Ian
Pearson: To update the Committee on the three remaining
pesticides to which I referred, as a result of the licensing review
that is taking place they might well not have a licence in future, in
which case a large part of the problem that the hon. Gentleman
identifies would be solved. As a result of the UK’s industrial
legacy, we have cadmium in our water supply in pretty much every part
of the country. It varies from area to area. The fact that background
levels can be taken into account is significant, as companies in areas
close to existing EQS levels should not be
disadvantaged. More
broadly, we need to consider not just end-of-pipe solutions but the
marketing and licensing
of products that contain priority substances. Not enough is being done
on that at the European level, and we will need to reconsider it in the
future. It is far better not to put such substances in products in the
first place than to worry about cleaning them up
afterwards. Mr.
Paice: I am nearly done. The Committee will be pleased to
know that I have just two more questions. I wish first to return to the
links with the drinking water directive.
There may be some
debate—the Minister has access to wider sources than I
do—but I understand that some of the chemicals in question, both
pesticides and industrial chemicals, are not allowed in drinking water.
The water companies currently have to carry out
whatever process is necessary to remove them from the drinking water
that emerges from our taps, even if they are present in the river or
reservoir from which the water was abstracted. If in future those
chemicals are not allowed into the river or reservoir, those companies
will presumably not have to spend money removing them from the water
before it goes into the distribution network. That was my point about
an offsetting saving, and I would be grateful if the Minister reflected
on it
again.
Ian
Pearson: My understanding is that we have some of the
highest quality drinking water to be found anywhere in the world as a
result of a range of technologies deployed by the water industry to
ensure that it is fit for human consumption. Those technologies will
not suddenly become unnecessary if some of the water is produced to
higher standards than hithertofore because of this daughter directive.
Using granular activated carbon—basically the technology used to
ensure clean drinking water—in all sewage treatment works might
make a difference, but that is not what we are actually talking about.
The debate on the proposals before us deals principally with the impact
on sewage treatment works, not the work required to ensure wholesome
drinking
water.
Mr.
Paice: Finally, I shall address a slightly different
aspect. Somebody referred earlier to the weather that we are enjoying
and to climate change. Will the Minister tell us what work is being
done on flash flooding, which obviously is a potential source of
pollution, owing to run-off from domestic properties and other things,
particularly in view of the massive extra development envisaged by the
Government for parts of the country? In particular, have they examined
the sustainable urban drainage system—he is nodding, so he
probably knows about it—and what work is being done to promote
it in new developments to reduce the risk of pollution from
run-off?
Ian
Pearson: Flash flooding, and flooding in general, is a
major issue that the Government take seriously, which is why we are
spending about £600 million per annum on flood and coastal
erosion risk management. We are talking about large rainfall
events—that is probably the best way to describe them—and
the sewage system is built to a standard that can cope with a
one-in-40-year event. Sometimes, however, flooding occurs, such as in
my constituency last week, following rainfall more exceptional even
than that. We cannot build a pipe network to assume the worst of all
possible
cases because it would be hugely costly, so we must compromise. However,
we can do a lot more to improve the resilience of the
network.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned
sustainable urban drainage, which I think is an important way forward.
We have done a lot of work in the UK on sustainable urban drainage
systems and, as part of new build, we want greater account taken of
them. I am questioning whether there should be an automatic right for
new developments to connect to the pipe network. That would be a new
and different initiative.
We must look at what happens
above and below ground in the same place and think about SUDS. We need
more ponds and grass. In London alone, we have paved over the
equivalent of 22 Hyde parks. That creates problems for access and water
run-off, which the hon. Gentleman identified. There is a lot more that
we can do, and as we learn and adapt to climate change, we will have to
look at build standards for pipes in our sewerage network and at
sustainable solutions. I say, “Bring back the village
green.” We will need them in the
future.
Chris
Huhne: Bring back the village green—a definite
attempt by the Minister to go for the John Major stakes. It brings back
memories of old maids bicycling in the morning
mist. I have a
question about another problem that occurs with “large rainfall
events”, as the Minister put it. In some areas with essentially
19th-century waste water systems and potentially very substantial
discharges from waste water treatment plants, the sewage system cannot
cope with the amount of rainfall. Has the Minister assessed the likely
problems from the remaining systems in that category across the
country? In a number of older 19th-century and early 20th-century
towns, such discharges can be a real problem. Indeed, in my
constituency, the sudden arrival of polluted water in local waterways
has led to problems of fish
kill.
Ian
Pearson: We have done a lot of specific work on compliance
with the urban waste water treatment directive. For instance, if it
starts to rain more than about 3 mm an hour in London, discharges start
to go into the River Thames as a result of combined sewage overflows.
Some 50 per cent. of discharges to the Thames come from the Abbey Mills
pumping station, which is one reason why we see that as an early
priority for action when it comes to the Thames tideway solution. That
is the case in
London. In many other
parts of the country, there has already been investment to solve the
problem of combined rainwater and sewage outflows. We need to make sure
that London is fit for the 21st century and has the right solution. We
are seeking to ensure that in areas of the UK where the issue remains,
such outflows are dealt with as quickly as
possible. Motion
made, and Question
proposed, That the
Committee takes note of European Union Documents No. 11816/06 and Add.
1, Draft Directive on environmental quality standards in the field of
water policy and amending Directive 2000/60/EC, and 11847/06,
Commission Communication on integrated prevention and control of
chemical pollution of surface waters in the European Union; and
supports the Government's aim of securing a proportionate,
cost-effective and environmentally protective measure.—[Ian
Pearson.]
5.21
pm
Mr.
Paice: I do not intend to detain the Committee for long.
In principle, we support the directive. As the Minister said, it is
described as a daughter directive of the water framework directive and,
as he implied, it is in many ways long overdue. As the hon. Member for
Wallasey said, the chemicals have all been demonstrated to have
negative effects on health, and the sooner they are removed from our
water, the better. In an ideal world, they would not be there, and I
entirely endorse the Minister’s earlier comment that it is
better to prevent during the original manufacturing process than try to
remove afterwards.
Nevertheless, I have
considerable sympathy with the comments of my Liberal Democrat
colleague about the absence of an updated RIA and I have made such
comments myself. The Minister seems to accept that it is going to go
through on Thursday. He almost seemed to cut his figures during the
debate—from the original £1 billion to hundreds of
millions of pounds, then to the bottom end of that range; perhaps the
figure will have turned into a positive before we have finished. I hope
that he is not, but if he is proved wrong, and the revised RIA still
comes up with costs of hundreds of millions of pounds—perhaps
even in the high hundreds of millions—he will have acquiesced in
the agreement of a directive with potential costs.
Article 4 is a significant
improvement on the original draft and I readily accept that it comes
into play and that proportionality is a factor. However, it has its
downsides: we may apply it sensitively, but if other countries judge
that spending anything on the issue is disproportionate, they may use
it as a way of avoiding doing anything. We have to be careful not to
put too much emphasis on it. I fear that the Minister may go into the
negotiations without all the information that he should have to
hand. Obviously, the
costs are huge. The Minister answered some of my questions about where
they go. The costs will fall on the port authorities, individual
businesses and agriculture. With the possible exception of agriculture,
a primary industry, most such businesses will be able to pass the costs
on to consumers through their cost structures. I hope that the revised
RIA will have some estimate of what difference the measure will make to
consumers’ domestic water bills and to industrial water bills as
it comes through the system. That is an important point because
whenever we take measures to improve the environment—obviously,
Conservative Members believe that that is one of the
Government’s pre-eminent responsibilities—we should be
conscious of the cost and of who will pay it.
I want to raise again, as a
point of debate, the concern about how we understand who is
responsible. As the Minister agreed, understanding who is responsible
is much harder, but nevertheless just as important, when we are talking
not about end-of-pipe or point-source pollution, but about run-off from
agricultural land or developed areas, as I mentioned in respect of
urban development. I therefore hope that the Government will undertake
the necessary studies and investigations so that we can identify more
clearly who is responsible, if only to ensure that everyone accepts
their responsibilities in the interests of
equity. In one of his
last answers, the Minister talked about bringing back the village
green, and I have considerable
sympathy with that proposal. However, it is not helped
by the Government’s obsession with developing
everybody’s garden; indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for
Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) is running a campaign about garden
grabbing. The Government’s approach makes a major contribution
to the problem and results in green spaces in our towns and villages
being concreted over. If the Government are now persuaded of the need
for green space, they will perhaps change the designation of gardens as
previously developed land, which is at the root of the
problem. Put at its
simplest, the other issue is that the directive is basically a
target-setting and enabling measure, and the crunch will be the actions
that follow from it. Although some of the environmental quality
standards have been proposed, the changes that the Minister has
described, which are largely welcome, make the provisions a little more
vague and introduce a little more flexibility, and article 4 obviously
comes into play. We will therefore have to await the next
Government’s action plan—I suppose that that is how I
should describe it, in as much as there will be a new Government of
some sort after Wednesday—for turning everything into a reality.
That is when we will see real time scales and whether the relevant date
is 2015 or one of the later dates envisaged in the proposals.
In principle, my party does not
oppose the directive; indeed we support the objective behind it, as
long as ways can be found to ensure that the costs are proportionate
and that other countries do not use them as an excuse not to take
action. We must also ensure that the sources of
pollution—whether point-source pollution or diffuse
pollution—are properly identified and monitored in the way that
I described. That,
however, is all that I need to say, and I certainly do not intend to
divide the Committee. I am grateful to the Minister for his answers,
although I am sorry that he has was unable to answer all our questions,
particularly on costs. However, others will read what he has
said—particularly about carbon granules and about the costs
being dramatically less than £1 billion and perhaps nearer to a
few tens of millions—and make their own judgments. Obviously, we
will do so, too, if we find that his judgment has been too optimistic,
although I hope that we will not need to do so and that he is
right.
5.29
pm Chris
Huhne: I rise to assure the Minister that my party
very much supports the thrust of the present policy and the directive.
I do not, therefore, want to give him the impression that I am unduly
persecuting him about the costs and about whether the directive is
proportionate. However, it is striking that the motion before us
clearly asks us to support
“the Government’s aim of
securing a proportionate, cost-effective and environmentally protective
measure.” Unfortunately,
the Minister has come naked into the conference chamber. one might say.
He cannot give us any assurance about the actual costs other than in
the most broad-brush terms of between tens and hundreds of millions,
which is a pretty wide margin when it comes to making public policy. He
cannot tell us whether the likely measure will be cost-effective or
proportionate.
There is an issue of principle,
although not in this legislation. The hon. Member for Scarborough and
Whitby, who has just taken his seat and is a former Member of the
European Parliament, knows that when the Commission promised to try to
secure updated regulatory impact assessments, many of us felt it was an
exceptionally good idea because we would know the costs of particular
measures. The Minister is moving around, saying, “Hang on. This
has all turned over, because hundreds and indeed thousands of water
outlets might be affected,” but that is exactly the point. It is
precisely because of the extremely broad scope of the measure that it
is so important to get right its proportionality and
cost-effectiveness. I
am disappointed that we have not had a better stab at securing
evidence-based policy, and that the Council appears to be rushing into
adopting a common position before it has all the evidence. I do not
know whether there are any particular deadlines that make it important
in an institutional sense——perhaps the Minister will tell
us——but, as a matter of principle, EU legislation and
this House’s legislation should be based on a proper assessment
of the costs imposed on people.
Mr.
Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con): I am sorry
that I was not present at the start, Mrs. Anderson; I was in
another Committee.
Does the hon. Gentleman recall
that, while Dr. Caroline Jackson was chairman of the European
Parliament’s environment committee, she sent back the regulatory
impact assessments on several occasions when they were not deemed
adequate? Perhaps the Minister should take that line when there is a
similar lack of detail in the submissions that come to
us.
Chris
Huhne: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s
intervention, because Dr. Jackson was feisty with a capital F on
several occasions. The hon. Member for Wallasey might remember that Dr.
Jackson was someone who cared considerably about environmental matters.
It was a matter of trying not to kick into touch important issues, but
to ensure that legislation was undertaken properly, and that proper
consideration was given to its cost-effectiveness. However, we do not
intend to divide the Committee. We are supportive, and I hope that the
Minister will return with a little more information and evidence for
the policies that he proposes.
5.33
pm
Ian
Pearson: I welcome the support of the hon. Members for
South-East Cambridgeshire and for Eastleigh for the proposals overall.
I recognise their points about costs, but the hon. Member for Eastleigh
is a bit of a one-club golfer on that issue. I say to him that
proportionality is built into the provision because of article 4 of the
water framework directive, which will be applied, and that we will be
able to consider whether the measures required have a disproportionate
cost. In response to
the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire, I stress that we will
certainly want to bear in mind the costs of implementing the water
framework directive in general when it comes to the
social and environmental guidance that we provide to Ofwat as part of
the PR09 price review process. I shall give one more example
of the difficulties and assumptions concerning costs. The hon.
Gentleman raised the issue of ports, which did not come out in
questions. The ports industry is important to the UK economy and there
is a potential threat through the water framework daughter directive.
Originally, there were estimates of £1 billion per annum in the
draft impact assessment, but our latest estimate, which again I stress
is provisional and has been provided by officials, is that there will
be a range of between £35 million and a maximum of
£185 million. Again, that is based on a particular programme of
work that may or may not be required, depending on a person’s
view of
proportionality. Given
the expected half-life of tributyltins, which are the principal cause
of the problems, I do not think that any action could be regarded as
proportionate. In my judgment, because of the natural half-life of
TBTs, the problem will be solved when they have been banned and not
used for 10 to 20 years. A person can pick figures on the basis of
their view of proportionality. Again, that is why it is not possible at
this stage to make definitive judgments on what an impact assessment
would look like. The
hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire made some good points about
diffuse pollution. We are working on that area, and I will certainly
want to discuss with him how to tackle that important
problem. The
Government believe that it is absolutely necessary to build new homes.
I sometimes think that the Conservative party do not want homes in
people’s back gardens, in the green belt or anywhere. We owe it
to our citizens to provide affordable housing for the future, but we
must ensure that development is properly planned to take account of
water companies’ 25-year water resource plans in respect of
water availability and sewage treatment. As a Government, we will
endeavour to ensure that that happens. We need more imaginative
solutions when it comes to areas such as urban
drainage. The hon.
Gentleman mentioned action plans, and he was right to say that we are
not yet at the stage of producing them. That is another reason why it
is impossible to have a fully reliable impact assessment. Again, I
return to the basic point. The Committee can take reassurance from the
fact that the article 4 provisions of the water framework directive are
now clearly part of this daughter directive. That will make a
difference. It will give us the flexibility to make judgments about the
cost-effectiveness of measures, which is exactly what one would expect
a responsible Government to
do. Question put
and agreed to.
Resolved, That
the Committee takes note of European Union Documents No. 11816/06 and
Add. 1, Draft Directive on environmental quality standards in the field
of water policy and amending Directive 2000/60/EC, and 11847/06,
Commission Communication on integrated prevention and control of
chemical pollution of surface waters in the European Union; and
supports the Government’s aim of securing a proportionate,
cost-effective and environmentally protective
measure. Committee
rose at twenty-three minutes to Six
o’clock.
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