15 Assessment and management of floods
| (27231)
5540/06
COM(06) 15
+ ADD 1
| Draft Directive on the assessment and management of floods
Annex to the draft Directive on the assessment and management of floods — Impact Assessment
|
| Legal base | Article 175(1)EC; co-decision; QMV
|
| Department | Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
|
| Basis of consideration | SEM of 2 June 2006
|
| Previous Committee Report | HC 34-xviii (2005-06), para 5 (8 February 2006)
|
| To be discussed in Council | 27 June 2006
|
| Committee's assessment | Politically important
|
| Committee's decision | Cleared
|
Background
15.1 In their Report of 15 September 2004, our predecessors noted
that the Commission had produced in July 2004 a Communication[46]
which addressed the question of flood risk management. In it,
the Commission had observed that Europe had suffered over 100
major damaging floods between 1998 and 2002, which caused some
700 fatalities, the displacement of about half a million people,
and at least €25
billion in insured economic losses. It also noted that, although
many Member States were already taking protective measures, concerted
action at Community level would bring considerable added value,
and it set out in the Communication ways in which this might be
achieved. Since this document gave rise to subsidiarity concerns,
and also raised questions over what the Community could contribute
in an area where they felt the main responsibility for action
must necessarily be at national level, our predecessors recommended
it for debate in European Standing Committee A. That debate duly
took place on 8 December 2004.
15.2 In the light of the reaction to its earlier
Communication, the Commission produced in January 2006 this proposal
for a draft Directive, aimed at laying down a framework for reducing
the risks to human health, the environment and economic activity
associated with floods. As we noted in our Report of 8 February
2006, this uses definitions of river basins and other elements
established in the Water Framework Directive,[47]
and links the various timescales for implementation and review
in this instrument to those set in that Directive. In particular,
it would require Member States to complete within three years
of the Directive's entry into force a preliminary flood risk assessment
for each river basin district; require this assessment to be used
to designate river basins as either liable to potential significant
flood risk, or not; require Member States to complete by 22 December
2013 at latest flood risk maps for those areas designated as being
at potential significant risk, and drawn up in relation to three
scenarios, of high, medium and low probability;[48]
and require Member States to prepare and implement for the same
areas flood risk management plans at river basin district level.
Member States are also required to coordinate their efforts as
regards international river basins falling entirely within the
Community, with the aim of producing one single plan.
15.3 We also noted that the Government had said that
the principal rationale for this proposal rested on the need to
avoid inconsistent or contradictory approaches to flood risk management,
and to ensure coordinated planning and action within river basins
which span two or more Member States. However, although subsidiarity
was said to be respected because decisions for each river were
to be made by Member States, this rationale related mainly to
trans-boundary waters, whereas the Directive would be applicable
to the whole of each Member State. Since the UK has only one river
(in Northern Ireland) which is trans-boundary, the Government
had taken the view that this was an area where coordination and
co-operation would be more desirable than Community legislation.
It was therefore again considering its approach, including whether
to argue that the Directive would be best limited to trans-boundary
waters only.
15.4 Other issues which the Government had said
needed to be addressed were the extent to which an alignment of
water quality and flood protection policies was appropriate; whether
the production of flood risk maps is technically feasible and
would provide useful information whilst avoiding any unnecessary
duplication; and whether the text in practice offers the necessary
degree of flexibility to Member States.
15.5 Finally, the Government said that it would be
submitting a partial Regulatory Impact Assessment by the end of
April 2006, but, in the meantime, noted that additional costs
within the UK can be estimated only very roughly at this stage,
and could alter radically as a result of developments in the course
of the negotiations. However, on the basis of the proposal as
it stood, preliminary estimates of the initial set up costs, for
work additional to that already planned in the UK, totalled at
least £95 million over a six to seven year period for the
UK as a whole,[49] with
a high proportion of these costs arising from the detailed requirements
for flood risk mapping, which go beyond the extensive work already
undertaken for England and Wales. However, if the Directive were
ultimately to lead to obligations beyond current practice, the
recurring costs could be much greater.
15.6 In noting this, we commented that it was clear
that this document raised, in a legislative context, issues similar
to those in the earlier Commission Communication which had prompted
our predecessors to recommend that document for debate. We said
that, once we had received the Regulatory Impact Assessment promised
by the Government, we would want to consider carefully whether
a similar approach would be justified on this occasion. In the
meantime, we decided to draw the proposal to the attention of
the House, together with the Minister's very full preliminary
analysis of its implications.
Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum of 2 June
2006
15.7 We have now received from Minister of State
(Climate Change and the Environment) at the Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs (Ian Pearson) a supplementary Explanatory
Memorandum of 2 June 2006 enclosing the promised Regulatory Impact
Assessment. This shows that there would be slight reduction (from
£95 million to £85 million) in the overall costs within
the UK over the first six years were the proposal to be adopted
as it stands, and that there would be recurring costs of around
£24 million every six years thereafter. However, the Assessment
also highlights the costs of two other negotiating options which
the UK has pursued. The first —
and, by some margin, the most attractive —
of these would be to confine the measures to trans-boundary waters,
in which case the only costs in the first six years would be some
£2.5 million arising in Northern Ireland (followed by about
£0.7 million every six years), but we have been told that
there is little or no support for such approach from other Member
States. The Government has therefore been seeking as well to modify
the proposal so as to achieve a better balance between its costs
and benefits, for example, by removing the need for a preliminary
risk assessment where a decision has already been taken to produce
flood risk maps, and by simplifying the information to be provided
in such maps. According to the Assessment, an approach on these
lines would result in costs to the UK over the first six years
to £11.7 million (and then to about £8.9 million every
six years).
Conclusion
15.8 Although we share the Government's concerns
over the subsidiarity aspects of this proposal, we note that there
is little support among other Member States for a measure applying
only to trans-boundary waters, which would clearly be by some
way the most attractive solution so far as the UK is concerned.
However, we also note that there does appears to be support for
an approach which would enable existing work in this area to be
taken into account, and which would result in a significant reduction
in the costs of the measure in this country. On balance, therefore,
and notwithstanding our misgivings, we are prepared to clear the
document.
46 (25828) 11422/04; see HC 42-xxxi (2003-04), para
1 (15 September 2004). Back
47
2000/60/EC. OJ No. L327, 22.12.2000, p.1. Back
48
Based respectively on likely return periods of 10 years, 100 years
and on "extreme events". Back
49
Around £50 million would arise in England and Wales taken
together, £35 million in Scotland, and £10 million in
Northern Ireland. Back
|
