness Young of Old Scone: One of the things we have to get better at is recognising when a community is not likely to have a scheme in the immediate future or even the foreseeable future and just being pretty plain and open about it. One of the things we have done in the past, which has been done from good intentions on our part but may not have served the community as well as we had hoped, was to desperately look for a viable scheme, with umpteen different options, different appraisals, constantly working with the community to try and find something that would work and, after two, three or four years, having to say to them, "I am sorry. We cannot find anything that stacks up." It is really heart breaking for communities that are put in that position. We have to find ways of recognising quite early on when we are flogging a dead horse in the short to medium term. I am sure David will want to comment more on a couple of other issues. One is we have heavily committed to a major programme of efficiency to try and make the money go as far as possible. Obviously, the more we can do that as well as bringing in additional funding, the further our funding will go. It may well be that for some of these communities the important thing is for them to flood proof their houses. It does make a huge difference in a flood incident if you have flood mitigation measures in your house, electrics coming in from the top rather than the bottom, impermeable surfaces on the ground floor, living on the first floor so that the stuff on the ground floor is less vulnerable. All of that can make a heck of a difference as to whether a flood incident is an annoying, disrupting phenomenon or a life breaking event which some of these floods are for some people. I think we have in some of the communities to encourage that approach. The Flood Forum is excellent. It is a group of flooded communities that got together immediately after the 2000 floods and they are great. They have been there. They have the t-shirt. They have had the flood. They know what they are talking about and they are working very closely with us on all of the measures, right across flood risk management. Dr King: Our priority is about flood risk management so the principle is directing funds where the risk is the greatest. However, if you follow that in its purest sense, you are absolutely right. If we just use the gateway as an example, it is very early days but our estimate figure for a replacement of the defences is in the order of £4 billion. You would have to take that outside the norm and that may be true of other situations. In addition, if you look at the east coast, we have put significant investment post-1953 into defending the east coast. A lot of those defences will start to come to the end of their natural life and again there may be a case for looking at that outside the normal investment stream. That needs to be taken into consideration. Also, there is clearly a political judgment which is the speed at which you provide defences, because that is dependent on money. I would reiterate what Barbara said. There are quite a few additional tools in the tool kit now that are over and above just hard defences. One is about awareness and the effectiveness of awareness. It is all very well people being aware but they must take action. We run an awareness campaign every year and follow up with that. Secondly, in terms of warning, we are currently coming to the end of a project which will implement what we call multimedia flood warning, which gives the opportunity to people to receive warnings through internet, text messages or whatever way. That opens out the warning. If they put in the flood resilience, there is an opportunity for them to act. Secondly, the temporary defences. They are not all that expensive and I think there are opportunities for communities to use those. Q305 Chairman: In your evidence, in paragraph 4.7, you say, "Foresight may well not contain the worst case scenario." Then you say there is a new study that has come out from Defra where you have reviewed the adequacy of the allowance made for climate change by an increase of 20 per cent to peak flows. How on earth is anybody going to be able to plan definitively for the types of expenditure we are talking about when we have Professor Sir David King's report which is hailed universally as the ultimate study? Then we read in here that this may not be the ultimate study. There is an even worse case scenario. You are talking about expenditure outside the norm. The Foresight Report talks about responses requiring between 22 billion and 75 billion of new engineering by 2080. How are you going to get a consistent, agreed position to recommend to government when you still seem to be feeling around as to what is the size and scale of the problem? Dr King: In terms of climate change, it is difficult to manage because there are lots of uncertainties. In the evidence we presented, what we flagged is - and this would be accepted - that in the Foresight study one model was used, the Hadley model, which is excellent, but there are other models available. The Hadley model is known to be dry, if I can use that expression. Some of the other models would show that there is greater precipitation in the summer period and that is what we are flagging there. As we move forward, obviously you are planning over a long time period. I do not think super David King would claim that it is the definitive answer. We will iterate this as we move forward and on each iteration and with better information and better modelling we will get a better answer. Q306 Chairman: In all of your evidence and indeed in the Foresight Report, to deal with flooding (a) you have to have a commitment to spend big money and (b) you have to spend this money over a long period of time. In other words, the message that comes out of here is that the problem is here and now. Unless we set out on a long road to deal with this problem, the consequences of flooding could be enormous. Governments find it very difficult to make the kind of long term commitment which is implied by these various scenarios. It is very easy to push everything to the right in public expenditure terms. One of the numbers kicking around here was that we are spending about 800 million on flood defences at the moment. If you put it up to a billion, you have to find another 200 million every year. On another one of these you could say it is a definite billion a year. That is serious public expenditure commitment against a background where there is still doubt. I presume you are saying Foresight may be on the down side. You think it should be more. Somebody will come up with a model that says it should be less. How are you going to get certainty with people like the Treasury, who do not like spending any money at all on anything, to agree to underwrite a Defra budget to deal with these matters? Baroness Young of Old Scone: It is an area where certainty is difficult and therefore many of the decisions you have to make are what we call no regrets, decisions that do not prejudice the future but are moving in the right direction. To be honest, at the moment, in our terms, we are spending less than half a billion a year on flood defence action and therefore getting up to the billion would be a step in the right direction because that is absolutely without regrets. Under any scenarios at all, it is going to need something moving in that direction. I have no clue as to what we might get out of the spending review this time round, but if we are not going to move at all up the way I think that would be ignoring the future impact of climate change. The second point we need to make is that climate change is long term. There is still a lot of debate about whether what we are seeing is the front end of it or whether, in reality, it is going to be 2020/25 before we really start to see climate change in earnest. We are not in theory right up against it at the moment but we need to begin to make plans that take account of those future impacts. Let us make the progress we can against the bottom end of the ranges rather than worrying too much about the top end, because at the moment we will never hit the top end. Q307 Chairman: Mr Tipping made a very interesting observation when he asked about a small community. The message was, "Well, tough. You may not get protection." If governments have duties of care, which I presume they do, how do we communicate to the communities that are not going to get the money because, unless you spend it all, somebody by definition is not going to be protected in the way that they might want to be. Are those communities likely to judicially review the government and say, "You are not doing your job, government. We want protection. We cannot buy the insurance. The Environment Agency have put us in one of their flood risk areas. We are in the green area. We are going to be inundated, so what are you going to do to protect us?"? As a society, are we going to have to say, "You, you and you will be protected but you, you and you, including Mr Tipping's constituency, are going to be flooded"? Baroness Young of Old Scone: We should look at where we have come from. Many of these communities have been flooded in the past over many, many years. There are a number of things happening that make it worse for communities now. One is we are all much more affluent; we have carpets, electrical goods and MFI kitchens that fall apart under the onslaught of water. The impact is more severe the more affluent we have become. Many of these places have been flooding periodically. We had particularly bad floods in the year 2000 which were widespread but they were one in 300 year events in many cases or one in 200 or 150 year events. They were unusual and we hope that they are genuinely unusual. Clearly, we have a responsibility for flood defence but it is a discretionary power. We can undertake flood defence works but we are not obliged to and we have to use what money we can raise in the most prioritised, cost effective way. I think communities suing the government would probably discover that legally they did not have much purchase. We want to make sure that we are giving communities the right sort of advice and support so that if we cannot provide defences because they simply are not cost effective or they are impractical - in some cases it is communities where there literally is not a practical solution - we nevertheless do not leave them high and dry and hopeless and we introduce them to the measures. They can take a look at temporary defences and whether they are feasible and we can make sure that they get adequate warning so that we can try to ensure that we are not facing the worst circumstance, which is not loss of property but loss of life. Q308 Chairman: Work has already been embarked on by your Agency on the pilot river basin study for the Water Framework Directive, namely the Ribble. I was somewhat concerned to see in Sir David's report that the Ribble estuary has a nasty danger blob. Right over the top of it is one of the areas which could be subject to severe flooding under one of his many scenarios. Are you going to amend or take into account in the pilot river basin study the types of risk issue on flooding that we have been discussing? Baroness Young of Old Scone: The catchment plans for the Water Framework Directive will be very closely combined with a whole range of existing catchment plans that we have either done or are in the process of doing on water resources, water quality and flood risk management. All of that will be brought together. The underlying principle of the Water Framework Directive is that we do look at all of the land management and water impacts in collaboration and try to identify where, through our river basin characterisation process and the programmes and measures we have to draw up in order to get all of those who can have an impact on that catchment to take the right action to improve the status of those waters, all of those issues will need to be taken into account. That will also include issues like sewerage and land drainage as well as flood risk management. Dr King: In terms of the Water Framework Directive, the river basin plans will be underpinned by a number of other plans, one of which is the catchment flood management plan. It is the catchment flood management plan that would factor in climate change considerations. Q309 Chairman: You are going to try out the work on that in the Ribble estuary plan, are you? Dr King: We are already progressing catchment flood management plans in a number of different locations. Q310 Mr Mitchell: If you have Paddy's unsaveable villages, are you not going to have to designate them in some way, like they used to designate certain mining villages D in the Durham coalfield. D stood for, "Die, you bastards." You are going to have to designate some as UW, under water. They are going to have to be told, are they not? Baroness Young of Old Scone: We need to keep calm on this because the fact that we know more about flood risk does not mean to say that they are at any higher risk at the moment. Because we are right at the front end of climate change, many of these communities are not at a substantially higher risk than they have been for many, many years. They may be slightly at a higher risk because we are seeing other factors like more concrete, so that means faster run off and therefore faster flash floods. Sometimes the way in which land is managed for forestry and agriculture can have a big impact. There may be changes that have happened as a result of other things that are happening within the flood catchment, but many of these communities are not in any worse a position than they have been for a long time. We need to stay calm. If what we are predicting in terms of climate change means that they are going to have an enhanced risk, we need to be very open about that but it is over a substantially lengthy period. In the Foresight study, we are talking about 2030 to 2080. There is a long time to prepare. I do not think we should be regarding houses that are at risk of flooding more frequently, for example, than one in 75 years, which is the level that the ABI have set for beginning to ask questions about the insurability and the premium loading. Beyond that, they may flood tomorrow. The houses that are defended to more than one in 75 could equally well flood tomorrow because it may be a one in 100 event or a one in 150 event. The message we get over to all communities that are in the flood plain is even if you have a whacking great defence do not relax because the reality is there will be events that will over top even the best protected of defences. We cannot simply protect against the one in whatever unexpected event. If you are in the flood plain, you need to have a proper flood plan. You need to know what you are going to do with your granny and your hamster and where your insurance policies are. You need to know how you are going to react and plan to protect your house and family if you find yourself in that position. Clearly, you take a view about the degree of protection you have but even for people with defences, if you are in the flood plain, you really seriously must think about what would happen if the defences were over topped. Perhaps we can point Mr Mitchell in the direction of our website where there is an admirable piece that shows exactly what we would like all householders in the flood plain to do. Dr King: It is a very important message that you cannot stop flooding; you can only mitigate against it. The question is how you mitigate. Q311 Mr Mitchell: I heard you say you were going to spend 60 million quid on a new study for the replacement of the Thames Barrier. That sounds a ridiculous amount. What are you going to have? Gold sluices? Dr King: £16 million. Q312 Mr Mitchell: Let us move on to reservoirs, in that case. You seem less keen on reservoirs than Water UK which said that reservoirs may well be necessary. What you say is that it is unlikely that new resources will be needed solely to deal with climate change. "Solely" is the weasel word there. Are we going to need more reservoirs or are we not? Mr Barker: We may well need more reservoirs. I was surprised to see in some of the earlier submissions that there is a view that the Agency is against reservoirs. Some three years ago, we published a strategy for water resources in England and Wales that looked 25 years ahead and was based on the Foresight scenarios and different socio-economic models, to try to understand what might happen to demand for water within houses, within industry and within agriculture. Within our strategy, we took the view that on a twin track approach there is a lot that could be done with demand management to make better use of water, but nonetheless new water resources developments would almost certainly be needed to meet growing demand. We proposed some 1,800 megalitres per day which, in old money, is about 400 million gallons a day worth of resource developments, including a number of new reservoirs and a recommendation that some companies look seriously at the potential and the need for new reservoirs and also consider the need to raise existing reservoirs. Q313 Mr Mitchell: What will they be used for? I, in my simple minded way, thought they would be used for storing winter rain so you can drink it in summer, but it was also suggested to us in earlier evidence that they would be used for managing river flow. Will they be used in that way? Mr Barker: It depends on the reservoir and where it is. Some reservoirs can be used for a variety of purposes to help overall water management within a catchment. For example, a reservoir near the head of a catchment can store winter run off and can release that water during the summer to maintain flows downstream. That flow augmentation can benefit not just the ecology of the river but can be used by other people downstream to abstract water as well as the water company that built the reservoir in the first place. Then of course there are the recreation and community benefits from the reservoir. Counter to that is the cost and the impact of a reservoir. There is a careful balancing act in determining whether, in response to changing or growing demand, a reservoir is the best option in terms of meeting that demand. Baroness Young of Old Scone: One of the reasons that we are portrayed as being anti-reservoir is that we are pretty keen that some of the other measures that need to be in place to manage demand are seriously addressed by the water companies, things like reduction of their own leakage. We are in a position where we are seeing the leakage in the Thames increasing, year on year and the amount of water lost from leakage in the Thames could supply five million people. We are talking about big volumes of water that need to be resolved by proper leakage management. We believe that universal or semi-universal metering of households would help. It would help not only to identify where leaks are happening but it also has a proven track record in reducing demand. Education of the public by the water companies and by others in demand management and all of those need to be tackled as a first option. I know that metering is an unpopular prospect because people believe that it bears down hard on poorer households, but there are ways in which smart tariffs can be used that will allow all households a basic slug of water and then ramp up the costs for what I would call luxury use: watering your garden or filling your swimming pool or washing your car. Also, there are models within the electricity industry for things like the Energy Savings Trust, a Water Savings Trust, which could provide money to poor households to capitalise them for lower water use, new white goods that use less water, low flow shower heads, low flow taps, those sorts of things that would help them reduce their water use and would be a social benefit because it would mean that they could reduce their water bills as well. We are keen to look a bit dog in the manger-ish on this one because it does mean that the first option of a reservoir, which is a hugely disruptive thing for local people and vastly expensive and a nightmare to get through the planning system - we do not really want to see to many of those if we can avoid as many as possible by demand management measures. Q314 Mr Mitchell: You are therefore saying that although all that is being done you are not in a position to tell us how many new reservoirs would be necessary. Are you in a position to tell us? Baroness Young of Old Scone: It is a bit like a game of chicken at the moment because we think we are not quite at the point where we are going to see companies running out of water because they have not built a reservoir but we are going to get there quite soon. Their water resource plans which they have submitted as part of the price round are being crawled all over by Ian's people at the moment to just establish where we really believe a company is beginning to make a proper case for further resource development and where we do not believe they are. We will be having pretty robust discussions with the water companies over the next few months on that precise issue. We think we know where there may need to be new resource development, either in increasing reservoirs or in one or two new ones, but we would feel it very unwise to talk about that publicly because we do not believe that we yet have water efficiency measures out of the companies. Mr Barker: The message for this Committee is that in terms of what we know and think we know about climate change, over the timescale which it is sensible for water companies to plan, we do not believe that climate change in itself will be a driver for a new resource, but it is something the water company would need to take account of in its planning for any new resources that were necessary to meet demand. Q315 Mr Breed: In a macro sense, have you had any discussions with the ODPM in respect of their planning policy? Do you believe that they understand and ensure that climate change is a factor in determining where they consider new developments should be? Baroness Young of Old Scone: With Defra, we have been talking to the ODPM about planning. We are at a point where the planning system is changing quite markedly so there is a real opportunity, particularly at the level of the new spatial plans, to ensure that climate change can be built in, both in the guidance given by the ODPM and in the work that is being done at a regional level on spatial planning. Our regions are connected with that work at regional level. There is also new planning guidance underway and various draft planning policies at the moment have the opportunity of making sure that sustainability and the impact of climate change can be built in - things like PPS1, which is about creating sustainable communities, and PPS11 on regional planning and PPS12 on the local development framework. All of these recognise climate change as an issue that needs to be taken on board in plans. We are also talking to the ODPM about building regulations where we have some real opportunities. You may have seen in the last week or so the sustainable buildings task force report which has come out with a number of propositions to improve the design of buildings in ways that can be achieved through building regulation powers, to try and ensure that buildings reduce the amount of energy and water they use and take on board other climate change issues, including flood risk management as well as issues unconnected with climate change like waste and ability to manage waste as well as the issue of construction waste. There are lots of opportunities at the moment in terms of national, regional and local planning policy to build climate change and sustainability in. We are in discussion about that. The important thing will be the proof of the pudding being in the eating. It is true to say that we still have to win hearts and minds in terms of some planning authorities, where we find that though many of them have improved their engagement with us on development in the flood plain, for example, there are still some who, against our advice, built houses in the flood plain with the attendant risks, disruption and lack of insurance that that involves. Q316 Mr Breed: You have more or less indicated that planning guidance at the moment is not strong enough to ensure that planning authorities do not allow development in potentially risky areas. Baroness Young of Old Scone: In principle, it is. We need to keep the pressure up to make sure that in practice the new planning guidance does deliver that on the ground. Dr King: If you are looking specifically at PPG25, the planning guidance that covers development in the flood plain, firstly one has to recognise that that was only published in July 2001 although it will be reviewed this year. We have seen an improvement from local authorities. However, there are a number of things we would like to see in terms of the strengthening. Firstly, the Agency is not a statutory consultee on matters of flood risk and we believe we should be. We are hoping that that will be addressed this year. Secondly, there is a requirement for local authorities to refer back to the Agency where they are minded to permit development where we object. That is not always happening, so we would like to see stronger reinforcement of that. We also believe that with the regional, spatial strategies and indeed the local development frameworks there should be a requirement there for strategic risk assessments. Q317 Mr Breed: What about those sorts of situations where there is already development, with local authorities being much more constrained about where they can build and going on to previously developed land, often known as brown field sites? If you have a brown field site which is at risk of flooding, are you going to say that, notwithstanding the need for housing and everything else, this is an opportunity to use this piece of land which has been previously developed for housing but, nevertheless, because it is at potential risk, you are going to say, "No, you cannot use it any more." Dr King: No, that is not true. In terms of PPG25, there is a sequential test which enables the developer or the local authority to work through. There is a requirement under PPG25 to carry out a flood risk assessment and we would object if no such assessment was carried out but obviously we would look at the merits of the case. Q318 Mr Breed: Even if was previously developed land? Dr King: Yes. Baroness Young of Old Scone: There are a number of things that we would still be pressing for on the planning front. For example, planning authorities are still struggling with their role in responding to climate change. There was research that the ODPM commissioned last year to look at good practice on local planning authorities' response to climate change. We believe that that can be transmuted into guidance and issued to planning authorities. It would be very helpful to them. Also, we feel that water security and water supply need to come higher in some of the planning guidance. We are seeing, for example, in the new development zones propositions for housing in areas where we are really quite anxious about how we are going to be able to provide water to them. The availability of water resource should be a material issue in the planning system which it currently is not. Q319 Chairman: Your comments on water supply neatly take us on to water pricing issues. In paragraph 3.4 of your evidence you say, "We expect companies to make allowance for these in their long-term water resources plans." I had a look at a document which was sent to me by United Utilities, a final water and waste water services plan for 2005-2010. I expected to find some reference in this glossy document to their beginning of plans for dealing with climate change. I even looked at your own chairman's comment: "What our stakeholders say. The investment water companies will make in the environment will be more than offset by the economic and social benefits that it will bring to local areas and communities. A better environment stimulates tourism and economic regeneration bringing jobs and opportunities to the areas, as well as creating a better place to live and work." Wonderful. No mention of climate change. No mention, in United Utilities arguments for spending all of their customers' money, of climate change whatsoever. Here we have one of the biggest water companies in the country who seem to have completely ignored your advice. Are you monitoring what these companies are doing and, more importantly, what they are saying to their customers to prepare them for the fact that they are going to have to spend more money on their water and their sewage and part of it is to deal with this long term problem? Baroness Young of Old Scone: I think you are being a trifle hard on United Utilities but I will leave Ian to explain why. Mr Barker: What you have there is the public version of the company's plan, I suspect. Each company has submitted to the Agency and to Ofwat its detailed water resources plan and we are currently scrutinising those plans and expect to see in them, as you suggest, the fact that they have taken account of the impact of climate change on the availability of their resources. We are currently analysing the plans to see whether climate change has had an impact and, where a company believes it has had a significant impact, we have asked them to carry out additional modelling work. We have yet to establish whether or not that has been undertaken for those companies where it might be necessary. We will not know to what extent companies have heeded our advice until we finish that analysis and then we shall report to ministers in July this year with our findings on the companies' plans. In terms of North West Water, most of the evidence on climate change suggests that the impact in terms of water resources availability will be less in the north west of England than in the south east. One would not expect to see it as as big an issue for United Utilities as for some of the southern companies, for example. Q320 Chairman: The fact is it is an issue. What surprised me in this glossy was that there was not even one line of mention to say to the public, the people who pay for their water supplies, that the company had to take these factors into account, because part of conditioning people, whether they be taxpayers or customers, is to acquaint them with the fact that the cost of getting water and disposing of waste is going to cost everybody more. I would have expected to see something in there. Baroness Young of Old Scone: We have two processes running alongside each other. One is the water resource plans which are much, much longer term and therefore we do expect them to take account of climate change. The other is the five year price settlement, which probably does not quite get them up to the point where there is major spend on climate change issues. Q321 Chairman: If there is to be change in this five year rolling programme, what should it be? Baroness Young of Old Scone: One of the biggest issues for United Utilities is water quality rather than water quantity. It is about bathing beach quality and shellfish water quality rather than about water quantity. I suspect that is why they have soft pedalled it. Q322 Chairman: I am not being unnecessarily hard but if companies are going to have to deal with these issues they need to flag it up. What is the advice to water companies about which scenario of climate change they ought to adopt in working out their plans? Mr Barker: We ask companies to look at the range of scenarios and to consider the implications for their particular business and the way they operate their systems. Then, where they have concern, to do a more detailed analysis. Q323 Chairman: It is up to them? Mr Barker: Yes. Q324 Chairman: In terms of getting the right balance between over expenditure, over provision and other measures that they could take to deal with the types of issue we have been discussing, is any advice forthcoming from you on that? Mr Barker: The impact of climate change over the 25 year horizon which we ask companies to plan over is less than the other uncertainties around, not least demand from their customers. We ask companies to take account of climate change once they have considered demand but the key thing is that companies think hard about how they can help their customers to manage that demand. It is disappointing that very few companies are putting the message over that water is a scarce and potentially an increasingly scarce resource and it is beholden on all of us to use it wisely. The amount of effort undertaken by companies in engaging their customers to help them use water wisely is minimal. Q325 Chairman: The Minister has now joined us so he can hear this from you at first hand. What is your advice to government and indeed the regulator as to the kind of time period over which companies should submit their plans? Does the five year period for planning now have to be replaced by a longer one or do you need a twin track period: five years for the continuing sustaining of the existing networks and another time period for some of these longer, big ticket items? Baroness Young of Old Scone: We ask water companies to look further forward than five years for the water resource issues because things like creating new resources are much longer term issues. We would ideally also like to see a lengthening of the period for the setting of water prices. Apart from anything, it is a horrendous process that causes a huge amount of heat and steam and the less often we need to do it the better. Apart from that, the ability of the companies to plan their businesses sensibly against a five year time horizon is not high. There are lots of reasons why stretching that period would be useful. We also have to think about the Water Framework Directive and how that fits in. It is going to have a kind of six plus six timescale so that we have really a 12 year time cycle on things like looking at abstractions and reviewing abstractions and consents. There are lots of reasons why we would want, as soon as we are out of the mire of this price round which we are not yet, to talk to the economic regulator and to government about trying to get a process that would last a bit longer. Q326 Mr Lepper: Can we look at urban and sewer flooding? I am worried. I represent a constituency, the centre of which is largely Georgian and Victorian. It has old sewers. It is Brighton. It has a problem on the edge of town as well with run off from the Downs. The Foresight project says, "Towns and cities will be subject to localised flooding caused by the sewer and drainage systems being overwhelmed by sudden localised downpours ... much more work needs to be done to quantify the potential problem." Water UK talks about the need for investment in sewers and for drainage systems in new developments to be designed with climate change in mind. In terms of older locations with older systems and design of new systems in new developments, how much work has been done to predict the problems that we might expect in our urban areas? Baroness Young of Old Scone: One of the problems we have is that there is not really a long term, integrated process of looking at the planning of sewerage services that takes account of what is likely to happen in terms of demand, in terms of development, the climate change issues, the links with flood defence which are often quite heavily integrated. Though companies produce a number of plans for their sewerage networks, at the moment, there is not that integrated, longer term look. We are pressing for the water industry to have long term plans for sewerage, as they have long term plans for water. I think that would be a major step forward. There has been a load of work done in the shorter term, both by us and with the ODPM, on sustainable urban drainage systems and how, in new development, those systems can be made sustainable so that we do not create some of the storm overload problems that we have with the drainage system at the moment and so that we can also prevent fast water run off that contributes to the flooding problem. There are issues with sustainable drainage techniques that we need to resolve, particularly getting a more statutory basis for sustainable drainage in both planning and building regulations, and also getting clarity about who is going to maintain and manage sustainable drainage systems for the future. You see these nice little ponds in developments which look lovely for the first couple of years but after a few dead dogs and a pram have ended up in them and a kid has nearly drowned they begin to silt up and become polluted. The big question is whose job is it to maintain them. That is an issue we need to resolve. Dr King: Flood risk in a built up area can only really be managed effectively if there is a clear understanding of the overall drainage. At the moment, there is no comprehensive information available and therefore the integrated approach that Barbara has just described is what we need. If we have that integrated, holistic view, there is a much bigger opportunity for us to tackle the source and that is about using the sustainable urban drainage. The other element is the design standard. Currently, the design standard for sewage is one in 30 years and that may need to be factored in as we move forward. Baroness Young of Old Scone: There has been some very useful joint work done between us, the ODPM and Defra and a number of others, including Water UK and the Local Government Association, which we hope will result in guidance to both developers and local authorities on sustainable drainage. That will be coming out shortly. Q327 Mr Lepper: You have answered my next question. Is that joint work going on between the two government departments and yourselves? Baroness Young of Old Scone: Yes, and it also includes the Department of Transport because quite a lot of the drainage run off issues that we have, both in quality and quantity, come from road development. Q328 Mr Lepper: It is not one of these situations, is it, where lack of clarity about which is the lead department in government is likely to cause us problems? There is genuine cooperation and coordination over this? Baroness Young of Old Scone: At national level we are all talking. At local level, there still remains the unresolved problem of how you get someone to adopt them as part of the development proposal. Q329 Alan Simpson: For the areas which are currently overwhelmed by flash flooding, are we not talking about management of new dam development compared to what we do with existing drainage systems? I can understand that water companies find new dams much more sexy than new drains. Given that we are talking about big figures either way, have you done any evaluative work on, for instance, the environmental gain out of the per pound or per million or billion investment in new drains versus new dams? Have you looked at whether we have any real choices in the immediate term other than to engage in the re-engineering of our drainage systems and have you factored in anything along the lines of the over-engineering which are the benefits we have inherited from the original plans for the drainage systems most of us currently rely on? Baroness Young of Old Scone: I am sure David will want to talk about sewers and flooding but all of the schemes that are proposed for the next environment and improvement programme under the water price round have to stand up to rigorous assessment on whether they are value for money and whether they will deliver the environmental outcomes that they are proposing to. It is quite difficult to make a judgment between investment in issues that are about water supply versus issues that are about sewerage, water quality and avoidance of flooding, because they are dealing with different issues. Each company has to make a judgment about what it needs to deliver as part of this plan in order to fulfil some of the statutory requirements coming from Europe and the UK. To give you a feel for it, on the latest look at water companies' plans, we are talking about probably more being spent on things like sewer flooding, sewer quality and sewer maintenance than being spent on water supply security. It is a big issue because it does have major impacts on the delivery of some of the European directives in terms of water quality. Q330 Alan Simpson: When you say "more", can you give us some sort of proportionate idea? Baroness Young of Old Scone: I would hesitate to do that because we have only just literally seen, about ten days ago, the water company plans and at the moment they raise more questions than they answer. I am nervous about quoting figures in case they get stuck in concrete. Dr King: When we are progressing flood defence schemes, we have overlaid the flood defence scheme on the requirements in terms of drainage, and we have progressed them in parallel so we have a more cost effective solution both to the Agency and water companies. For example, in areas like Shrewsbury and Bewdley where we have recently put in multi million pound defence schemes, at the same time the flooding from sewers and drains was tackled. Both of those were progressed together. Q331 Alan Simpson: Have you done anything where you are talking just about the urban flooding as a result of an overwhelming of the current drainage and sewer capacity? Baroness Young of Old Scone: As part of the price round, there is a significant slab of investment being proposed by water companies to reduce the risk of sewer flooding, which is different from surface water flooding, because of the amenity issue associated with it. It is not driven necessarily by a European driver but quite frankly it is a pretty nasty thing to happen. We were in agreement with the water companies that that ought to be a priority. In terms of strategic, integrated planning of drainage generally, we do need these longer term plans that we believe the water companies should be asked to provide in the future. Q332 Joan Ruddock: My concern as a London MP is with the situation we have in London which seems to me to have all the worst elements of all the things that are flagged up in this evidence. I was particularly concerned by what you said about Thames Water leakages increasing because when we heard evidence it was that water companies were pretty much at the end of the road in terms of addressing leakage. That is why there had to be consideration for reservoirs. There was no sense that that did not hold for London as well. Clearly, with our Victorian drains, we also have the immense problem of inadequacies of the sewers and we have seen sewer flooding in London quite recently. Given that a population the size of the city of Sheffield is, in the foreseeable future, to join this capital city, I am particularly exercised. We are at the end of our evidence session but is Thames Water unique in having this increase and what are the excuses that they are making? Baroness Young of Old Scone: Thames certainly has the biggest issue at the moment. We are very disappointed that we are seeing an increase. Indeed, in their proposals for the next price round there is a planned increase in leakage. They have a particularly difficult problem in that they have a long history of water mains that are very old. London clay is particularly unforgiving and drought makes it shrink and mains crack. I believe -- and I know that the Minister is also exercised - that Thames did not get its act together soon enough. It is now beginning to grip the problem but that will mean that there needs to be substantial investment in pipe replacement. We believe they could also do more in terms of getting onto leaks faster. They are not best in class by any means in tracking down leaks quickly. We know that they have a difficult circumstance where trying to dig up the roads in London is a difficult issue but there are other water companies providing services in London - Three Valleys, for example - who also are subject to the same constraints and who, quite frankly, have a better performance level. I am a Thames Water customer, as many MPs will be during the week. Every time I get a water bill that has written in bold letters across the top "the cheapest water in Britain" I take exception to it because I think the legacy of under-investment in Thames is unacceptable. We are very keen to press them as hard as we possibly can to get their act together even more than they are. They are making progress but they need to make a lot more. Chairman: It will be very interesting when their glossy arrives to see what they say in the light of those challenges. Can I thank you all very much indeed for your contribution? If there is anything that occurs to you that you think the Committee should have your views amplified upon, as always, we are very happy to receive further written submissions before our report is produced. Thank you very much. Memorandum submitted by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Mr Elliot Morley, a Member of the House, Minister for Environment and Agri-Environment, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Mr Richard Bird, Director, Defra, examined. Chairman: Minister, you are most welcome. You are an old friend of the Committee and I am sure we will enjoy our exchanges with you. You are accompanied by Mr Richard Bird who I gather regales in the title of Director, Water, of Defra, which has a Canute-like quality to it. I am sure if you could do what Canute could not do on behalf of your department it would be a lot cheaper than some of the things that we may want to talk to you about. Minister, given that you are the man who carries the label of the Minister for Floods, I wonder whether Defra has a long term investment plan in rather bigger waders than you are used to, to enable you to continue to go out and deal with these matters. Before you respond to that let me ask David Lepper if he would be kind enough to commence our more serious inquiry. Q333 Mr Lepper: I thought that was a serious point, Chairman. I am interested in the relationship between Defra and ODPM especially. Defra's written submission to us talks about the impact of current developments and climate change on flood risk and water availability, particularly in areas of large scale house building in the south east. Obviously, we have discussed this a bit with Barbara Young and her colleagues earlier this afternoon. What is the rationale for allowing that large scale house building in areas where there is already pressure on water resources, where the flood risk is high? We heard some comment from Baroness Young earlier about the Environment Agency's anxieties about getting the supply to some new developments. What is the view of Defra about that? What conversations take place at a very early stage with ODPM before they make announcements about these developments? Mr Morley: Can I start by saying that it is always nice to come before the committee and follow these inquiries. I think it is a very relevant inquiry at this time that you are looking at, Chairman. Of course, it is a cross-cutting government issue and you are quite right that there has to be involvement with Defra, with ODPM and indeed other departments at a very early stage. That is being done. Water companies of course do have an obligation for a 25-year plan in relation to forecasting due to changes in water consumption, and of course we make sure through Defra that they follow that through the office of the regulator. The regulator has a responsibility for this as well. If you take the example of the Thames Gateway, which is very pertinent to London, there is a special Cabinet Committee, MISC 22, which contains representatives of all government departments, including Defra, where there has been a lot of discussion about development (which we are very interested in) in relation to sustainability. There has also been a joint group looking at better building regulations in which Defra has been involved. Their report came out on Monday and the government will respond to that in due course. It was a very good report, very helpful in terms of building standards, water use, energy use, the kinds of issues that we are very concerned about. As far as flood risk is concerned there does have to be careful consideration by the planning authorities in relation to where new development goes. They are obliged to take into account flood risk under PPG25 and I understand, looking at some of the reports around the country, that there has been quite a big change in terms of the influence of the Environment Agency which is a statutory consultee, and planners are very reluctant these days to go against the advice of the Environment Agency, particularly going back to the 2000 floods, because that demonstrated that over the dry period of the eighties and nineties there was quite a lot of inappropriate development. However, it remains the case that a lot of our urban areas are on flood plains. London itself, the whole of London, is on a flood plain. To go back to the Thames Gateway, that area is defended to a very high standard. It is a 1-in-1000 year standard although it will of course in due course need to be upgraded and maintained in the normal way. That includes the Thames Barrier. That part of those defences defends London now. You have existing defences, so therefore the development behind it is behind defences that will always have to be maintained because they are providing an important role in terms of London's overall defence. You will have to design in such things as green spaces. ODPM has made an announcement on its green space policy in terms of new development. You could use green spaces as buffer zones in relation to flood management, water management, sustainable drainage. These can be designed in from the very beginning, particularly in new developments, which of course these will be. I also think there are opportunities in new developments to design in from the very beginning water efficiency measures in terms of the houses, rain catchment systems, for example, which is a very low-cost issue. There are various standards that you can put in ranging from very sophisticated separate grey water systems in houses to more simple ones, but even the simplest systems will probably give you a 25 per cent saving in average water consumption, and of course it is to the benefit of the people who have the houses, whether they are tenants or home owners. There is a great deal of cross-government working in strategy, planning and the various standards which are being applied. Q334 Mr Lepper: PPG25, which you have mentioned, is being reviewed later this year? Mr Morley: Yes. Q335 Mr Lepper: Are the sorts of things you have just been listing for us likely to come up in that review? What would Defra like to see happening to PPG25 or its successor? Mr Morley: In terms of PPG25, we think that it does contain a lot of the main elements that we want to see, not least that if you have development on flood plains then there should be an obligation on the developer to contribute towards measures for flood alleviation. That must take into account existing communities because you can put measures in one place that can have an impact on another. The other thing we would like to see is that again in terms of building standards and house design there are some fairly simple resilience measures that could be built in from the very beginning which do not add particularly to the cost but would help a great deal should a house suffer flooding in terms of its design, its floors, the nature of its plaster and so on. That is something which has been flagged up by the Better Building Regulation Task Group and that is something we would also like to see. Q336 Mr Lepper: There is not a danger that the drive to get a lot more houses built quickly is going to overwhelm the perhaps rather slower process of consideration of some of these issues? Mr Morley: I hope not. I think that there is a lot of interest in the idea of some of these new estates which are being built, which are not quite the new town movements that followed post-war development but do have similarities. I think myself that there is a real opportunity here, Chairman, to design in from the very beginning some really high standards of sustainable living in terms of the whole liveability of the housing estates and the design of their houses in relation to consumption. I feel quite enthusiastic about the opportunities that that presents. I think we should approach that in two ways. One is that we will have to raise building standards, and that includes the planning process, but that will inevitably be to a certain level, although I am confident that it will be a lot higher than it is at the present time, but I would like to do better than that. I would also like to encourage developers to use imaginative design. I have seen houses on, for example, the Bedzow Project, which is in London, which are designed to have zero emissions, very low energy, very high efficiency in relation to water use. We could have some developments like that which go beyond the minimum and they are something that we want to encourage developers to do. Q337 Chairman: That is great. Everybody looks at the new but there is an awful lot of existing. What is your message about the existing properties in the context of the questions that Mr Lepper has been asking? Mr Morley: Within existing properties there is a range of water efficiency devices that can be retro-fitted that will give water saving, and of course there are still a lot of properties which are not on water meters which could go on water meters, so there is still an awful lot that could be done in reducing water consumption generally, not just in the domestic sector but also in industry and agriculture. Q338 Chairman: Which of the many scenarios which currently are around that underpin the predictions for climate change and the impact that is going to have on water and sewerage do you believe in? Mr Morley: In terms of the scenarios that feature in the Foresight Programme - is that what you are referring to? Q339 Chairman: We had in our previous evidence the Environment Agency saying that Foresight might be understating the situation by, in worst case flooding scenarios, up to 20 per cent. Foresight was said to be "a dry scenario". Mr Morley: Blimey. If that is the case I am even more worried than I was when I read the report. Foresight has four scenarios and all but one are pretty worst case scenarios. Of course, there is a lot of variability in terms of global growth, action taken on reducing the greenhouse gases, growth in the economy. Generally speaking there is a link between growth and flood risk. It is inevitable that we will have continued growth, although I do think - and I am going off the issue a bit - that the time has come to try and evaluate what we mean by growth and not look at it strictly in economic terms. We have to look at quality of life and sustainable issues in terms of growth, although this is just a personal thought. I think we will continue to have growth and therefore we will continue to have increased flood risk, and we will continue to have increased pressure on our drinking water resources. Q340 Chairman: Can we come back to the question I asked because I want to know in the nicest sense what underpins the Defra policy stance on these matters. Does Defra support and back the Foresight approach and, if so, which of the four scenarios that are painted is the one if you like that underpins your policy stance as a department? Mr Morley: We did back the Foresight approach. In terms of the policy scenarios it is difficult to say but they will not be exactly as they are predicted in relation to Foresight but what I was trying to say, Chairman, is that we do think that the scenario will be continued economic growth and increased flood risk. Q341 Chairman: Can I pin you down a little more here because you have got two of them, world markets and national enterprise, which are big expense, and you have got local stewardship and global sustainability which are much cheaper. Mr Morley: Yes. Q342 Chairman: I was interested to know which of the four you support. Are you at the top end? Are you are a world market/national enterprise man? Mr Morley: We have to plan on the basis of the world market/national enterprise one because, of course, the local stewardship one is a best case scenario and I think it would be unwise to plan for the best case. It is probably better to plan for the worst case. Q343 Chairman: Are you in any way sensing that the Treasury, given the big bucks that we are going to be talking about later, have a better case scenario up their sleeves that they have commissioned work on to say, "Ah, no, no, it is not going to be as bad as this"? Is government as a whole signed up to the David King view of the world? Mr Morley: The government as a whole is signed up. That is not the only long term projection that we have done. We have also had independent studies like the Halcro Study, for example. I think there was a further one as well and I might ask Richard to comment on that. What I might say, Chairman, and I know that you were formerly involved in the Treasury yourself, is that in relation to our flood defence spending in this country, while it is not the only bid that we make which is so well backed up by academic research and cost benefit analysis, it is one of the best that we have, so in relation to our forward bidding in our spending programmes I can honestly say that we can demonstrate in great detail the cost benefit analysis of the public spending in terms of flood defence and in terms of the benefits you get back to the economy, which are considerable. I wonder if you want to mention some of the other studies, Richard. Mr Bird: Perhaps the key point to stress is that both the UK Climate Impact Programme and Foresight are giving us a wide range of projections and I do not think in a sense that they are asking for a choice to be made but for policies to recognise that things could develop in a particular way. As the Minister says, in terms of the precautionary approach it is always necessary to bear in mind an almost worst case scenario. That does not necessarily mean that we are choosing to go in that direction. That is not a choice that either Foresight or the UK Climate Impact Programme would be asking us to make at this stage. Mr Morley: That is right, and it is long term planning and in our long term strategies we are reviewing our flood and coastal strategy this year and that will be out for consultation towards the end of the year. We can, of course, make adjustments in the light of circumstances. I very much hope that the world community will get to grips with climate. That will affect the scenarios, of course. Q344 Joan Ruddock: I want to point out in relation to the Chairman's question that the Environment Agency were not suggesting that they had a problem with any of the scenarios in Foresight per se in terms of comparing global development to growth and all the rest of it. They were suggesting that it might be the case that there would be higher precipitation rates than are included in any of the scenarios and that clearly, in relation to this inquiry and your department's planning for the future, has even more alarming implications if there were to be higher precipitation. Mr Morley: You are quite right, but in our long term planning we are assuming that we are going into a period of milder, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers. You are quite right: that will have implications for water management. We have also seen an increase in very heavy and concentrated downpours and all the problems that they bring, particularly overwhelming drains. Q345 Mr Wiggin: I like the expression "benefits back to the local economy". Ministers will be very well aware of what has happened in Herefordshire where we flood almost every year in Hereford City and it is going to be very difficult to know what you are going to do about places like that where you already have a problem, assuming from what you have just said that things are going to get worse. What are we going to do about the existing ones? Mr Morley: There will be continued investment in flood defence, and of course Hereford is assessed in the national scheme in the normal way by the Regional Flood Defence Committee. Hereford also has a complication of, if my memory serves me right, an application for a big supermarket near there. As part of that application there is a very large contribution from the developer to the flood defences which will alter its economic scoring, so it actually makes the flood defences more likely by the contribution from that development. I know that that discussion is still under way and I do have a lot of sympathy with Hereford. It is not an issue of the provision. It is the issue of where it is in the list and the whole idea of the scoring system is to have a priority system so that the people most at risk, the maximum numbers of properties at risk, are the ones at the top of the list. Q346 Mr Wiggin: What is going on there is quite an interesting example because what you could be suggesting, and I just want to clarify this, is that areas where perhaps they use their own planning procedures to improve their flood defences are then more likely to get government support. Is that right or are you saying that we should all use the planning process to do our own bit? Mr Morley: It is part of the process which is outlined in PPG25. I do not know the pros and cons of this particular supermarket application. That quite properly is a matter for local planners, so I cannot comment on it. All I do know is that as part of it there is the offer of a substantial contribution towards the overall flood defence scheme. The current flood defence scheme with its costs assessed against the number of properties defended has a fairly low score at the present time. If you have a large financial contribution then it will obviously alter the score because the cost benefit analysis changes. Chairman: I thought you were going to tell us that the supermarket has applied for gondola parking. Q347 Mr Lazarowicz: How do you envisage taking account of the Foresight projections in the strategy for flood and coastal defence which has now been revised? There is obviously such a broad range of options that you have to decide where your strategy is going to take you. Mr Morley: It is a broad range of options and the revision of our strategy is being designed to take into account the Foresight recommendations and the Foresight findings, so that will be done. Just as a rough indication, what we will have to do is assess our coastlines in relation to the current shoreline management planning which local authorities have a very big input into, and there are clearly going to be parts of our coast where we are going to continue to have to spend a lot of money in terms of defending and perhaps putting up even more expensive defences. There may be other parts of our coast where the best option and the most sustainable option may be to realign the flood defences, so we will have to take judgments according to the particular circumstances of the area on what is the best option. Q348 Mr Lazarowicz: Given that there is a wide range of scenarios envisaged by Foresight, is it possible that we may have a number of alternative strategies, depending upon which scenario is regarded as the most likely, and ones which have more work on flood wall protection and others deal more with withdrawal from certain areas? Mr Morley: Oh yes, that will certainly be part of it in that there will be different approaches, and I think that is quite right and proper. I do not believe that you can have a one-size-fits-all approach to flood and coastal defence. You do have to look at it, you do have to look at what is the most sustainable option and choose appropriately. We do know that whatever the projections from Foresight we have a situation of rising sea level and we have to take that into account in relation to our future planning and projections. Q349 Mr Lazarowicz: One of the comments made in Defra's evidence to the committee is that as it will not be physically possible or desirable to maintain all common defences - as you have just said - it is recognised that future defence management will involve "some difficult decisions", which is probably putting it mildly. How do you envisage these decisions are going to be taken? Who is going to be responsible in particular for ensuring that there is a national overview of the decisions in this area? Mr Morley: The Agency of course would have a very large role and they are already consulting with the coastal local authorities and of course local authorities are very important because they represent the local communities and their views are important. There is a range of other stakeholders as well. We already do this to an extent in that within the shoreline management plans there are recommendations, such as to hold the line or where there should be managed retreat, and I think some of the difficult decisions will be that as some of the existing defences come to the end of their normal life decisions will have to be taken as to whether the Agency withdraws from the maintenance, whether landowners should be allowed to take over the maintenance, if they so choose, or whether the most sustainable option is to have that realignment and let some land go back to the sea. Q350 Mr Lazarowicz: Do you think that is going to be a sufficient way of controlling the process in a coherent way because inevitably with the types of scenarios which have been talked about there must be a much higher chance that there will be situations where one authority may be prepared to accept the recommendations of the Agency but someone down the line will attempt in their own way to protect their own area and that will then undermine the coherence of an entire strategy for an area? How do you envisage coping with that possibility? Mr Morley: There has to be a coherent strategy on this and it has to be linked with the shoreline management plan and that is the responsibility of local authorities. Indeed, there have been the odd very small examples of where individual landowners have used their own money to defend small parts of the coast. That needs to be taken into account in the overall strategy, going back to the point that I made, in that if you start interfering with the coastal process in one part of the coast you can have quite a significant impact on another. Coastal defence is a very sophisticated engineering issue. It requires a great deal of modelling to look at the potential impacts, and of course that modelling also gives you indications about what is the best approach to take, whether it is an approach by soft defence, and you can use soft defences, like beaches and salt marsh, as a very effective defence, or whether it should be hard defences, whether it should be a rock arm or whether it should be traditional concrete. That is all part of the strategies and plans that have to be taken into account. This is quite well established around our coastline because of course this debate has been going on for quite a long time. Q351 Chairman: Could I, Minister, try and put some of the very large levels of expenditure which are projected as part of Foresight into some kind of context? If we take current expenditure on flood defence how much are we spending? Mr Morley: Roughly about £500 million a year. Q352 Chairman: And how far forward is that? Is that committed to the end of this public expenditure round? Mr Morley: It is to the end of the current spending review. Q353 Chairman: Your own evidence to the committee indicates in the context of water pricing that the five-year rolling programme of price reviews may not be appropriate, so where does the three-year sequential programme of public expenditure fit into a problem which requires very long term planning and investment? Mr Morley: Because we do have these independent studies that I mentioned, which have given us some idea of the longer term implications of spend, our spending cycle is over three years, which is an improvement over one year, of course, as it was in the past, and therefore our current spend is over three years in relation to the budget bids that we make, but we do have a projected indicative spend over a much longer period to give us an indication of what we will need. Q354 Chairman: What is that longer period of projected indicative spend? What is the timescale? Mr Morley: It ranges and there are figures that you have in the Foresight Programme which give you an indication. Q355 Chairman: What I am trying to get at is that you said a moment ago that we are spending £500 million now. If I look at the Foresight saga under question 12, "What are the economic, social and environmental implications of flood management using a portfolio of responses?", it says, "To implement the portfolio of responses would require between £22 billion and £75 billion of new engineering by the 2080s". Roughly speaking you could say it is a billion a year, right? It might not be that. Mr Morley: No, it will not. There are some big infrastructure replacements in that, you see. Q356 Chairman: What would be helpful, and it may be difficult to do it now, is to help us by breaking down these very big numbers because what I am not clear about is how much your department, over whatever timescale you are working, is going to have to ask the Treasury to commit to. In other words, to meet all of these in terms of flood defence how much more are you going to have to ask the Treasury to put into their planning, say, for the next ten years? Let us try you on ten years. Mr Morley: I am not sure that all that money is necessarily flood defence. I think that is wrapped up in resilience measures and the whole package. Q357 It talks about the "implications of flood management". Mr Morley: Yes, the implications of flood management; that is right. It is very broad and very indicative. Richard, would you like to give us an advance projection on ten years? Mr Bird: What an opportunity! As the Minister has said, the planning process obviously goes much longer than three years. Q358 Chairman: How long does it go? Mr Bird: We have got individual local shoreline management plans and so on which are looking ten to 15 years ahead. Our own flood and coastal management strategy that we are working on at the moment has got a 20-year time horizon, so you are quite right: when you are looking at a big spend of this sort you have to look much beyond the three to five year cycle. Clearly at some point it has to be brought back into that three-year time frame and we are in the process at the moment of having discussions with the Treasury about the spending review position for the next rolling three years and that will be informed by the longer term plans that are around. That is the position that we are currently in. Q359 Chairman: I appreciate that you cannot anticipate the outcome and you have indicated that you generally accept the predictions of Foresight, in other words (a) we have got climate change, (b) all the things the Minister said, so I am assuming that implicit in that is the assumption that you have to do something about it. What I want to know is, have the Treasury in terms said to Defra, "Okay. We accept the same scenario and we will every three years build in some numbers that respond to these projections"? Otherwise all this planning is a meaningless exercise. Mr Morley: The planning does guide the bid and it also does guide the Treasury response. You know how Treasuries work. There is no doubt that we will have to look very carefully at the bid that we make in terms of what it is for, what it will achieve and what the outcomes will be. That is a normal part of making the bid. It will inevitably involve further resources because of the impact of the studies which have been commissioned and the long term look. Foresight is trying to look at 60 years ahead, for example, but, of course, when you are looking 60 years ahead some of those figures are inevitably going to be a stab in the dark and it very much depends on the circumstances, the changes in economic growth, weather patterns, and there will have to be adjustments to that, but it gives us an idea. I come back to the point that in terms of flood and coastal defence we are quite well prepared in terms of short, medium and long term strategies, but in terms of the three-year spend, three years in many ways is appropriate because you also have to match your spend with engineering capacity, planning cycles and all the practical things that go with that, so therefore that also guides the kind of bid that you have to make. Q360 Alan Simpson: Minister, can I bring you back to something you mentioned earlier, which was the demand management aspects of this? You have made reference to Bedzo and other projects that are into the recycling of water and the way in which we integrate that into the way we think about water usage. Can you take us through some of the other initiatives that you are involved in in terms of reducing consumption and demand for water? Mr Morley: Certainly. First of all we have a number of incentives to both industry and agriculture. We provide grants, for example, for on-farm reservoirs, particularly in the East Anglian region which is a water stressed area. It is also one of the larger areas of agricultural water use. In fact, I have been to look at some of these reservoirs on my travels and some of them are very impressive investments designed to serve a number of large farms, so it is like a co-operative approach. The one I went to see also had the benefit of receiving grant from Defra for the construction, it received a grant from Defra for laying out the landscaping under Countryside Stewardship, and it also received a grant for linking that into local public footpaths, so you had a gain in relation to recreation, a gain in relation to wildlife and a gain in relation to water resource management. That is I think quite a successful outcome and I would like to see a few more of those. We also promote for industry and domestic users, like house builders, water saving devices. We have an independent body called Envirowise. Companies submit their devices to them and they make an assessment as to whether or not the claims made for the devices are accurate in relation to water saving. If they assess the devices as indeed doing what they say they are they are then listed on a website so manufacturers and companies can look at the website. There is a whole list of products, a whole list of companies. They can then choose amongst those. What they know is that they have all been validated as water saving devices. Those that are on the list qualify for a 100 per cent capital allowance, so there is also an incentive there to buy that. We have also been participating in the changes in building regulations for improving water efficiency of new homes as well as promoting public awareness with the Environment Agency and the water companies who do quite a lot on this in terms of water conservation measures, and also encouraging the take-up of water meters. There is quite a lot that we do to encourage this. Q361 Alan Simpson: Just on the water meter issue you will know from a different set of discussions that we have had about fuel poverty that the danger of just relying on market pricing mechanisms is that you price the poor to the margins, and so the prospect is that what will succeed in our discussions around fuel poverty may be a set of discussions about water poverty. How do you plan to take the issues of access to water efficiency equipment in existing properties to the poor? Mr Morley: In terms of existing properties there are water saving devices. There is perhaps more we could do in relation to promotion and perhaps subsidies in relation to fitting those. One way that we are approaching it for some of the poorest, who tend to be tenants, is that there is a Green Landlord Scheme and there are incentives for landlords to put energy and water efficiency devices into their properties. If we give them an incentive it means that the tenants have lower charges for both, so that is one way of doing it. Another way of doing it, which has been flagged up in the Task Force Group report, which I have some interest in, is the idea of having a calculation of what is basic need for water. You could then have a price setting on the meter for that basic need at a certain rate. Once you go over the threshold then the rate could go up and what it means is that you are giving a certain price for a basic need and then a higher price for people who are not quite so good on water conservation. There is an element of social justice and fairness in that which attracts me. There is no possibility of building that into the current price round because it will take some working up and thinking through and I do not know whether such an approach is feasible but I am certainly interested in looking at that. The final point is that we are setting up a group to look at the whole issue of water affordability, issues of debt management and whether there are further steps that we can take to address the issue of water pricing and the most vulnerable. Q362 Alan Simpson: In the energy field you will know that we have set on industry an obligation, which is the energy efficiency contribution, and we have just begun to double that. Have you looked at similar possible arrangements in relation to the water industry which set a water efficiency obligation such that it became a duty on the water industry to be seen to be taking those initiatives that took water efficiency into the homes of those who would be the water poor? Mr Morley: Yes, sure. This is certainly among the many options we are considering. That is an option that has been given consideration. Of course, it would add to overall prices and that brings you into the sphere of the regulator because it is the regulator's job to do the prices and you would have to do some assessments of what you would do to overall prices but it is an option that could be considered. I do not think we should rule any option out, but all options of course have ups and downs in terms of the pros and cons, so we have to take those into account as well. Q363 Diana Organ: I want to come back to the questions that the Chairman was asking you about long term large capital investments that are needed, and of course one of them will be when we need to rebuild, replace, extend or whatever we will have to do to the Thames Barrier for it to be fit for purpose as it is today. Minister, have you flagged this up to the Treasury and said, "Look: beyond the three years we are going to have to spend a substantial sum of money in possibly rebuilding the Thames Barrier", and have you had meetings within the Environment Agency? How are you working on this issue at the moment? I understand my colleagues have asked the Environment Agency about that but I wondered whether you were aware of the need for the replacement. What are you doing to push that work in progress and have you alerted the Treasury to this, that they might need to put their hands into their pocket and pay up for it if London is not going to be up to its neck by 2020? Mr Morley: The Thames Barrier at some point will need to be replaced although I am not sure it will be 2020. It has still got lots of life left in it, I am very glad to say. I have taken a very close interest in the Thames Barrier ever since I discovered it came within my portfolio, and ever since I discovered at a scenario planning that if it ever jammed shut, which I am glad it will not because it has got separate motors, you can actually jack it up by hand and I was very worried that it might be my responsibility to do that. I do have a close interest in it and it is a remarkable piece of engineering. It will probably be able to be refurbished before it will have to be completely replaced so it probably has quite a lot of life expectancy in it, but eventually it will need that and it will be costly and it will probably coincide with the need to upgrade most of the Thames estuary defences which will be getting towards the end of their lives as well. That is a substantial financial commitment and we will have to build that into our longer term projections. Q364 Diana Organ: So you have already alerted the Treasury that there will be a time in the future when the whole of the Thames water management and flood control network needs to be seriously upgraded? Mr Morley: It is no secret that there will have to be an upgrade in due course and it will be very expensive. However, it will be some years away, I am very glad to say. Q365 Diana Organ: Can I ask you one small question on the question that Alan was asking about water demand management and those that are water poor? One of the problems that happens in constituencies that are on the border is that they may have a water company that supplies their water and another water company that deals with their sewerage service, and that one water company will be an agent for the other and collect the bill and there can sometimes be problems and errors and mismanagement with that. Do you not think it would be sensible if we could have a system whereby, in order to help people manage their bills for their water and their bills for their sewerage, people did have the same water company that did their water and their sewerage? Mr Morley: There are overlaps between water supply and sewerage supply. It happens within my own constituency as a matter of fact, although I am aware of some very complicated cases in certain people's constituencies and I think the answer to that is that the water companies themselves can agree to swap areas. They can do that if there is agreement in relation to having a unified approach in a particular area. It is a question of taking account of customer wishes and demand, although I do not think we have the powers to make them do it. Mr Bird: No, we do not. Q366 Paddy Tipping: I want to talk about agriculture but before that, just going back to planning horizons, we have not talked abut the economic regulator who is on a price review at the moment, a live issue we may return to. In the forthcoming price review that is being worked on at the moment there is nothing in it for climate change. Mr Morley: No, that is not quite right. Within the calculations there is a recognition that climate change may put increased pressure on urban drainage, for example, sewer systems and sewer flooding. There is a recognition of that and I think the regulator is building into his calculations and the companies have put within their draft plans provision for investment in those areas. You can argue how far that recognition has gone but it is certainly there. Q367 Paddy Tipping: My impression in talking to the regulator was that he was going to leave climate change till the next round. Mr Morley: In terms of my discussions with the regulator, on issues like sewer flooding I know that he recognises that and I know that is part of his overall calculations. As time goes on our understanding of the impact of climate change improves. We have some world class science in this country. We have the Hadley Centre, which is probably the leading forecasting centre of its type anywhere internationally. It also, incidentally, means that those declining numbers of doubters on the issue of climate change are a dwindling band in the flat earth society because the science is becoming stronger and stronger, and from the UK's point of view we have no doubts about this and that is why we must build this into our consideration in relation to adaptation and also in terms of future investment. Q368 Paddy Tipping: Going back to agriculture, you talked a little bit a moment ago about East Anglia. We have had representations from East Anglian farmers who are in real difficulties with climate change. What can you do to help them but, more importantly, what should they be doing to help themselves? Mr Morley: The most important one is the on-farm reservoirs. I always shudder when I mention this because when I became Minister in 1997 it was one of the very first speeches I made as Agricultural Minister and it never stopped raining after I made the speech saying that there was a need for on-farm reservoirs, so I do not know whether this has some connotations. In the longer term it has to be the right thing and we will grant aid them. I also should say that the internal drainage boards, which not many people have at the top of their agenda, do a very good job on this because not only do they deal with flood management and drainage and pumping in the winter months, but increasingly they have become more sophisticated in a holistic approach to water management for all sorts of objectives, including conservation, and they of course make sure that the dykes are full at the end of the winter so that they can be abstracted from. We have also been encouraging farmers to move to such things as trickle irrigation rather than spray irrigation and in the formulation of our abstraction licences, which is currently going on, I would like to see a differential between spray and trickle so that there is an inducement for people to go to trickle irrigation. Q369 Paddy Tipping: You have just mentioned water abstraction licences which have changed under the Water Bill. Mr Morley: They have indeed, and again there is a much better management system of abstraction licences and it gives the Agency a better range of powers in terms of taking a much more holistic approach to water management and abstraction. Q370 Paddy Tipping: So what reassurances are you going to give to farmers in East Anglia and the Nottinghamshire sandstone area that the Environment Agency is going to act in a fair and equitable way around abstraction licences? You will remember the debate that has taken place on that. Mr Morley: I do remember the debate. What I said in that debate was that the agricultural sector is a very important stakeholder that deserves exactly the same consideration as the industrial sector and the domestic sector. Obviously, there has to be a balance between competing demands but we do not want to see any one sector suffer at the expense of another. The measures that we have taken on abstraction licences, as I say, give the Agency much greater powers in terms of managing water supply and demand than we have had in the past. Q371 Chairman: I have had some interesting information given to me by Cranfield University at Silsoe on developing techniques to improve the water capacity storage of different types of soils. In terms of promulgating good advice, what is Defra doing to raise awareness on what agriculturalists could do to help themselves? Mr Morley: There is a lot that they can do and we are approaching that in a number of ways. As part of the cross-compliance measures and the Curry reforms we will be encouraging whole farm planning and farmers will be putting together a plan and part of that will be resource management and that includes water resource management and soil management as well. You are absolutely right, Chairman, how you manage soil and farming techniques can have a big impact on things like run-off and water absorption and there are also various training opportunities that we can support through Defra on these particular issues and there are funds available for that as well. Q372 Chairman: Would I be right in saying that bad soil management and bad conservation of farms might mean that a farmer could suffer a financial penalty as a result of bad practice in those areas? Mr Morley: As part of the cross-compliance measures farmers will be obliged to carry out good practice. The codes that we have in relation to soil management are voluntary codes but they provide guidance. It is certainly true that if you had an extreme case of very poor or irresponsible management of soils - and it can happen with slopes, mud slides, water run-off, there are examples of this - then it is possible that the single payment could be affected as part of the cross-compliance. Q373 Mr Mitchell: How far is climate change built into your own departmental calculations? If you are talking about diffuse pollution, of course what is acceptable depends on the rate of flow and the rate of flow can be changed substantially by climate change. How do you take account of that? Mr Morley: They are all inter-related, it is absolutely true. We have begun to take measures in relation to diffuse pollution, things like the nitrate vulnerable zones and controls on fertilisers for example, but we will have to do more. We will be issuing our draft policy paper on diffuse pollution on 17 June and there will be public consultation on that and that will outline the kind of strategies and the kind of approaches that we are suggesting in terms of diffuse pollution management. It does link with long-term projections in relation to weather patterns, water flow, that will certainly feature in it. Q374 Mr Mitchell: Can it be specified? Mr Morley: It is not specified in such detail as we will do this because of climate change. What the consultation paper will have is a range of options and the options will be guided by the whole catchment plans and the whole catchment plans will have to take into account changing weather patterns and climate change, so they are all interlinked in that way. Q375 Mr Mitchell: How do you take good ecological quality into account? Mr Morley: There is a measurement for doing that which is basically the level of ecology within the water course, the level of species and organisms that you find. Q376 Mr Mitchell: Is it taken into account in the content of river basin management plans? Mr Morley: Yes, because you have to look at the long-term implications, water flows, upland flows and that is linked with the longer-term projections of climate change. Q377 Chairman: Minister, Mr Bird, thank you very much indeed for your contribution to our inquiry. As always, if there is anything that occurs to you that you want to make a supplementary submission to us on, we would obviously be delighted to receive that. Thank you very much indeed for coming to talk to us this afternoon. Mr Morley: It is always a pleasure, Chairman. |