Future Flood and Water Management Legislation - Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Contents


Written evidence submitted by the National Farmers Union (NFU)

  The NFU represents 55,000 farm businesses in England and Wales involving an estimated 155,000 farmers, managers and partners in the business. In addition we have 55,000 countryside members with an interest in farming and the country.

EFRA COMMITTEE INQUIRY INTO FUTURE FLOODS AND WATER MANAGEMENT LEGISLATION

  The National Farmers' Union (NFU) welcomes the opportunity to respond to the EFRA committee's call for written evidence on the outstanding legislative measures required to implement effective flood and water management policies in England and Wales.

Which of the key issues covered by the consultation into the draft Flood and Water Management Bill and by the Walker and Cave reviews should be taken forward as legislative priorities

  Key issues relevant to NFU members include the reform of the Internal Drainage Boards and extending the application of Time Limiting of Water Abstraction licences. Our views on these two areas are as follows:-

    Internal Drainage Boards (IDB's)

    The NFU believe a radical reform of IDBs is unnecessary and should not be a legislative priority for the new administration. Defra's original consultation contained proposals to change the governance structure of IDB's. These proposals were, in our view, a blunt instrument and we believe that while there is scope for better engagement by and with the IDB's; their successful track record of practical delivery of water level management speaks for itself. IDB's have successfully delivered water level management in over 9% of England's land area that is at greatest risk from flooding.

    Time limiting abstraction licences

    The NFU believe further time limitations on abstraction licences should not be a legislative priority at this time. Defra's proposals in the Floods and Water Management Bill for extending the scope of time limiting licences (first introduced in the 2003 Water Act), were not "fit for purpose" or compliant with the rules of better regulation. The NFU acknowledges there is a need to secure and allocate water resources in a fair and transparent way for everyone but the proposals made were far from adequate or well thought through in terms of their impact on particularly the farming sector. We would welcome the opportunity to work in partnership with Defra to develop appropriate and relevant proposals that identify:

    — The scale and impact the proposals seek to address;

    — The scale of key monetized benefits by main affected groups will be;

    — The description and key monetized costs by main affected groups;

        and

    — How available water resources will be allocated among the water using sectors.

Which further policies which are required to ensure flood and water management which delivers optimum social, economic and environmental outcomes?

  Food policy should be made a material consideration in the FRM (Flood Risk Management) decision making process through, for instance providing a specific outcome measure for Flood and Coastal Risk Management in relation to food security.

  75% of land in England and Wales is agricultural. Farmers' involvement in the management of flood risk is crucial, but services they can offer do not come without a cost. Agricultural land should not be viewed as a free resource (eg for temporary storage of floodwaters). The NFU welcome the inclusion of sub-clause 7(3)(g), "making arrangements for financial or other support for action taken by persons in respect of a risk of, or in preparing to manage the consequences of, flooding or coastal erosion", within the list of things that might be done to manage risk.

Scale and impact of the national and local strategies on the best and most versatile land in England and Wales in the FRM decision making process.

  The Floods and Water Management Act emphasises an underlying weakness in the current FRM approach which does not consider the scale and impact of proposals on the ability to produce sustainable food in England and Wales. 57% of Grade 1 agricultural land lies below the five metre contour and approximately 40% of vegetables produced in England and Wales come from the low lying fens. The protection and resilience of these areas must figure in both high-level strategies and local flood management programmes. This means in some areas of England and Wales the need to maintain domestic food production may have to take precedence over environmental enhancement if sustainable food production and associated processing businesses are not to be lost. Yet while environmental enhancement features strongly and consistently throughout the Act as a required consideration, food policy is not mentioned. This issue needs to be addressed.

Cross boundary delivery

  A policy approach based on river catchments is needed to achieve close cooperation between legislative bodies in England, Scotland and Wales.

Decision making frameworks

  Measures are needed requiring decision making bodies to provide publically available "decision making frameworks" to transparently show how decisions are made and how any advice from regional advisory bodies is taken into account, (or reasons for rejecting it). Such transparency will help deliver the Governments preferred partnership approach to co-delivery.

Adequate powers need to be provided for the Environment Agency to address misconnections to foul sewers and surface water drainage.

  The consultation document:

    — estimated that there may be around 300,000 households misconnected currently, rising to around 500,000 by 2015, without taking account of non-domestic misconnections.

    — proposed the grant of additional powers to water companies to deal with misconnections. (These provisions were not included in the 2010 Act).

  Misconnections are of concern to agriculture as the pollution they cause may be attributed to farming activities. The provision of adequate powers to address different sources is important to delivery of Water Framework Directive objectives. As management of the quality of watercourses is the responsibility of Environment Agency rather than water companies, the government should look at providing adequate powers to the Environment Agency. This was not addressed in the consultation document.

Any issues related to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 (including sustainable drainage systems (SUDS) and the transfer of private sewers and lateral drains).

Governance

  NFU believe a priority for the new administration is to ensure adequate, "Checks and balances" and scrutiny of the new powers given to designating authorities. The Floods and Water Management Act confers substantial powers on designating authorities ie it is "power heavy and duty light". Defra need to publish details of how the National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Strategy will be prepared scrutinised and how, and over what cycle, it will be reviewed. The NFU also believe more checks and balances are needed to ensure efficient, effective and democratic implementation of the Act, such as a legislative mechanism allowing local strategies to vary from the national strategy where there is good reason, would be highly beneficial to successful delivery of the Flood and Water Management Act's objectives.

Reservoir clauses

  The NFU believe provision to exempt small on farm "of line" reservoirs from the obligation and liability of onerous and potentially costly inspections and procedures is a priority and that the administration costs of doing this must not be transferred to the reservoir owners. The Floods and Water Management Act contained clauses introducing a risk based approach to Reservoir Safety. The NFU are concerned about the potential Impact of these clauses on small farm reservoirs specifically the potential for full cost recovery and retrospective designation.

Flood Risk Assets

  Greater legislative clarity is needed about what could be designated as a Flood Risk Asset, how the designating authorities would coordinate with one another and how differences of opinion between designating authorities would be resolved.

HYDROMORPHOLOGY

  Land drainage needs should be fully protected in the exercise of any new (or existing) powers by the Environment Agency. The 2009 consultation proposed the granting of additional powers to the Agency to carry out works on the physical structure of water courses and other water bodies in order to help achieve Water Framework Directive objectives. However, whilst the Directive contains express provision to protect land drainage, the consultation gave no recognition to the need to protect land drainage.

October 2010





 
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