Our third new clause—new clause 8—would help to ensure that customers know about the help for which they are eligible. In 1999, the last Labour Government introduced WaterSure to help low-income metered households with high essential water use. WaterSure caps the bills of metered households in receipt of a qualifying benefit or tax credit at the average bill for that water company’s operating area. It applies to households with three or more children under the age of 19 living at home or where someone in the household
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has a medical condition that necessitates high water use. It is an important measure that at the time received cross-party support and which, according to the latest figures that the Minister gave us in Committee, has helped 70,500 households in England—I think a similar scheme has helped approximately 20,000 households in Wales. Although that is welcome, we believe that that level is unacceptable. Given that, as the Consumer Council for Water has said, only one third of eligible households are in receipt of the benefit to which they are entitled, the Government have been guilty of complacency.
The Minister previously claimed there was no need for the new clause because all the water companies already provided this information. For the benefit of Members who have not had a chance to look at the amendment paper, we are proposing that information about the eligibility criteria and how to apply should be included in all water bills. He believes that all water companies already provide this information, but unfortunately for him the reality does not match his statement. Not only do his own figures show that the current approach is not working, but our own anecdotal research shows that customers are not even aware that WaterSure exists. We want to make it clear to water companies that they must do much more to promote the scheme, and we want Ofwat and the Government to hold them to account if they do not. I hope he has reflected not only on the evidence we presented in Committee, but on his own figures and the evidence from the CCW, and will listen to common sense.
Finally, our fourth new clause—new clause 7—deals with the central problem of the failure of the voluntary approach to social tariffs. As we have set out, too few water companies are helping too few customers through social tariffs, and it is clear that left to their own devices many water companies, by their own admission, will never introduce such schemes. That is why we are proposing a national affordability scheme to end the postcode lottery and ensure national standards for eligibility. We would expect schemes to be funded by the excess profits of the water companies, not by other water bill payers. As I have said, last year these companies made an eye-watering £1.9 billion in pre-tax profits and paid out £1.8 billion to investors. The idea, for example, that Yorkshire Water, which paid out £240 million, cannot afford to provide support through social tariffs is clearly nonsense.
Enough is enough. Hard-pressed households need real help now, and these new clauses are four practical and simple measures that would ensure they get it. It is time for the coalition to match our commitments.
Mr Spencer:
I want to make some brief comments that were too long for an intervention, particularly about new clause 3, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh). I sincerely hope that, in summing up, the Minister will reflect on today’s debate, which has shown recognition across the House that consumers and our constituents are finding it very difficult to pay their household bills because of pressure on the household budget. It is worth saying that the Government recognise that challenge and are doing their best to assist, not least by turning
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around the failing economy that they inherited. Needless to say, a section of society will find it very challenging to pay their utility bills, and the Government have an obligation to try to assist and support them.
There is another group of people who are unwilling to pay, as a result of a frankly malicious intent to avoid paying the bill that is due to be paid. It is vital that the water companies have the power to decide which cases fit into which categories. Those who are clearly unable to pay should be able to receive assistance, support and sympathy from the water companies. New clause 3 goes some way towards assisting the water companies to identify people within the benefit and welfare support system, who may be in need of extra assistance.
I am somewhat sympathetic to new clause 8, too, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) and is designed to ensure that water companies put the neediest customers on “the lowest possible tariff”. Those who find themselves under pressure in the most challenging of circumstances are often those least able to identify from their bills which is the correct tariff for them to be on and least able to challenge the water companies to put them on a better tariff, allowing them to afford to pay their household bills. I hope that the Minister will give further consideration to that, if he is minded to do so.
Finally, I support those who have said it is difficult to understand why the Department for Work and Pensions or the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are unable or unwilling to supply the necessary data to the water companies. I hope that when the Minister sums up, he will be able to shed some light on those thoughts.
Mr Redwood: I hope that the Government will look at the issue of unpaid bills. Colleagues of all parties are right to draw attention to the problem—one of the many sources of excess cost in the water industry, which it would be good to reduce or eliminate. It is undoubtedly the case that we pay dearly for our main utility provision in this country, and I fear that the main reason why water bills are high and will stay high is that there is no competition. It is a great pity that this Bill will not introduce proper competition into water as into other areas, as it would make a lot of difference. The amendments are designed to deal with the situation of having regional monopolies that are in many cases unresponsive and have high cost structures. Then there is the particular problem of customers deciding—quite wilfully, when some of them are perfectly capable of paying—not to pay their bills. Clearly, more needs to be done on that.
There is some good in all the amendments before us this evening, but I am not persuaded that they take the trick. It might be helpful to know who the tenant was, but if the tenant cannot be traced to where they have gone, it will be impossible to get them to pay. It might be useful to know something more about the benefits and financial circumstances of individuals, although there are issues of privacy and the handling of data that could cause difficulties, but that then fails to enable us to come down hard enough on the people who can afford to pay, which is the real issue.
Thomas Docherty:
Given that it is the water industry itself that is pressing for this power relating to landlord information and given that it is prepared to bear the
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burden of tracking people down, does the right hon. Gentleman not accept that such a scheme is clearly workable?
Mr Redwood: It may or may not be. I do not have a very high opinion of the success of the water industry in these areas, and it may not be the best judge, but I accept that this is one of the best points in the hon. Gentleman’s case, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply to it.
As I say, the amendments and new clauses are all well intentioned and, if passed, they might not make the situation worse and in some cases might even make it a little better. I hope, however, that the Minister, working with the water industry, can come up with something better because there is a serious issue here. A lot of money is owed to the water industry that people could afford to pay, but the matter is not being pressed.
7.15 pm
For very good reasons, nobody here wants to change the rule about cutting people off because water is so essential. That weakens the industry’s position, which then requires other work. If the Minister is going to advise us to reject the amendments, I hope he will provide a scheme of his own because of the serious money at risk here and because it is not fair on all the other people who pay their water bills, many of them without a lot of resources themselves but who feel that they should pay. There is a cross-subsidisation going on to the benefit of people who often have more money but simply will not pay.
Dan Rogerson: The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) has proposed a number of new clauses, which I shall address before dealing with the lead new clause 3, tabled by the Select Committee Chairman.
New clause 7 would place a requirement on the Government to introduce through secondary legislation what is described as “a National Affordability Scheme”. The details of the scheme are not entirely clear. We debated in Committee an identical clause tabled by the hon. Gentleman, but at that point, the funding was not made clear. He said today that it would be funded specifically from the profits of the water companies rather than from other bill payers in a cross-subsidy approach.
Thomas Docherty: I refer the Minister to the evidence session during the eighth sitting of the Public Bill Committee, where I specifically said that the scheme would be funded from excess profits. Perhaps the civil servants should pay more attention in future.
Dan Rogerson:
The hon. Gentleman is, as always, keen to assist. What I said comes entirely from my recollection of his introduction of the measure in Committee and if it is faulty, it is certainly not on account of any information briefed to me by others. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for highlighting the issue of excess profits. However, this does not address the point that we have a regulated system under which the profits are allowed for under the price review process. I appreciate that he was not a Member when his party was most recently in government, but it was quite happy
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to move forward with the pricing process. What he is saying now is that he has no confidence in the regulator—in other words, that the regulator would set a level of profit that it thinks reasonable for the price review period, but that this would now somehow be unpicked as being in excess in some cases in order to fund the scheme. I am happy to give way again, in case he wants to correct this.
Thomas Docherty: I am grateful, but on this occasion it is perhaps the Minister who should have paid more attention to my remarks a few moments ago. I clearly said that the last Government gave the water companies time to introduce the voluntary schemes, but that they have now failed to honour their commitment, so the Government should step in and do what the companies failed to do themselves.
Dan Rogerson: I understand the hon. Gentleman’s views on social tariffs, which he feels have not been introduced in a speedy enough fashion. My point was rather about the issue of excess profits. I said that the hon. Gentleman was seeking to introduce a concept that is perhaps a subjective rather than an objective assessment of the profits made by water companies. The whole point of the price review process and price review period, however, is that a regulated process takes account of the need to attract investment and thus the need to make a reasonable return in profit.
Roger Williams: My understanding is that the water companies made larger profits because the period of very low interest rates benefited them to a great extent. However, basing an entire policy on windfall profits that might not occur in the future would certainly not be a very good idea.
Dan Rogerson: I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is absolutely right to point out that what is proposed is a new bold national scheme built on profits that might or might not go up or down in accordance with the markets and through the price review process. Although I accept that the intention of the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife is, as always, to be helpful, I feel that his scheme could use a little work and I therefore urge my hon. Friends to resist it should he seek to press it to a vote.
Let me move next to new clause 8, also tabled by the hon. Gentleman. It would place a legal requirement on water companies to include information in their bills about the WaterSure scheme, but, as I have said—I provided information to this effect to the Committee—all water companies already do so voluntarily. He made a point based on anecdotal evidence. I would be happy to see that evidence and I am sure that he will want to share it with us, but I think we should base our policy making on the evidence provided to us, and the Consumer Council for Water has been quite clear that companies provide such information to customers.
In addition, new clause 8 would place requirements on water companies to provide information about tariff structures and the lowest available tariff, a point picked up on by my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer). The proposals simply fail to reflect the realities of the water sector as opposed, for example, to the energy sector. Water companies do not have complex
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tariff structures. The sole choice for the majority of household customers is whether to pay according to the amount of water they use through a metered tariff, which is particularly prevalent in areas such as my own, or according to the rateable value of their home through an unmetered tariff. The cheapest option for each household will therefore depend on the location of the property and the amount of water used by the household.
Many smaller households with low water use can benefit from a meter. Water companies are required to fit a water meter free of charge on request and they also advise customers on whether they might benefit financially from the installation of a water meter. A further point to bear in mind about the operation of WaterSure is that it caps the bills of eligible customers at the average of the metered and unmetered bill for the area. That could, in effect, put the bills of some eligible customers up and it is therefore not surprising that they have chosen not to apply for WaterSure.
There is no evidence, in my view, that further regulation is required in this area. As I have noted, all companies already include details of WaterSure in their household bills and they also all provide details of the support available to any customer struggling to pay their bill. Legislation to require the companies to do something that they are already doing voluntarily would be redundant.
The Consumer Council for Water works closely with the companies on the format of their bills. Its expert advice, as we discussed in Committee, is that one of the biggest risks in using water bills as a means of communication with customers is information overload. I do not, therefore, consider the new clause to be necessary.
Let me turn next to new clause 9, also tabled by the hon. Gentleman. We discussed an identical clause that he tabled in Committee. Section 45 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 already enables Ministers to introduce secondary legislation that would require landlords to provide water companies with personal details about their tenants or become liable for paying the bill. That was a point that the Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee was keen to emphasise, given her involvement with the passage of that Act.
Following extensive consultation with the industry and with landlords’ organisations the Government took the decision that a voluntary approach would be more suitable. During consultation, landlords argued that the additional regulatory burden would be disproportionate as they are not the source of the problem we are trying to tackle. At the same time, the evidence provided by the water sector to support the case for additional regulation was not sufficient to make the case for additional regulation of millions of small and micro-businesses.
The Government simply do not believe that more regulation is always the answer. As we discussed in Committee, good practice in tackling bad debt is not applied consistently across the water sector. The hon. Gentleman quite rightly took great pains to point that out. The significant variation in performance between companies tells us that the focus should be on driving better standards across the sector rather than regulating landlords.
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One reason we do not propose to bring forward the bad debt regulations on landlords is that we do not wish to endorse the argument that performance on bad debt is not within the control of water companies. We think there is more that the companies can do to collect their debts and we want them to focus on that rather than look to the Government to solve the problem for them.
Of course, the real drivers of company performance are the incentives and penalties set by the regulator so I am pleased to be able to report that Ofwat has changed its approach to bad debt in the methodology it is using for the 2014 price review. The new approach will enable it more effectively to bear down on the costs of bad debt. It is doing so by insisting that the companies demonstrate that any increase in bad debt is genuinely beyond their control and that they have taken all available steps to control it. Unless they can prove that that is the case they will not be allowed to include it in customer charges. We are already seeing our focus on the industry’s taking responsibility for tackling bad debt bear fruit. As I mentioned in Committee, the industry is working with landlords’ organisations to establish a new voluntary scheme that will enable landlords to provide information about their tenants direct to water companies swiftly and easily.
Miss McIntosh: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, but before he concludes his remarks he must say what the Government object to as regards the 2010 Act. I do not personally subscribe to the data protection argument if someone is genuinely in need.
Dan Rogerson: The Chair of the Select Committee is quite right that I have yet to respond to that aspect of her argument and I will seek to do so, I hope to her satisfaction, once I have made my closing remarks on new clause 9.
The industry is working with landlords’ organisations to establish the new voluntary scheme that will enable landlords to provide information about their tenants direct to water companies swiftly and easily and that approach has the support of Water UK and the main landlords’ organisations. The new database will launch in March next year and I believe that it should be given time to work. For those reasons, I believe that new clause 9 is not necessary.
Thomas Docherty: I am grateful to the Minister and am listening carefully to what he says. He will, I am sure, come on to his justifications as regards new clause 10 in a second. Before he finishes dealing with new clause 9, however, can he say what he defines as “time to work”?
Dan Rogerson: We should at least allow the database to be set up and give it a chance to operate. That would seem to be a fair approach and it is certainly the one I seek to take. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s keenness to see progress but I believe that the voluntary approach will have some effect and we should give it time to do so.
Let me turn now, as the hon. Gentleman uncannily predicts, to new clause 10, which he has tabled in his efforts to make some changes to the Bill, and in Committee we discussed a similar clause that he tabled. The new clause will provide a new power for Ministers and Ofwat to disallow companies from recovering the cost of unpaid bills from their paying customers. The hon. Gentleman
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has argued that there is no incentive for companies to collect bad debt. During our previous discussions, I made it clear that Ofwat has the power to decide which costs may be recovered through the price review. Ofwat is already using the price review process to bear down on the costs of bad debt and requiring companies to demonstrate high performance in debt collection and to show that any increase in bad debt is beyond their control before they are allowed to include it in customer charges. The price review will challenge poor performers to raise their game.
The new clause proposes a power for a future Secretary of State to intervene in the setting and recovery of charges. That is exactly the kind of political interference that concerns the investors who are critical to the water industry. I have stated before that the stability of the regulatory regime is vital to keeping the cost of borrowing low. An increase in that cost will have the direct result of putting up customers’ bills and I am firmly of the view that it is for the regulator and not the Government to make detailed decisions about charges. New clauses 9 and 10 intend to incentivise companies to improve their debt collection performance and I absolutely support that objective. I cannot, however, support the approach that has been proposed and I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman—and, I am sure, to surprise him.
Let me turn finally to new clause 3, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), the hon. Members for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) and for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams). The proposed clause targets a number of points that we have already discussed in some detail, including bad debt and social tariffs.
The practical effect of the new clause would be to require the Department for Work and Pensions to supply water companies with personal information about their customers. The clause focuses solely on the subset of customers that are both in receipt of benefits and living in rented accommodation. Amendment 9 would simply include the proposed new clause in the list of measures to be commenced two months following Royal Assent.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton for her clarification that the clause is intended both to help water companies to collect their debts and to target social tariffs at customers in rented accommodation who are also in receipt of benefits. However, I am afraid that I do not believe that the clause is likely to achieve either objective effectively.
As I have already set out, the Government’s position on bad debt among water customers is that there is a great deal more that the industry can do for itself. We think, therefore, that there is more companies can do to collect their debts and we want them to focus on that rather than to look to the Government to solve the problem for them.
I am pleased, as I have said, that the industry is already taking more responsibility, by working on a voluntary approach to sharing information on customers in rented accommodation, using the landlord database, as we have discussed in response to new clause 9, tabled by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife.
7.30 pm
Benefits data, like all personal data, are highly sensitive. We must therefore take their security extremely seriously. The circumstances in which any personal data can be
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shared are tightly controlled by law. No legislative gateway permits data sharing for the purposes of collecting debt. Therefore, simply passing on the details of all those who are on benefits to water companies without the appropriate consents would be illegal.
Moving on to the objective of targeting social tariffs, new clause 3 would focus support on a very specific subsection of water customers: those who both receive benefits and live in rented accommodation. The problem with that approach is that it would target help at many people who do not need it and exclude many who do need it. It is important that we do not over-simplify. Benefit recipients are a very diverse group of people, including, for example, pensioners and those in receipt of child benefit, disability benefits and a range of both in and out-of-work benefits.
Evidence from Ofwat shows that the majority—60%—of households at risk of water affordability problems do not receive means-tested benefits. Additionally, when universal credit is fully rolled out, it will replace all the existing wide range of income-related social security benefits and tax credits. Many of its recipients will be in work and have reasonable earnings. So receipt of universal credit alone is not a suitable indicator of possible eligibility for access to a social tariff. Similarly, no evidence suggests that living in rented accommodation is a reliable indicator of affordability problems.
Furthermore, many customers, whether or not in receipt of benefits, own their own property but nevertheless suffer real affordability problems. Precisely because water affordability problems are not simple, we have resisted a simplistic, top-down approach to social tariffs.
My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton asked why water companies could not simply use a tick-box to ascertain whether people were happy to share their data. Anyone can agree to have their personal information shared, but that is quite different from the effect of new clause 3, which would require the Government to share personal information. That is perhaps the problem that we would have with new clause 3.
We must not forget that all social tariffs are cross-subsidised by increasing the bills of ineligible customers.
Thomas Docherty: I remind the Minister that our scheme would not involve cross-subsidisation. I am surprised that he is so against the use of benefit systems for social tariffs, because the Liberal Democrats in Scotland actively supported the introduction of social tariffs based on council tax benefit. What is the difference?
Dan Rogerson: I am seeking to point out that there are a range of benefits and a range of circumstances for people. The hon. Gentleman highlights one benefit. Of course council tax benefit no longer exists in this country in the format that it does in Scotland, as we have now moved over to local council tax forms of support, so there is a different system, which would not necessarily translate across. The hon. Gentleman is keen always to learn the lessons of Scotland, but some of these things do not apply simply, given the different frameworks following the devolution settlement.
We place emphasis on locally designed social tariffs developed in close consultation with the customers who will ultimately foot the bill, as opposed to crude, centrally imposed eligibility criteria. Although I very much thank
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hon. Members for their new clauses and understand their aspirations in tabling them, I would urge my hon. Friends to resist them.
Miss McIntosh: We have had a fruitful debate, but I express my disappointment that my hon. Friend the Minister has not seen fit to take a simple measure that already exists on the statute book and is not intended to be regulatory. He will, of course, have opportunities in the future to appear before the Select Committee that I chair and that will give him plenty of opportunity to explain at greater length why he is unable to support these new clauses. It is my fervent wish that such new clauses might perhaps find their way on to the notice paper in another place. However, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Sustainable drainage and automatic right to connect
‘The Secretary of State shall by order made by statutory instrument implement the provisions of section 32 and Schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, and any other provisions as the Secretary of State considers appropriate in connection with the coming into force of those provisions, no later than the end of the period of one month beginning with the date on which this Act is passed.’.—(Miss McIntosh.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Miss McIntosh: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle): With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: new clause 5 —Abstraction reform—
‘(1) The Secretary of State shall by regulations make provision to introduce a reformed abstraction regime.
(2) An abstraction regime under subsection (1) must—
(a) be resilient to the challenges of climate change;
(b) be resilient to the challenges of population growth; and
(c) better protect the environment.
(3) An abstraction regime must be introduced no later than the end of the period of seven years beginning with the date on which this Act is passed.
(4) Regulations under this section—
(a) shall be made by statutory instrument; and
(b) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament.’.
New clause 6—Onshore oil or gas activities—effect on water environment—
‘In Part 1 of Schedule 5 of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010 there shall be inserted after paragraph 13 the following—
“Onshore oil or gas activities—effect on water environment
13A (1) Without prejudice to the operation of Regulation 35(2) and paragraph 5(1)(d) of Schedule 10 and of Regulation 35(2) and paragraph 7(j) of Schedule 20, the regulator shall refuse an application for the grant or variation of an environmental permit or for the transfer in whole or in part of an environmental permit if—
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(a) the regulated facility to which the application for or transfer of the environmental permit relates is to be carried on as part of an onshore oil or gas activity; and
(b) the regulator is not satisfied that the applicant or the proposed transferee has made or will make adequate financial provision for preventing or mitigating pollution of the water environment, by ensuring all of the following—
(i) operation of the regulated facility in accordance with the environmental permit;
(ii) compliance with any enforcement notice or suspension notice or prohibition notice or mining waste facility closure notice or landfill closure notice which may be served on the applicant or transferee by the regulator under these Regulations;
(iii) compliance with any order of the High Court which may be obtained against the applicant or transferee under Regulation 42 for the purpose of securing compliance with any of the notices listed in sub-paragraph (ii).
(iv) compliance with any order of any court issued under Regulation 44 against the applicant or transferee; and
(v) recovery by the regulator of its costs upon any exercise of its power against the applicant or transferee under Regulation 57;
(c) for the purpose of this paragraph ‘onshore oil or gas activity’ means any activity for the purpose of exploration for or extraction of onshore oil and gas;
(d) for the purpose of this paragraph ‘adequate provision by way of financial security’ means financial provision which is sufficient in value, secure and available when required.”.’.
New clause 13—Unlawful communications—
‘(1) Section 109 of the Water Industry Act 1991 (sewerage: unlawful communication with public sewer) is amended as follows.
(3) In subsection (2)(a) after “close”, insert “or redirect”.
(4) In subsection (2)(b) omit “from the offender”.
“(4) The expenses are recoverable from—
(b) the owner of the drain or sewer.
(5) A person who obstructs a sewerage undertaker in exercising a power under subsection (2)(a)—
(b) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.”.’.
Amendment 2, in clause 21, page 62, line 19, after ‘undertakers’, insert ‘and highway authorities’.
Amendment 3, page 62, line 22, after ‘undertaker’, insert ‘or a highway authority’.
Amendment 1, page 62, line 23, at end insert—
‘(2A) Highways authorities must include in schemes for the construction of new roads, drainage systems with a specification designed to decrease the risk of flooding of public sewerage systems.’.
Government amendments 55 to 57.
Amendment 5, clause 51, page 107, line 5, after ‘premises’, insert ‘and small businesses’.
Amendment 6, page 107, line 7, after ‘premises’, insert ‘and small businesses’.
Amendment 8, clause 53, page 107, line 37, after ‘made’, insert
‘which shall include the occurrence of a 1 in 200 year loss scenario’.
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Amendment 7, clause 69, page 119, line 37, at end insert ‘“small businesses”.’.
Amendment 10, clause 80, page 124, line 1, at end insert—
‘(f) section [Sustainable drainage and automatic right to connect].’.
Amendment 11, page 124, line 1, at end insert—
‘(g) section [Abstraction reform].’.
Miss McIntosh: I shall try to keep my remarks brief, but this is the first occasion that I can remember when there has not been a parliamentary week between the completion of the business of the Public Bill Committee and consideration on Report and Third Reading. I should therefore like to pass on my thanks not only to the Committee staff who have accommodated our being able to table amendments in a timely fashion, but to all those involved in the House service who have enabled us to have amendments before us to debate this evening.
I shall go through the new clauses and amendments first and then give the reasons for them. I, along with a number of members of the EFRA Committee, have thought it fit to assist the Government yet again, and I hope that we have more success with this round. Anyone who knows me even remotely will know that I am becoming a compulsive obsessive on sustainable draining systems and that I will never pass over an opportunity to discuss SUDS. So, under new clause 4, we seek to introduce the sustainable draining system, which is woefully late. It was already given statutory powers under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, and in new clause 4 I link that to the end of the automatic right to connect.
I should like to pay tribute to a great Yorkshireman, Sir Michael Pitt, who after the surface water flooding of 2007 attempted to get on to the statute book under the 2010 Act—the then Government’s legislation—the end of the automatic right to connect. I would go further with substantial developments than I have had the opportunity to do here. I should personally like Yorkshire Water and other water companies, as well as drainage boards, to be given the right to be statutory consultees on major new developments on the same basis as that enjoyed by the Environment Agency following the 2010 Act.
Thomas Docherty: It is worth pointing out that local authorities in Scotland place great emphasis on the opinion of Scottish Water, which is, indeed, treated as a major statutory consultee when local authorities are making decisions about developments.
Miss McIntosh: As a non-practising Scottish advocate, I would always say that the Scottish legal system has a great deal to commend it, but Scotland needs to remain part of the United Kingdom to allow us to benefit from that.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle): That is for another day.
Miss McIntosh: Indeed, that is a different argument.
I shall give our reasons for new clause 4 in a moment. Abstraction reform forms the basis of new clause 5, in which we would return to what was in the White Paper, where the Government waxed lyrical on abstraction
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regimes. We particularly call for the abstraction regime to be introduced no later than the end of the period of seven years beginning on the date on which the Bill is passed and comes into legal effect.
Amendments 2 and 3 would insert into clause 21 the relevant language of “undertakers” and “highways authorities”. I am attracted to amendment 1, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer), and look forward to his speaking to it in due course. Amendments 5, 6, 7 and 8 would include small businesses in the flood reinsurance scheme, for reasons that I shall give in a moment.
Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con): Does my hon. Friend agree that the Flood Re clauses will help the people whom the Minister and I met in Looe last Saturday who were unable to get insurance because of repeated flooding? Flood Re will give them the opportunity to obtain realistically priced insurance.
Miss McIntosh: Our thoughts are obviously with my hon. Friend’s constituents who were sadly inundated during the recent flooding. I look forward to hearing further from her during the debate, as well as the Minister’s response.
Amendments 10 and 11 are consequential amendments to clause 80 arising from new clauses 4 and 5.
Before I explain why the amendments and new clauses are important, I should point out that we have seen three types of flooding in the past three or four months. The most recent examples have been of coastal flooding, but the Yorkshire and East Anglia coasts suffered tidal surges before Christmas to devastating effect; more than 80 houses were evacuated at Filey in my constituency and a number more in Whitby. However, we have become more accustomed to surface water and river flooding, and surface water flooding has been on the increase, and has become more of a problem, since 2007.
I want to hear from the Minister why SUDS have been delayed. The latest we heard was that there was an implementation date of April 2014. People have been trying to convince me that Brawby in my constituency suffered in 2013 not from flooding but due to surface water running off from fields and roads into the combined sewerage pipe, which then spilled water from the sewerage system back on to the road. In that case, the water did not go into anyone’s house, but at Castlegate in Malton when exactly the same thing happened—water ran off the road into the combined sewers—water then entered a house.
The missing link is an audit of existing SUDS and an examination of future SUDS when major developments and roads are built. However, from my experience, and given what we heard during the statement on the floods, there is a further problem to deal with. If water runs off a highway, it is the responsibility of the county council, the unitary council or the Highways Agency itself. However, if that water then runs into the combined pipes, it suddenly becomes the water company’s problem, although what has happened is not its fault. I hope that that unacceptable situation can be addressed through the measures that I and other members of the EFRA Committee have tabled, or through amendment 1, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood. If fields are saturated, as is the case at present—it was the situation in my constituency between September
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2012 and March 2013—highways authorities must take responsibility and create a SUD to take the excess water. I accept that such a process would involve cost, but I applaud the Government’s approach on partnership funding, so we could look to public sector partners, or be more imaginative by looking for private sector partners, such as local businesses that might be interested in investing. However, we cannot allow a situation to continue in which surface water running off a road becomes the responsibility of a water company and thus forces it to take preventive measures, given that the highways authority—whichever one it might be—should accept responsibility for it.
The EFRA Committee’s report following our pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill highlighted concern about the delayed implementation of the provisions on sustainable drainage systems in the Flood and Water Management Act 2010—it is now four years since that Act was passed. The Committee also criticised a lack of urgency on improving the management of surface water in its report on the water White Paper, so I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to clarify what has been happening and why the process seems to be so complicated. As the Committee has not been convinced that the Department’s work to improve the management of surface water has involved the urgency that constituents throughout the country would expect, new clause 4 would require the Government to implement the relevant provisions of the 2010 Act within a month of the Bill being passed.
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The key provisions to be implemented relate to ending the automatic right to connect to public sewers in England and Wales. In addition, developers of substantial property developments should be required to construct sustainable drainage systems before carrying out any new construction work. When houses are built on a field in Filey that takes surface water, that water will be displaced to existing developments, or more likely to the school, which required a multi-million pound refit following the 2007 floods. Water will find its way.
We also want the Environment Agency, highways authorities, British Waterways, internal drainage boards and water and sewerage companies to be statutory consultees when the new SUDS authority makes a determination on an application for connection. The reason for that is simple: why should a water company be asked to connect what are often outdated Victorian pipes to a major development of 300 houses, for example, when that is simply not possible? It is necessary that action is taken prior to planning permission being granted so that developers can make the necessary arrangements and save a great deal of grief down the line.
Surface water flooding is a major contributory factor to the damage caused to homes and businesses. It is a relatively new threat, especially when surface water runs off fields and roads and then floods public sewers. Extreme weather involving sporadic and intense rainfall—whether that is due to climate change or because of another reason—has caused surface water flooding, and it is difficult accurately to predict where such flooding will occur. In 2009, the Environment Agency estimated that of the 2.4 million properties then at risk of flooding
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from rivers or the sea, some 1 million were also at risk of surface water flooding. In addition, 2.8 million properties are at risk of surface water flooding alone. If a house is built on land that is prone to flooding, it is highly unlikely to be eligible for insurance. However, in the case of Filey, an existing bungalow or the school can suffer due to displaced water—secondary flooding, almost—and then find that its insurance premium and excess increase. Does the Minister think that that is fair? I do not think that it is, so we need to bring forward SUDS as a matter of urgency and end the automatic right to connect.
Amendments 2 and 3, which would amend clause 21, are important so that highways authorities have the power to construct, maintain and operate sustainable drainage systems to reduce the volume of surface water entering public sewers. If sewage water backs up into people’s homes, we know that they will be displaced for much longer than if only clean water had entered the house, given the public health requirements that must be met before they are allowed to re-enter. Clause 21 already gives the power to sewerage undertakers. Our amendments would extend the power to highways authorities, and clarify the fact that highways authorities are able to construct SUDS to prevent surface water flowing into sewers. It is the link that is missing at the moment.
The Committee’s report on managing flood risk, which was published last July, recommended that DEFRA should liaise with the Department for Transport and the Department for Communities and Local Government on measures to encourage highways authorities to install SUDS, which will improve the management of water run-off from roads. This is intended to be a precursor to creating a statutory duty for highways authorities to take responsibility for surface water on new and existing roads, and to build SUDS to address the problem of surface water flooding. We cannot ignore the incidents and frequency of surface water flooding in addition to river and coastal flooding incidents. The amendments are intended to be helpful to the Minister and the Government in that regard.
Let me turn now to abstraction reform and new clause 5. The Committee has repeatedly called for the implementation of abstraction reform by 2022. I cannot see how we can consider introducing upstream competition without having the necessary reforms to abstraction in place.
Miss McIntosh: It is always a delight to be supported by the hon. Gentleman.
The current system for managing abstraction of water from rivers and aquifers was introduced in the 1960s, and does not effectively address the severity of pressures on water resources caused by increasing demand from a growing population and an increasingly varied climate. The current system does not help abstractors to trade water effectively or provide an incentive for them to manage water efficiently. The current weaknesses in the system mean that it could start to constrain economic growth, reduce the resilience of the water supply and lead to environmental damage.
I note that the reasons and need for abstraction reform are acknowledged and discussed in the Government consultation “Making the most of every drop”, which
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was published last December. When my hon. Friend the Minister replies, will he address the issue of why there was so much emphasis on abstraction and resilience in the water White Paper, and why we lost that emphasis in the draft Water Bill and, to a certain extent, in the Bill before us this evening?
The detail of a new abstraction regime will need to be developed following the end of the Government consultation, which was launched on 17 December. Following the conclusion of that consultation, which will not be until March, DEFRA will have to produce legislative proposals and secure space in the highly charged legislative programme before a new regime can be introduced. Once again, these amendments are intended to be entirely helpful and constructive.
During the Committee stage, the Opposition tabled a new clause to provide that upstream reform may not be implemented until new primary legislation on the licensing of abstraction has been passed, and five years has expired to allow for its implementation. Sadly, that proposal was voted down.
New clause 5 would require the Secretary of State to introduce a reformed abstraction regime within seven years of the Act being passed—by 2021. That was on the basis of the evidence that we received, and we believe that that is the most accurate and cost-effective timetable for all the parties involved.
The abstraction reform must be resilient to the challenges of climate change, or extreme weather conditions, and population growth and better protect the environment. Those high-level requirements are entirely in line with the key commitments regarding abstraction reform in the water White Paper.
Let me turn now to upstream and abstraction reform. In our pre-legislative scrutiny report on the draft Water Bill, the Select Committee called on the Government to make clear in the Bill the key principles that underpin the introduction of upstream reforms. Further work needs to be undertaken to establish how upstream reforms can be introduced in a way that will preserve investor confidence, ensure that customers do not face increased bills and maintain resilience in the sector. I was extremely pleased to see the emphasis on resilience in the water White Paper.
Upstream reform aims to encourage upstream competition. I am talking about the input of raw or treated water into a water company’s network or the removal of waste water or sewage for treatment. Clause 1 unbundles all the existing licensing structures so that new entrants can sell raw or treated water into an incumbent’s network. It also looks at the wholesale authorisation to input water into a part of the system. The Environment Agency’s statistics show that on average, between 2002 and 2011, only 45% of the annual total of water licensed for abstraction in England and Wales was actually abstracted. Therefore, if all of this unused but already licensed water was abstracted, there could be a significant deterioration of the environment. We hope that when the Government look at abstraction and upstream reform, they will bear these thoughts in mind.
One other aspect of upstream reform and abstraction that the Government should consider is, very topically, the role of water companies and other private sector companies in flood prevention and in protecting homes
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and businesses from floods. The Minister will be familiar with the work of his Department in the Natural Environment White Paper, which looked at a project known as ScaMP—Sustainable Catchment Management Programme—involving United Utilities in Cumbria. Surely there must be much more scope for the type of partnership approaches we have seen in Pickering where the first soil of the reservoir will be dug tomorrow.
I will conclude my remarks by looking at flood insurance. Amendments 5, 6, 7 and 8 seek to amend clauses 51 and 53. The Select Committee took a lot of evidence in relation to Flood Re and the potential for reinsurance companies. Given how deeply wedded the Government are to Flood Re, I hope that they have not closed the door completely on reinsurance. In summing up this debate, perhaps the Minister will inform us how the state aid application to the EU Commission in Brussels is going to enable Flood Re to come into effect according to the Government’s timetable.
Clause 51 and the amendments we propose to it would have the effect of bringing small businesses within the ambit of Flood Re. There is considerable doubt and anxiety that small businesses will not be covered under the new Flood Re proposals. The impact that flooding can have on small businesses is clear. In 2001 and 2005, a dental practice in my constituency was flooded twice and the dental chair and all the computer equipment had to be replaced each time.
Roger Williams: I am sure that many Members will have a deal of sympathy for my hon. Friend and her concern for small businesses. I guess that the difficulty in getting this into legislation will be how to define a small business. Perhaps she has some ideas on that.
Miss McIntosh: Like my hon. Friend, I merely shadow DEFRA so I do not have the definition to hand, but I am sure that the Federation of Small Businesses will have a definition. I think it is generally deemed to be a business that has fewer than 50 employees, though many small businesses employ five or fewer or are often a single employee. The example I cited was that of a small dental practice with two or three dentists. The knock-on effect on an independently run, stand-alone dental practice of fitting, for the second time, a new dental chair and computer equipment goes beyond what would normally be expected. The knock-on effect on the insurance premium and excess for that dental practice was considerable and, possibly, unaffordable.
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Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab): Is it the hon. Lady’s understanding that not only would small businesses and micro-businesses in commercial premises not be covered by Flood Re, but people who run businesses from their own homes would find it almost impossible to get insurance under the arrangements as they stand?
Miss McIntosh:
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, but I believe that homes generally are covered. Our Government have persisted with his Government’s arbitrary choice of 2009 as the relevant year, although this is a new Bill and we have a still relatively new coalition Government. I was very taken by what the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) said in a previous debate about 2009
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having been plucked from the air as an arbitrary date, and many people will not realise that homes built after 2009 on a floodplain are simply not covered by insurance. One of the purposes of tonight’s debate is to entice the Government to seek a different year—it could be 2013 or 2015, but let us be imaginative.
Sheryll Murray: Will my hon. Friend clarify the difference between an insurance policy that covers a business premises and one that covers a private home? Insurers, and the Association of British Insurers, would probably find it difficult to distinguish if we were to include small businesses, but because her amendment is well intentioned, I am sure that she will be able to clarify her differentiation.
Miss McIntosh: I am sure that the Minister will be well aware of the point that my hon. Friend is trying to make. There is great concern among the farming community that farms may be excluded whereas the farm house may be included. I commend my hon. Friend’s knowledge, because she worked in the insurance industry for a time. We need to know whether farms and people working from their own homes are going to be included, and what the position will be for small businesses, because this could put them out of business in some of the areas that we have seen flooded over the past two years in repeat flooding incidents. It has also been brought to my attention, although, unfortunately, too late to have tabled an amendment, that there is concern that blocks of flats—leasehold flats—may be excluded from this arrangement. That may be news to the Minister as well, but before Third Reading he might like to ponder whether such blocks will be excluded.
Our amendments to clause 51 address concerns relating to the exclusion of small companies such as charities and, as I have mentioned, farms under the new Flood Re proposals in the Bill. Any business based in a property that is primarily a residential one, and on which the occupier therefore pays council tax, would fall within the Flood Re scheme. Any business based in premises used primarily for business will not be covered. It is extremely important that we understand these issues. For the first time that I can remember, under the Flood Re scheme, once it is up and running, the Government will be added as an insurer of last resort if in the three years before the fund has built up we suffer an exceptional one-in-a-thousand-year incident.
In the Public Bill Committee, the ABI stated that Flood Re is not the solution for small businesses and that there is not a sufficient evidence basis for providing insurance cover for small businesses. The Federation of Small Businesses is concerned that small businesses that have affordability problems will not be covered, other than in respect of the insurance premiums or excess that they might seek to defray. Although they do not pay council tax, they do pay business rates and therefore could be rated in a similar way to household customers under Flood Re. There remain a lot of known unknowns with Flood Re as to why a council band rate has been chosen and which particular band rate has been opted for, but that is a separate debate. If there is a lack of evidence, further investigations and monitoring should be conducted with regard to small businesses and how they might cope with sourcing flood insurance in the free market.
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Our amendments to clause 53 would have the effect of ensuring that insurance companies cover for any liability in excess of a one-in-200-year loss. Our amendments seek greater clarification of the Government’s role in this scenario of a one-in-200-year loss, and, in particular, how the taxpayer would be protected. As I have mentioned, the Government will, for the first time, be the insurer of last resort. In later years, after the fund has built up, I do not believe that that will be a problem, but we are seeking the Minister’s reassurance about what the implications will be in respect of the first three years. In Committee, the Minister confirmed that there is no Government liability for Flood Re and that the Government have made it clear that Flood Re is not guaranteed above the one-in-200-year level, so he might just like to revisit that and clarify the point.
Our amendment 8 would put the Government’s commitment in the Bill and create certainty for all concerned as to who will assume the additional liability. A one-in-200-year loss scenario would be the total value of claims from households reinsured through Flood Re that, during the course of a year, actuaries would not expect to be exceeded in 99.5% of years. Expressed in a different way, that would mean that the actuaries would be 99.5% confident that the limit would not be exceeded in any one year. It is important to note that that is not the same as a one-in-200-year flood event; the ABI has estimated that this would mean flooding six times worse than that experienced in 2007. Obviously, neither the Minister nor the insurance industry will yet be able to say what the cost of the recent floods has been, but I hope that he will see fit to lend his support to our amendments, and I commend them to the House.
Joan Walley: I am fortunate to follow the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), who speaks with the greatest authority on these subjects, as I am sure everyone in the Chamber would agree. I particularly share her concern about drainage and surface water, and I agree with the points she made earlier about the need to ensure that highways authorities also have statutory duties, so that we can deal with this issue in a joined-up way. The debate on this group of provisions is important because we have had pre-legislative scrutiny by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee of the draft Water Bill and subsequent debate in that Committee. When the Minister addresses the various comments that have been made, we will see the extent to which the Government are listening to what Parliament is saying about the amendments. There may not necessarily be agreement on all of them; I am talking about the amendments that seek genuinely to try to improve matters on the whole issue of water. We have an opportunity to put in place legislation that is fit for purpose, so I hope that improvements will be made.
Thomas Docherty: It will probably not cheer my hon. Friend to hear that every single amendment tabled in Committee by Opposition Members, and indeed by coalition Members, was rejected, even though the Minister had previously agreed with them in the Select Committee.
Joan Walley:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing that out. As I have said, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, so we will wait to hear what the Minister says in response. Given that the Bill
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has further stages to go through before Royal Assent—I am glad to see the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) nodding—I think that it is the Opposition’s duty to press the Government as much as possible, because it is important that Parliament does the right thing. Even if the Government do not make concessions at this stage, there will be an opportunity in the other place to put more flesh on the Bill and to make it much more fit for purpose. We will wait to see what further progress we can make.
I will speak briefly to new clause 6, which stands in my name, because I realise that many Members wish to speak. I want to introduce my comments by considering the issue of contaminated land. It is clear to me from the work I have done recently that there is a problem with how we deal with contaminated land. The current regime and the funding for it, particularly that which involves local authorities, is not fit for purpose, and it needs to be. We are dealing with a huge amount of legacy problems. I do not want the Government to set up a whole new regime without giving due consideration to the preventive measures that would need to be put in place in relation to fracking and shale gas extraction.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I am sure you would rule me out of order if I were to speak this evening on whether we should have fracking or shale gas extraction. The point I want to make is that if it is to go ahead, with the enormous tax concessions it currently has, there needs to be a proper regime in place that relates to water, water quality and concerns about contamination. It is for that reason that I have tabled new clause 6. I acknowledge that, were the Government to act on the concerns I am raising, there would need to be consequential amendments to paragraph 9 of schedule 20 to the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010, so I do not want the Minister simply to claim on a technical point that the new clause is unworkable because it is not thorough in that regard.
My understanding is that the principles that the polluter should pay and that prevention is much better than an end-of-pipe solution mean that we should be dealing at this stage with the procedures that need to be put in place to prevent contamination of water as a result of fracking. I point out that the new clause is supported by many non-governmental organisations working on the front line to deal with that, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Angling Trust, the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Salmon & Trout Association.
New clause 6 would amend the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010 to introduce a liability guarantee to ensure that fracking companies have the funds available to pay the clean-up costs should an accident occur during the fracking process. I think that is eminently sensible. A similar amendment was tabled in Committee and briefly debated, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) just pointed out, but it got nowhere. I believe that it was important to table it again for further consideration, mainly because the Minister’s response in Committee did not offer adequate assurances that the public purse would not be hit should an accident occur.
As I understand it, the Minister’s main argument was that the existing regulations on the statute book already ensure that operators are technically and financially
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competent to carry out fracking activities. However, a financial competence check is carried out only in specific circumstances, and competence is not the same as securing a form of financial provision or guarantee for long-term environmental liabilities. In other words, it does not guarantee that a company has put in place funding or insurance for dealing with an accident; it only provides a snapshot in time of its financial situation. I am reminded of the complex discussions there have been about the ownership of football clubs and where due diligence should lie.
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It is vital that anyone looking to carry out fracking should have the finances in place to pay for any remedial work that is needed. Tests for technical competence, which the Minister also mentioned in Committee to reassure Members, are also limited. Even the most technically competent operator might not be able to avoid an environmental impact as a result of its operation.
I understand that the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire made the point in Committee—I was not party to those discussions but read the reports assiduously—that the amendment was intended simply to ensure that there is a plan in place for the low-probability but high-risk scenario of a pollution incident occurring. Although a stringent and well-enforced regulatory regime will mitigate risk, it cannot eliminate it altogether. It is for that reason that we need to look seriously at making that amendment before the Bill receives Royal Assent.
The importance of protecting ground and surface water must not be underemphasised. In the midlands—I represent a midlands constituency—40% of public water comes from ground water. The figure is even greater—more than 70%—in the southern regions of England. Not only do we depend on that resource for drinking water, but farmers and industries across the country depend on healthy aquifers, which are estimated to be worth £8 billion to the economy. We must look at this in the round, because we are talking about the food industry and food security. Are we really going to risk contaminating all that simply by failing to put proper safeguards in place when introducing legislation?
The Government must therefore put in place adequate provisions to ensure that companies are able to pay for the clean-up of a contamination incident. There is much peer-reviewed evidence to suggest that that is something we should be prepared for. For example, a study in the USA last year examined stray gas concentrations in 141 drinking water wells near Marcellus shale gas extraction sites in Pennsylvania. It detected methane in 82% of drinking water samples. Average concentrations were found to be six times higher for homes within 1 km of natural gas wells.
Some would argue that our regulatory regime is much more stringent than that in the US and that we can therefore prevent such accidents from occurring. Although it is true that the existing regulatory regime, if properly implemented and enforced, should mitigate most risk, that does not detract from the need for the new clause. Even if liability can be proven, there remains the risk that companies could go bankrupt, leaving taxpayers and water companies with the clean-up costs.
The precedent for that has already been set. I note that several Members present this evening represent former coal mining constituencies. Those of us who
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have dealt with the legacy of mining pollution will know that the cost of clean-up often falls on the taxpayer. In 1994 it was estimated that abandoned coal mines had polluted more than 400 km of rivers. Treatment schemes and remedial works undertaken by the Coal Authority have helped to protect the environment and people, but at a cost of tens of millions of pounds a year to the taxpayer, not the polluter. It is vital that we follow the principle that the polluter pays.
There is also concerning evidence that regulation is not being adequately enforced. I understand that at Preese Hall, the only site in the UK to be hydraulically fractured to date, the Environment Agency did not issue the environmental permits that were required. At the same time, the agency has committed to a dramatic reduction in the time it takes to issue permits. Streamlining regulation and issuing permits in this way is all well and good in some circumstances, but as we are dealing with a new technology in the UK with unknown risks, we should not be looking to streamline regulation until we can be certain that proper procedures are being followed.
The new clause would ensure that the fracking companies that will benefit from the most generous tax regime in the world for this industry have the funds available to pay for the cost of clean-up should an accident occur. Since we are repeatedly reassured that the risk of an accident occurring is minimal, why should we be concerned that the new clause would impose unreasonable costs on the industry? If there is a minimal risk, there is not a huge likelihood that it will be needed, but it would ensure that in the event of an accident the industry did not impose unreasonable financial and environmental costs on the public.
I wish briefly to refer to aspects of the Flood Re scheme and the amendments that relate to it. The adaptation sub-committee, which advises the Committee on Climate Change, has, through its chairman, Lord Krebs, made various points about the importance of getting the scheme absolutely right at this stage rather than later on. In a letter that he wrote to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about the awareness of flood risk and the importance of taking account of rising flood risk levels, he said that there are at least five issues that the Government need to address but have not yet done so. Given that, as we heard earlier in the Secretary of State’s statement on flooding, we know that we are now going to get events of this kind far more regularly, it is incumbent on Parliament to make sure that the insurance scheme that is being introduced is absolutely fit for purpose.
Mr Spencer: I rise to speak to amendments 1, 2, 3 and 10, particularly amendment 1, which stands in my name.
There is enormous frustration in Nottinghamshire about the fact that when a new development takes place there is an obligation to connect and that often means that the public sewer, which is already under pressure, becomes flooded. Many Members will recognise that villages in our constituencies have grown over a number of decades. Often in Nottinghamshire, those villages have a working sewerage system but no one has developed a surface water system. That means that when somebody builds a new conservatory at the back of their house the local authority allows them to put the downpipe into the public sewer, and that puts pressure on an already pressurised sewerage system.
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The problem is exacerbated when a new road is built. There is a good example of that in Nottinghamshire, where the Hucknall inner relief road, which has been permitted by Nottinghamshire county council, is about to go right through the town of Hucknall, and the plan includes dumping the surface water from that new road into an already flooding public sewerage system. That is unacceptable. To put it into Sherwood language, while we have got diggers on the ground digging up the whole town to put a new road in, it is not beyond the wit of man to put an enormous pipe underneath the road to take the surface water and not put it into the public sewer and flood the homes of people who are already suffering from sewage flowing through them.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con): We have exactly the same problem in my constituency of Stroud in connection with Slimbridge and a relatively old sewerage system. The real question is how we manage to calibrate the capacity and quality of the systems, certainly some of the older ones, within the context of this Bill.
Mr Spencer: It is very difficult, but we can make sure that anything new that is built does not make the problem worse. We have an obligation to try to improve things as developments take place. What causes enormous frustration is that the bodies responsible, whether it is the sewerage company or the highway authority, pass the buck so that, in effect, the person who causes the problem does not take responsibility for solving it but it falls on someone else.
Another example is a small village in Sherwood called Farnsfield, where there is already flooding. A developer is applying to put a large number of houses and new roads at the edge of the village, and there is no surface water system. The poor people in the old village who are suffering with sewage flooding their homes are going to have that problem made much worse if the new development takes place and the surface water is put into an already overflowing sewerage system. I appeal to the Minister to see whether he can find a way to encourage, if not force, local authorities to take responsibility when they allow planning permission for a new highway or road and make sure that the highway authority that is developing the road, or the developer that is developing a new estate, picks up the cost of solving the problem that they are creating and disposes of the surface water responsibly rather than putting pressure on an existing, overflowing sewerage system.
Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op): I want to speak to new clause 13, which I have tabled. It is headed, “Unlawful communications”. Several hon. Members have asked me about that, and I apologise because it is a little confusing. It does not deal with unlawful communications but unlawful connections, or, more colloquially, misconnections. The new clause would amend section 109 of the Water Industry Act 1991, and that is why it uses the word “communications”, which is used in that Act. It is exactly the same as an amendment that was included in the draft Flood and Water Management Bill of 2009 but sadly had to be dropped from the final Bill because of a lack of legislative time as we approached the 2010 general election. The reason for tabling the new clause is to find out why the provision has not been included in this Bill.
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Misconnections occur when separate surface water and foul water sewers are wrongly connected by households or businesses. The reasons for this range from the over-enthusiasm of household DIYers to cowboy builders and plumbers connecting to the first and most convenient sewer, which is often the wrong one. The consequence is pollution of groundwater, watercourses, streams, rivers, and, in my case, a local lake. The problem comes to light only as a result of the visible pollution that we can see, which is sometimes accompanied by some rather unpleasant smells, as has affected local communities in my constituency.
The cost of tracking this down once it has been discovered is very difficult to quantify, because it is extremely difficult to find out where the misconnections have taken place. It is also very time-consuming. As a result, it is a significant problem, particularly in more densely populated areas. A large number of misconnections are occurring in parts of my constituency.
Thames Water estimates that one in 10 homes in its area are misconnected. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs estimates that 300,000 homes in England and Wales were misconnected in 2009 and, ominously, that the number will increase to 500,000 by 2015.
Part of the solution, of course, is better information about and greater awareness of the problem of misconnection. Some steps have been taken to try to address that. Thames Water has set up an industry strategy group, as have other water companies. My local authority has sent leaflets to areas particularly badly affected. Of course, we can do better, but the reality in my constituency and up and down the country—this is verified by DEFRA figures—is that, as current misconnections are dealt with, others are adding to the problem and it is getting worse, not better. I could cite instances in my constituency and I am sure that other Members have similar examples.
Part of the reason for the problem is that, although water companies can disconnect from the connected drains, they cannot redirect them into correct sewers; only local authorities have the power to do that. If, for any reason, the householder or business does not carry out the works, the local authority has powers to do so and to bill that individual or organisation for the costs. New clause 13 seeks to grant water companies the same enforcement powers as those available to local authorities. They could then deal directly—they already deal with other aspects of the problem—with misconnections.
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This is not intended as a strike against the work of local authorities. Indeed, in the Greater London area—I suspect the situation is similar in other parts of the country—many local authorities are doing tremendous work. One London local authority—the borough of Ealing—has a 90% record on sorting out these problems and the majority of local authorities achieve greater than 50% of corrections within a reasonable time frame. My own local authority achieved 64%. I am not, therefore, having a go at local government, but one London borough—I will not name it—has achieved only 12% of corrections. Indeed, it has misconnections going back to 2005.
Local authorities are not incentivised or always resourced to give the priority necessary to misconnections. The situation is getting worse: local authorities are finding it
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difficult, adjustments have to be made due to the austerity programme and this is one of the areas likely to be under considerable pressure.
There would be benefits from allowing water companies to carry out this sort of work. It should be more efficient if the same organisation did all the preparatory work and then carried it through. That should also mean that the work would be completed quicker and that it would cost less, which might incentivise some households and businesses to correct the problems they have created.
I commend new clause 13 on the simple basis that two bodies—the local authorities and the water companies—should have the opportunity to carry out the work. It may make a significant inroad into the problem. If there is confusion, the Department should play a co-ordinating role and bring local authorities and water companies together. There are real benefits to be achieved, including a significant environmental benefit. The lake that has been polluted in my constituency is a running sore. The same is happening to water courses and rivers up and down the country. We could really make a difference through this very simple procedural measure.
I ask the Minister in a positive spirit whether he has thought seriously about accepting the new clause. If there are good reasons for refusing to do so, I would accept them, but it seems to me to be a relatively simple measure that could make a significant difference.
Richard Benyon: I rise to speak briefly to new clause 5, but I also want to touch on the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) about Flood Re. I was intrinsically involved in the tortuous and detailed negotiations with the industry to try to come up with something from zero when the coalition Government came into office. We had urgent and overdue discussions about what would replace the statement of principles. All hon. Members would agree that it is absolutely right that this needs to be scrutinised by the House, with ongoing scrutiny of how it works. I hope that the Minister will agree that flexibility should be built into it to enable it to be changed as circumstances change in years ahead.
However, on behalf of my constituents, who suffered some of the worst flooding in the south of England in 2007 and have continued to face flooding in certain areas since, I beg the House not to unpick the detailed negotiations that have resulted in the Flood Re proposal before the House. For example, if we started to introduce a wide range of businesses into the scheme, that would completely change the complex mathematical—probably algorithmic—calculations that will make it viable. I want as many properties to be included as possible, but if we start to say that we want it to include band H houses, different types of businesses, and houses built after a certain date, hon. Members have to understand that that would come at a cost. The cost might be that the industry walks away and that we have nothing, with constituents who live in areas at risk of flooding facing the really terrifying prospect, when we have the kind of weather we are currently experiencing, of not being able to get insurance. The affordability factor that we have managed to build in would be gone, so I just urge the House to have a little caution when—rightly—scrutinising this Bill, which I really believe is right and should become law as quickly as possible.
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I want to speak about new clause 5, but I should have started by reminding hon. Members about my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I have been accused of obsessing about over-abstraction, and I have been obsessed about it since long before I entered the House. More than 20 years ago, I set up an environmental body relating to a small river in my constituency, the River Pang, which is a chalk stream. It was one of the National River Authority’s ALF—alleviation of low flow—schemes. We managed to stop over-abstraction by a water company at the top of the aquifer and to restore the river. It is currently in desperate need of further restoration, as are others in my area, particularly the River Kennet. It seems strange to talk about over-abstraction when many of our rivers are overflowing at this time, but it is nevertheless a very serious issue. The River Kennet is a site of special scientific interest, and has overlaying European and national designations. It is an example of a river for which we have to find a better solution.
When I was in the Minister’s role, I would dearly have loved to bring meaningful abstraction reform before Parliament, but it would have been wrong to do so. As has already been said, we have been dealing with a regulatory system that dates back to the 1960s, when people did not mention the words “climate change” and we did not have the levels of population and demand that we now face, particularly in the south and east of England. When the consultation and all the work being done by the Department and the Environment Agency is over, I know that we will have about 30,000 abstractions that affect the livelihoods of our constituents and the ability of their businesses to perform and that have a huge impact on our environment. I hope that the House agrees that we must get the system right, and that we legislate in haste and repent—in opposition—at leisure. I hope that we get this right, and that the reassurance the Minister will be able to give us will set my mind, and those of other hon. Members, at rest.
I have said that the problem is complex. Organisations such as the WWF have been a fantastic help to the Government and hon. Members in our thinking about how we should deal with over-abstraction. I regret that the abstraction incentive mechanism originally hinted at in the water White Paper has been diminished in relation to its ability to address abstraction where it will cause real problems to the environment. I hope that it comes forward in the future as a very useful tool that values water differently where it is scarce and where it is plentiful.
There are technical measures in the Bill that will not be talked about in the Dog and Duck, but that are groundbreaking—perhaps game changing would be a better description. The change from using the environmental improvement unit charge method of assessing over-abstraction to putting it in the five yearly price review is a major one that will make a big difference to how we deal with the environmental damage that is caused by over-abstraction.
I looked closely at new clause 5, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton and other Members. I wondered whether it might be an elegant way forward. However, I think that it would face problems. There would be problems in getting the
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legislation through Parliament. It undoubtedly uses Henry VIII clauses and would give a dramatic power to the Committee Corridor, as opposed to the whole House. That would concern many Members of this House and would certainly concern Members in another place, where they do not like Henry VIII clauses. I hope that the Minister will address that in his remarks.
I then looked at how such secondary legislation would implement the abstraction reforms that we want to see and that will result from the current consultation and the implementation of a new scheme. If that could all be dealt with in the obscurity of the Committee Corridor to a level that satisfied my concerns and the concerns of the many organisations that are worried about over-abstraction now and in the future, that would be fine. However, the use of secondary legislation is a limiting factor. I regret that in my time as a Minister, I did not get my head around what an abstraction Bill in the next Parliament would look like. I suspect that it will be a relatively complicated document. That legislation would be diminished if it was dealt with as secondary legislation, as under new clause 5.
I hope that the Minister will give two assurances. First, I hope that he will address the concerns that were put eloquently by the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton, and my concerns about whether such legislation would deliver what we want it to deliver. The second assurance is perhaps an impossible one for him to give, but I will ask him to give it anyway. I hope that he will give an assurance that the Government are as determined as they were when they put together the water White Paper—a document that was roundly welcomed by Members in all parts of the House, the industry, NGOs and every stakeholder I can think of—that abstraction reform will be followed up by his party and mine, and hopefully by other parties, and that it will race through the House in the early years of the next Parliament so that we can see meaningful abstraction reform that addresses the problems that blight so many rivers. This is not just an environmental problem; more fundamentally to many of our constituents, it is an economic one. Not only do we rely on rivers and aquifers for aesthetic reasons and leisure activities; they are fundamental to our economy. That is why it is so important that we get abstraction reform right. I hope that the Minister will give us those assurances this evening.
Steve McCabe: I will be extremely brief and confine my remarks to Flood Re. With all due respect to the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), if this is the best that three and a half years of intense negotiations can produce, I am not sure that congratulations are in order. As I understand it, the scheme will cover only a fraction of the 6 million homes that are deemed to be at flood risk.
I want to ask the Minister three questions. First, if it is true that there is a 60% chance that the scheme will fall into deficit, and if, as Professor Diacon, who was asked to review it, said, it relies on luck in the first place, what are the contingency plans if the scheme falls apart? Secondly, what will be the trigger for the Government to intervene on the insurance companies if insurance premiums for everyone else, who will not be covered by the scheme, continue to rise to such a point that they cannot afford them?
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8.45 pm
There is not a lot of mass flooding in my constituency, but in one particular area, on the River Rea near Dogpool lane in Selly Park, homes have been flooded. It was the same problem that everyone will be familiar with—people were washed out and their belongings destroyed. In my question following today’s statement, I mentioned a constituent whose insurance premium has gone up by 50% in 12 months. If insurance premiums continue to rise, what will be the trigger for doing something about it? If there is no trigger, this will all have been a waste of time.
Finally, if Flood Re is not going to cover small and micro-businesses, what is the Government’s plan for them? Are we simply going to stand aside and see them washed away?
Thomas Docherty: May I wish you a warm and happy new year, Madam Deputy Speaker?
We have had a thoughtful and knowledgeable debate over the past hour and a half or so. I commend two Select Committee Chairmen and a former Minister for their remarks, even if we did not agree with every part of the former Minister’s interpretation of the past three and a half years.
Time is limited, so I hope the House will understand if I restrict my remarks to some of the new clauses. Unsurprisingly, the Opposition agree with the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee about SUDS. I am sure that, as a former member of that Committee, the Minister will agree with himself on the issue. The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), who chairs the Committee, was right to highlight the increasing burden being placed on a network that, in many cases, is struggling to cope. We have heard that the ability to cope with additional development is not always given the consideration that it needs. I hope that the Minister will reflect on the cross-party support on that point that the hon. Lady demonstrated.
There is a broad coalition of opinion on abstraction reform, to which the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) alluded, but it is not just made up of what he might describe as the usual suspects—the non-governmental organisations involved. That well known environmental organisation the Food and Drink Federation made a submission to the Public Bill Committee. We welcomed the Minister’s announcement in the Committee. It was disappointing that his colleagues chose to make it to the media before it was made to Parliament, but of course I assign no responsibility for that to him. We welcome the consultation, but we agree with the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee that it is long overdue.
I say to the hon. Member for Newbury that the Government certainly could not be accused of legislating in haste, because after almost four years we simply have not seen sufficient progress on abstraction reform. My hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) and I look forward as Ministers in the next Parliament to taking such legislation through with due speed, and we look forward to the support of Conservative Members.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, made an incredibly thoughtful and logical speech, and we support her new clause 6. We are clear
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that, as she said, this is not a debate about the merits and demerits of fracking technology. It is about trying to ensure that there are safeguards in place. Her constituency is still suffering the fallout from open-cast mining not having had sufficient guarantees in place, so I understand exactly where she is coming from.
Given that time is incredibly short I will bring my remarks to a conclusion, but it is clear that the other place will have an important job to do in the weeks ahead. A number of issues in this group of amendments—and indeed elsewhere—have not been addressed, and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) is right to say that we must consider Flood Re in some detail. With the greatest respect, the Opposition will not simply go along with the Government because they have come to a deal and say that that is good enough; we need more detail from Ministers. We look forward to the Bill making progress but we will, as I have suggested, press some amendments to a vote.
Dan Rogerson: In the time available I shall seek to respond to as many points as I can. The Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), has been a strong advocate of and campaigner for sustainable drainage over many years, and the Government are pressing ahead and implementing the requirement to secure approval for sustainable drainage systems for new developments under schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. Regrettably, it is looking increasingly unlikely that we will be in a position to ensure that the scheme comes into force this April, which was our preferred date for implementation as stated previously. I accept that that will be a great disappointment for the hon. Lady and other hon. Members, but I remain committed to introducing the legislation at the earliest opportunity. I plan to lay the relevant affirmative regulations by April, to underline the Government’s commitment to addressing flood risk.
I share the hon. Lady’s frustration that the process has been so protracted, but we are working with developers and local government to develop the processes, standards and guidance that are an integral part of a new SUDS approvals and adoption regime, rather than just imposing them. That takes time, but it is time well spent if the end result is an approach that is fair to all parties and successful from the outset because local government and developers are fully prepared to take on their respective new responsibilities.
Amendments 1, 2 and 3 address flooding on highways or that caused by the run-off from highways. The causes of flooding can be complex and it is difficult to make a general statement about them. There are already legislative powers to ensure that highway surface water drainage does not pollute or flood, and section 100 of the Highways Act 1980 enables the local highway authority to take action related to the drainage of highways—for example, it can construct drains or erect barriers on the highway or adjoining land to divert surface water into an existing drain.
The majority of new road drainage systems are not connected to the public sewerage system. Typically, they discharge under designated conditions, either to a watercourse or a storage pond with controlled exits to a watercourse, or alternatively soak into the ground in a designed manner. A decision to connect new highway
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surface water to a combined or foul public sewer can be made only subject to an agreement with the receiving water authority. There is no automatic right to connect new highway drainage to the public sewerage system. We recognise, however, that in some cases local flooding may be exacerbated by drainage from existing highways, and as I have said, the 2010 Act places a duty on lead local flood authorities to develop a local flood risk management strategy for their area. I hope hon. Members will be reassured by that.
Let me seek to address the points raised by the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee about flood insurance, and amendments 5, 6 and 7, which relate to small businesses. Flood Re has been specifically designed to recreate the current cross-subsidy in the domestic home insurance market. There is little evidence that the same type of cross-subsidy applies in the commercial insurance market, and the majority of business insurance policies are already priced to risk. A recent English business survey of more than 9,000 businesses in England found that fewer than 1% of businesses had experienced difficulty getting property insurance in the last year due to the risk of flooding, and that no businesses had been refused insurance cover due to such a risk.
As outlined by the Association of British Insurers in its evidence session, businesses tend not to face the systematic issues that householders experience. We must also remember that Flood Re is funded through a levy on all household insurance policies. We have deliberately set that at £10.50, which the ABI estimates is the same as the current cross-subsidy. Widening Flood Re to include small businesses would significantly increase costs. We do not want someone living in a council tax band A property, for example, to subsidise the cost of insuring a private company that potentially earns up to £1 million a year. I am also mindful of the need to comply with state aid rules. Government intervention to support business would be carefully scrutinised and at greater risk of rejection—I know the hon. Lady is familiar with that issue.
On flood insurance and amendment 8, which was tabled by the same group of hon. Members, we are clear that we are talking about a one-in-200-year annual loss, not a one-in-200-year flood event. If Flood Re is legally responsible for claims above a one-in-200-year level, the cost of the liability could be prohibitive. Likewise, if the Government took on a liability beyond a one-in-200-year level, we could expose the taxpayer to extremely large and unpredictable costs. In such a catastrophic situation, many more homes than would be insured by Flood Re are likely to be affected. That is why the memorandum of understanding says that the Government of the day would work with Flood Re and representatives of the insurance industry to decide how any available resources should be distributed to Flood Re customers if flooding exceeds such a level.
Government amendment 58 is a technical one. On the issues raised by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee—we discussed them in Committee—the Government remain convinced that the existing provisions would be helpful enough in terms of the checks on companies’ financial probity and their technical ability.
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However, she rightly raised issues that could be addressed following Lord Krebs’s intervention in his letter. I am pleased to hear her calling for things such as betterment, meaning better quality reinstatement, and more information to customers, for which Lord Krebs has also called. Many hon. Members would like to include that in discussions with the ABI.
On misconnections, the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr Love) is aware that local authorities currently have the power. We are not convinced that giving the power to companies would be helpful. His points are on the record and it is right that the Government take account of what he has said. I am happy to talk to him in future to see that we get the right response.
There is only a very little time for me to respond to all the points hon. Members have made on abstraction. My predecessor as Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), has rightly said that there is agreement in the House that we want progress. Action is taking place under the existing regime—the Environment Agency has changed 77 licences since 2008, returning around 75 billion litres of water per year—but we need to go much further. That is why we are consulting. The process is under way and will lead to legislation, hopefully with the support of all parties, to reform that complicated system. However, we need to do that properly. I do not believe it is appropriate to do it in the way suggested in the new clause.
Finally, Government amendments 55 to 57, which I have tabled, seek to clarify the resilience duty. We want to make it absolutely clear to hon. Members that we are covering environmental sustainability. I hope the changes we are making to the resilience duty will reassure hon. Members who believe that we need to elevate the sustainable development duty that we are looking at environmental resilience as well as social and economic resilience.
Miss McIntosh: We have had a good debate on Flood Re. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee wanted to flag up the point that the proposals do not reflect the value for money of other aspects of Government policy.
We have also had a good debate on abstraction, but the jury is out. The Bill would be a retrograde step if there is a severe drought between now and whenever the Government introduce provisions.
Obviously, both personally and on behalf of the Committee, I am disappointed that the SUDS provisions will not be in place. The House would wish to record its disappointment and the fact that, if the regulations will be introduced only in April, there is time before those who must apply them are in a position to do so.
However, mindful of the opportunities that hon. Members have had to debate the matter, and that the Bill must continue its passage, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
National affordability scheme
‘(1) The Secretary of State must, by order, introduce a National Affordability Scheme for water.
(2) The National Affordability Scheme must include an eligibility criteria, determined by the Secretary of State, in consultation with—
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(a) the Water Services Regulation Authority; and
(b) the Consumer Council for Water.
(3) An order under this section—
(a) shall be made by statutory instrument; and
(b) may not be made unless a draft of the order has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.’.—(Thomas Docherty.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
The House divided:
Ayes 216, Noes 291.
Division No. 166]
[
8.59 pm
AYES
Abbott, Ms Diane
Abrahams, Debbie
Ainsworth, rh Mr Bob
Alexander, Heidi
Ali, Rushanara
Allen, Mr Graham
Anderson, Mr David
Ashworth, Jonathan
Austin, Ian
Bailey, Mr Adrian
Bain, Mr William
Balls, rh Ed
Barron, rh Sir Kevin
Bayley, Hugh
Begg, Dame Anne
Benn, rh Hilary
Benton, Mr Joe
Berger, Luciana
Betts, Mr Clive
Blackman-Woods, Roberta
Blears, rh Hazel
Blomfield, Paul
Blunkett, rh Mr David
Bradshaw, rh Mr Ben
Brennan, Kevin
Brown, Lyn
Brown, rh Mr Nicholas
Brown, Mr Russell
Bryant, Chris
Burden, Richard
Burnham, rh Andy
Byrne, rh Mr Liam
Campbell, Mr Alan
Campbell, Mr Ronnie
Caton, Martin
Champion, Sarah
Chapman, Jenny
Clarke, rh Mr Tom
Clwyd, rh Ann
Coaker, Vernon
Connarty, Michael
Cooper, rh Yvette
Crausby, Mr David
Creagh, Mary
Creasy, Stella
Cruddas, Jon
Cryer, John
Cunningham, Alex
Cunningham, Mr Jim
Cunningham, Sir Tony
Curran, Margaret
Dakin, Nic
Danczuk, Simon
David, Wayne
Davidson, Mr Ian
Davies, Geraint
De Piero, Gloria
Denham, rh Mr John
Dobbin, Jim
Docherty, Thomas
Donohoe, Mr Brian H.
Doran, Mr Frank
Doughty, Stephen
Doyle, Gemma
Dugher, Michael
Eagle, Ms Angela
Eagle, Maria
Edwards, Jonathan
Efford, Clive
Elliott, Julie
Ellman, Mrs Louise
Esterson, Bill
Evans, Chris
Farrelly, Paul
Field, rh Mr Frank
Fitzpatrick, Jim
Flello, Robert
Flint, rh Caroline
Flynn, Paul
Fovargue, Yvonne
Francis, Dr Hywel
Gapes, Mike
Gardiner, Barry
Gilmore, Sheila
Glass, Pat
Glindon, Mrs Mary
Goodman, Helen
Greatrex, Tom
Green, Kate
Greenwood, Lilian
Griffith, Nia
Gwynne, Andrew
Hamilton, Mr David
Hamilton, Fabian
Hanson, rh Mr David
Harris, Mr Tom
Healey, rh John
Hendrick, Mark
Hepburn, Mr Stephen
Hilling, Julie
Hodgson, Mrs Sharon
Hoey, Kate
Hood, Mr Jim
Hopkins, Kelvin
Howarth, rh Mr George
Hunt, Tristram
Jackson, Glenda
Jarvis, Dan
Johnson, rh Alan
Johnson, Diana
Jones, Graham
Jones, Helen
Jones, Mr Kevan
Jones, Susan Elan
Kaufman, rh Sir Gerald
Keeley, Barbara
Kendall, Liz
Khan, rh Sadiq
Lammy, rh Mr David
Lavery, Ian
Lazarowicz, Mark
Leslie, Chris
Lewell-Buck, Mrs Emma
Lewis, Mr Ivan
Llwyd, rh Mr Elfyn
Love, Mr Andrew
Lucas, Caroline
Lucas, Ian
Mactaggart, Fiona
Mann, John
Marsden, Mr Gordon
McCabe, Steve
McCarthy, Kerry
McClymont, Gregg
McDonagh, Siobhain
McDonald, Andy
McDonnell, John
McFadden, rh Mr Pat
McGovern, Alison
McGovern, Jim
McKechin, Ann
McKenzie, Mr Iain
McKinnell, Catherine
Meacher, rh Mr Michael
Mearns, Ian
Miliband, rh Edward
Miller, Andrew
Mitchell, Austin
Moon, Mrs Madeleine
Morden, Jessica
Morrice, Graeme
(Livingston)
Morris, Grahame M.
(Easington)
Munn, Meg
Murphy, rh Mr Jim
Murray, Ian
Nandy, Lisa
Nash, Pamela
O'Donnell, Fiona
Onwurah, Chi
Owen, Albert
Pearce, Teresa
Perkins, Toby
Phillipson, Bridget
Pound, Stephen
Powell, Lucy
Qureshi, Yasmin
Raynsford, rh Mr Nick
Reed, Mr Jamie
Reed, Mr Steve
Reeves, Rachel
Reynolds, Emma
Reynolds, Jonathan
Robertson, John
Robinson, Mr Geoffrey
Rotheram, Steve
Roy, Mr Frank
Roy, Lindsay
Ruane, Chris
Ruddock, rh Dame Joan
Sarwar, Anas
Sawford, Andy
Seabeck, Alison
Sharma, Mr Virendra
Sheerman, Mr Barry
Sheridan, Jim
Shuker, Gavin
Simpson, David
Skinner, Mr Dennis
Slaughter, Mr Andy
Smith, rh Mr Andrew
Smith, Angela
Smith, Nick
Smith, Owen
Spellar, rh Mr John
Stringer, Graham
Stuart, Ms Gisela
Sutcliffe, Mr Gerry
Tami, Mark
Thornberry, Emily
Timms, rh Stephen
Trickett, Jon
Turner, Karl
Twigg, Derek
Twigg, Stephen
Vaz, rh Keith
Walley, Joan
Watts, Mr Dave
Whitehead, Dr Alan
Williams, Hywel
Williamson, Chris
Wilson, Phil
Winnick, Mr David
Winterton, rh Ms Rosie
Woodcock, John
Wright, David
Wright, Mr Iain
Tellers for the Ayes:
Tom Blenkinsop
and
Seema Malhotra
NOES
Adams, Nigel
Afriyie, Adam
Aldous, Peter
Amess, Mr David
Andrew, Stuart
Arbuthnot, rh Mr James
Baker, Norman
Baker, Steve
Baldry, rh Sir Tony
Baldwin, Harriett
Barker, rh Gregory
Bebb, Guto
Beith, rh Sir Alan
Bellingham, Mr Henry
Benyon, Richard
Beresford, Sir Paul
Berry, Jake
Bingham, Andrew
Binley, Mr Brian
Birtwistle, Gordon
Blackman, Bob
Blackwood, Nicola
Blunt, Mr Crispin
Boles, Nick
Bone, Mr Peter
Bottomley, Sir Peter
Bradley, Karen
Brady, Mr Graham
Brake, rh Tom
Bray, Angie
Brazier, Mr Julian
Bridgen, Andrew
Brine, Steve
Brokenshire, James
Brooke, Annette
Bruce, Fiona
Buckland, Mr Robert
Burley, Mr Aidan
Burns, Conor
Burrowes, Mr David
Burstow, rh Paul
Burt, rh Alistair
Burt, Lorely
Byles, Dan
Cable, rh Vince
Cairns, Alun
Campbell, rh Sir Menzies
Carmichael, rh Mr Alistair
Carmichael, Neil
Carswell, Mr Douglas
Cash, Mr William
Chishti, Rehman
Clappison, Mr James
Clark, rh Greg
Clarke, rh Mr Kenneth
Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey
Coffey, Dr Thérèse
Collins, Damian
Colvile, Oliver
Cox, Mr Geoffrey
Crabb, Stephen
Crockart, Mike
Crouch, Tracey
Davey, rh Mr Edward
Davies, David T. C.
(Monmouth)
Davies, Glyn
Davies, Philip
Dinenage, Caroline
Djanogly, Mr Jonathan
Doyle-Price, Jackie
Drax, Richard
Duddridge, James
Duncan, rh Mr Alan
Duncan Smith, rh Mr Iain
Ellis, Michael
Ellison, Jane
Ellwood, Mr Tobias
Elphicke, Charlie
Eustice, George
Evans, Graham
Evans, Jonathan
Evans, Mr Nigel
Evennett, Mr David
Fallon, rh Michael
Farron, Tim
Featherstone, Lynne
Field, Mark
Foster, rh Mr Don
Fox, rh Dr Liam
Freeman, George
Freer, Mike
Gale, Sir Roger
Garnier, Sir Edward
Garnier, Mark
Gauke, Mr David
George, Andrew
Gibb, Mr Nick
Gilbert, Stephen
Glen, John
Goodwill, Mr Robert
Graham, Richard
Grayling, rh Chris
Green, rh Damian
Greening, rh Justine
Griffiths, Andrew
Gyimah, Mr Sam
Halfon, Robert
Hammond, Stephen
Hancock, Matthew
Harper, Mr Mark
Harrington, Richard
Harris, Rebecca
Hart, Simon
Harvey, Sir Nick
Haselhurst, rh Sir Alan
Hayes, rh Mr John
Heald, Oliver
Heath, Mr David
Heaton-Harris, Chris
Hemming, John
Henderson, Gordon
Hendry, Charles
Hinds, Damian
Hoban, Mr Mark
Hollingbery, George
Hollobone, Mr Philip
Hopkins, Kris
Howarth, Sir Gerald
Howell, John
Hughes, rh Simon
Hunt, rh Mr Jeremy
Huppert, Dr Julian
Hurd, Mr Nick
Jackson, Mr Stewart
James, Margot
Jenkin, Mr Bernard
Johnson, Gareth
Johnson, Joseph
Jones, Andrew
Jones, rh Mr David
Jones, Mr Marcus
Kelly, Chris
Kennedy, rh Mr Charles
Kirby, Simon
Knight, rh Sir Greg
Kwarteng, Kwasi
Lamb, Norman
Lancaster, Mark
Lansley, rh Mr Andrew
Laws, rh Mr David
Leadsom, Andrea
Lee, Jessica
Lee, Dr Phillip
Lefroy, Jeremy
Leigh, Sir Edward
Leslie, Charlotte
Lewis, Brandon
Lewis, Dr Julian
Lidington, rh Mr David
Lilley, rh Mr Peter
Lloyd, Stephen
Lord, Jonathan
Loughton, Tim
Lumley, Karen
Macleod, Mary
Main, Mrs Anne
Maude, rh Mr Francis
Maynard, Paul
McCartney, Jason
McCartney, Karl
McIntosh, Miss Anne
McLoughlin, rh Mr Patrick
McPartland, Stephen
McVey, Esther
Menzies, Mark
Metcalfe, Stephen
Miller, rh Maria
Mills, Nigel
Milton, Anne
Mitchell, rh Mr Andrew
Moore, rh Michael
Mordaunt, Penny
Morgan, Nicky
Morris, Anne Marie
Morris, David
Morris, James
Mosley, Stephen
Mowat, David
Mulholland, Greg
Mundell, rh David
Munt, Tessa
Murray, Sheryll
Murrison, Dr Andrew
Neill, Robert
Newmark, Mr Brooks
Newton, Sarah
Nokes, Caroline
Norman, Jesse
Nuttall, Mr David
O'Brien, rh Mr Stephen
Offord, Dr Matthew
Ollerenshaw, Eric
Ottaway, rh Sir Richard
Parish, Neil
Patel, Priti
Pawsey, Mark
Penning, Mike
Penrose, John
Percy, Andrew
Perry, Claire
Pickles, rh Mr Eric
Pincher, Christopher
Poulter, Dr Daniel
Prisk, Mr Mark
Pugh, John
Raab, Mr Dominic
Redwood, rh Mr John
Rees-Mogg, Jacob
Reid, Mr Alan
Robathan, rh Mr Andrew
Robertson, Mr Laurence
Rogerson, Dan
Rosindell, Andrew
Rudd, Amber
Ruffley, Mr David
Russell, Sir Bob
Rutley, David
Sanders, Mr Adrian
Sandys, Laura
Scott, Mr Lee
Selous, Andrew
Sharma, Alok
Shelbrooke, Alec
Simpson, Mr Keith
Smith, Chloe
Smith, Henry
Smith, Julian
Smith, Sir Robert
Soames, rh Nicholas
Soubry, Anna
Spelman, rh Mrs Caroline
Spencer, Mr Mark
Stephenson, Andrew
Stevenson, John
Stewart, Bob
Stewart, Iain
Stewart, Rory
Streeter, Mr Gary
Stuart, Mr Graham
Stunell, rh Sir Andrew
Sturdy, Julian
Swales, Ian
Swayne, rh Mr Desmond
Swire, rh Mr Hugo
Syms, Mr Robert
Thornton, Mike
Thurso, John
Timpson, Mr Edward
Tomlinson, Justin
Tredinnick, David
Truss, Elizabeth
Turner, Mr Andrew
Tyrie, Mr Andrew
Uppal, Paul
Vaizey, Mr Edward
Vickers, Martin
Walker, Mr Charles
Walker, Mr Robin
Walter, Mr Robert
Ward, Mr David
Watkinson, Dame Angela
Weatherley, Mike
Webb, Steve
Wharton, James
Wheeler, Heather
White, Chris
Whittaker, Craig
Whittingdale, Mr John
Wiggin, Bill
Willetts, rh Mr David
Williams, Roger
Williams, Stephen
Williamson, Gavin
Willott, Jenny
Wilson, Mr Rob
Wollaston, Dr Sarah
Wright, Jeremy
Wright, Simon
Yeo, Mr Tim
Young, rh Sir George
Zahawi, Nadhim
Tellers for the Noes:
Mark Hunter
and
Gavin Barwell
Question accordingly negatived.
6 Jan 2014 : Column 114
6 Jan 2014 : Column 115
6 Jan 2014 : Column 116
9.12 pm
Proceedings interrupted (Programme Order, 25 November 2013).
The Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Standing Order No. 83E).
6 Jan 2014 : Column 117
Duties of undertakers to furnish the Secretary of State with information: annual review
‘(1) Section 202 of the Water Industry Act 1991 (duties to undertakers to furnish the Secretary of State with information) is amended as follows.
(2) After subsection (1A) there is inserted—
“(1B) Any company with a duty under subsections (1) and (1A) must furnish the Secretary of State and the Authority with an annual review which provides information about—
(b) the total amount of investment;
(d) their corporate structure; and
(e) the total amount of dividends paid to shareholders.
(1C) Information under subsection (1B) must be provided prior to the publication of the annual statement of the Secretary of State under section 2A.”.’.—(Thomas Docherty.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
The House divided:
Ayes 218, Noes 289.
Division No. 167]
[
9.13 pm
AYES
Abbott, Ms Diane
Abrahams, Debbie
Ainsworth, rh Mr Bob
Alexander, Heidi
Ali, Rushanara
Allen, Mr Graham
Anderson, Mr David
Ashworth, Jonathan
Austin, Ian
Bailey, Mr Adrian
Bain, Mr William
Balls, rh Ed
Barron, rh Sir Kevin
Bayley, Hugh
Begg, Dame Anne
Benn, rh Hilary
Benton, Mr Joe
Berger, Luciana
Betts, Mr Clive
Blackman-Woods, Roberta
Blears, rh Hazel
Blomfield, Paul
Blunkett, rh Mr David
Bradshaw, rh Mr Ben
Brennan, Kevin
Brown, Lyn
Brown, rh Mr Nicholas
Brown, Mr Russell
Bryant, Chris
Burden, Richard
Burnham, rh Andy
Byrne, rh Mr Liam
Campbell, Mr Alan
Campbell, Mr Ronnie
Caton, Martin
Champion, Sarah
Chapman, Jenny
Clarke, rh Mr Tom
Clwyd, rh Ann
Coaker, Vernon
Connarty, Michael
Cooper, rh Yvette
Crausby, Mr David
Creagh, Mary
Creasy, Stella
Cruddas, Jon
Cryer, John
Cunningham, Alex
Cunningham, Mr Jim
Cunningham, Sir Tony
Curran, Margaret
Dakin, Nic
Danczuk, Simon
David, Wayne
Davidson, Mr Ian
Davies, Geraint
De Piero, Gloria
Denham, rh Mr John
Dobbin, Jim
Docherty, Thomas
Donohoe, Mr Brian H.
Doran, Mr Frank
Doughty, Stephen
Doyle, Gemma
Dugher, Michael
Durkan, Mark
Eagle, Ms Angela
Eagle, Maria
Edwards, Jonathan
Efford, Clive
Elliott, Julie
Ellman, Mrs Louise
Esterson, Bill
Evans, Chris
Farrelly, Paul
Field, rh Mr Frank
Fitzpatrick, Jim
Flello, Robert
Flint, rh Caroline
Flynn, Paul
Fovargue, Yvonne
Francis, Dr Hywel
Gapes, Mike
Gardiner, Barry
Gilmore, Sheila
Glass, Pat
Glindon, Mrs Mary
Goodman, Helen
Greatrex, Tom
Green, Kate
Greenwood, Lilian
Griffith, Nia
Gwynne, Andrew
Hamilton, Mr David
Hamilton, Fabian
Hanson, rh Mr David
Harris, Mr Tom
Healey, rh John
Hendrick, Mark
Hepburn, Mr Stephen
Hilling, Julie
Hodgson, Mrs Sharon
Hoey, Kate
Hood, Mr Jim
Hopkins, Kelvin
Howarth, rh Mr George
Hunt, Tristram
Jackson, Glenda
Jarvis, Dan
Johnson, rh Alan
Johnson, Diana
Jones, Graham
Jones, Helen
Jones, Mr Kevan
Jones, Susan Elan
Kaufman, rh Sir Gerald
Keeley, Barbara
Kendall, Liz
Khan, rh Sadiq
Lammy, rh Mr David
Lavery, Ian
Lazarowicz, Mark
Leslie, Chris
Lewell-Buck, Mrs Emma
Lewis, Mr Ivan
Llwyd, rh Mr Elfyn
Love, Mr Andrew
Lucas, Caroline
Lucas, Ian
Mactaggart, Fiona
Mann, John
Marsden, Mr Gordon
McCabe, Steve
McCarthy, Kerry
McClymont, Gregg
McDonagh, Siobhain
McDonald, Andy
McDonnell, John
McFadden, rh Mr Pat
McGovern, Alison
McGovern, Jim
McKechin, Ann
McKenzie, Mr Iain
McKinnell, Catherine
Meacher, rh Mr Michael
Mearns, Ian
Miller, Andrew
Mitchell, Austin
Moon, Mrs Madeleine
Morden, Jessica
Morrice, Graeme
(Livingston)
Morris, Grahame M.
(Easington)
Munn, Meg
Murphy, rh Mr Jim
Murray, Ian
Nandy, Lisa
Nash, Pamela
O'Donnell, Fiona
Onwurah, Chi
Owen, Albert
Pearce, Teresa
Percy, Andrew
Perkins, Toby
Phillipson, Bridget
Pound, Stephen
Powell, Lucy
Qureshi, Yasmin
Raynsford, rh Mr Nick
Reed, Mr Jamie
Reed, Mr Steve
Reeves, Rachel
Reynolds, Emma
Reynolds, Jonathan
Ritchie, Ms Margaret
Robertson, John
Robinson, Mr Geoffrey
Rotheram, Steve
Roy, Mr Frank
Roy, Lindsay
Ruane, Chris
Ruddock, rh Dame Joan
Sarwar, Anas
Sawford, Andy
Seabeck, Alison
Sharma, Mr Virendra
Sheerman, Mr Barry
Sheridan, Jim
Shuker, Gavin
Simpson, David
Skinner, Mr Dennis
Slaughter, Mr Andy
Smith, rh Mr Andrew
Smith, Angela
Smith, Nick
Smith, Owen
Spellar, rh Mr John
Stringer, Graham
Stuart, Ms Gisela
Sutcliffe, Mr Gerry
Tami, Mark
Thornberry, Emily
Timms, rh Stephen
Trickett, Jon
Turner, Karl
Twigg, Derek
Twigg, Stephen
Vaz, rh Keith
Walley, Joan
Watts, Mr Dave
Whitehead, Dr Alan
Williams, Hywel
Williamson, Chris
Wilson, Phil
Winnick, Mr David
Winterton, rh Ms Rosie
Woodcock, John
Wright, David
Wright, Mr Iain
Tellers for the Ayes:
Tom Blenkinsop
and
Seema Malhotra
NOES
Adams, Nigel
Afriyie, Adam
Aldous, Peter
Amess, Mr David
Andrew, Stuart
Arbuthnot, rh Mr James
Baker, Norman
Baker, Steve
Baldry, rh Sir Tony
Baldwin, Harriett
Barker, rh Gregory
Barwell, Gavin
Bebb, Guto
Beith, rh Sir Alan
Bellingham, Mr Henry
Benyon, Richard
Beresford, Sir Paul
Berry, Jake
Bingham, Andrew
Binley, Mr Brian
Birtwistle, Gordon
Blackman, Bob
Blackwood, Nicola
Blunt, Mr Crispin
Boles, Nick
Bone, Mr Peter
Bottomley, Sir Peter
Bradley, Karen
Brady, Mr Graham
Brake, rh Tom
Bray, Angie
Brazier, Mr Julian
Bridgen, Andrew
Brine, Steve
Brokenshire, James
Brooke, Annette
Bruce, Fiona
Buckland, Mr Robert
Burley, Mr Aidan
Burns, Conor
Burrowes, Mr David
Burstow, rh Paul
Burt, rh Alistair
Burt, Lorely
Byles, Dan
Cable, rh Vince
Cairns, Alun
Campbell, rh Sir Menzies
Carmichael, rh Mr Alistair
Carmichael, Neil
Carswell, Mr Douglas
Cash, Mr William
Chishti, Rehman
Clappison, Mr James
Clark, rh Greg
Clarke, rh Mr Kenneth
Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey
Coffey, Dr Thérèse
Collins, Damian
Colvile, Oliver
Cox, Mr Geoffrey
Crabb, Stephen
Crockart, Mike
Crouch, Tracey
Davey, rh Mr Edward
Davies, David T. C.
(Monmouth)
Davies, Glyn
Davies, Philip
Dinenage, Caroline
Djanogly, Mr Jonathan
Doyle-Price, Jackie
Drax, Richard
Duddridge, James
Duncan, rh Mr Alan
Duncan Smith, rh Mr Iain
Ellis, Michael
Ellison, Jane
Ellwood, Mr Tobias
Elphicke, Charlie
Eustice, George
Evans, Graham
Evans, Jonathan
Evans, Mr Nigel
Evennett, Mr David
Fallon, rh Michael
Farron, Tim
Featherstone, Lynne
Field, Mark
Foster, rh Mr Don
Fox, rh Dr Liam
Freeman, George
Freer, Mike
Gale, Sir Roger
Garnier, Sir Edward
Garnier, Mark
Gauke, Mr David
George, Andrew
Gibb, Mr Nick
Gilbert, Stephen
Glen, John
Goodwill, Mr Robert
Graham, Richard
Grayling, rh Chris
Green, rh Damian
Greening, rh Justine
Griffiths, Andrew
Gyimah, Mr Sam
Halfon, Robert
Hammond, Stephen
Hancock, Matthew
Harper, Mr Mark
Harrington, Richard
Harris, Rebecca
Hart, Simon
Harvey, Sir Nick
Haselhurst, rh Sir Alan
Hayes, rh Mr John
Heald, Oliver
Heath, Mr David
Heaton-Harris, Chris
Hemming, John
Henderson, Gordon
Hendry, Charles
Hinds, Damian
Hoban, Mr Mark
Hollingbery, George
Hollobone, Mr Philip
Hopkins, Kris
Howarth, Sir Gerald
Howell, John
Hughes, rh Simon
Hunt, rh Mr Jeremy
Huppert, Dr Julian
Hurd, Mr Nick
Jackson, Mr Stewart
James, Margot
Jenkin, Mr Bernard
Johnson, Gareth
Johnson, Joseph
Jones, Andrew
Jones, rh Mr David
Jones, Mr Marcus
Kelly, Chris
Kennedy, rh Mr Charles
Kirby, Simon
Knight, rh Sir Greg
Kwarteng, Kwasi
Lamb, Norman
Lancaster, Mark
Lansley, rh Mr Andrew
Laws, rh Mr David
Leadsom, Andrea
Lee, Jessica
Lee, Dr Phillip
Lefroy, Jeremy
Leigh, Sir Edward
Leslie, Charlotte
Lewis, Brandon
Lewis, Dr Julian
Lidington, rh Mr David
Lilley, rh Mr Peter
Lloyd, Stephen
Lord, Jonathan
Loughton, Tim
Lumley, Karen
Macleod, Mary
Main, Mrs Anne
Maude, rh Mr Francis
Maynard, Paul
McCartney, Jason
McCartney, Karl
McIntosh, Miss Anne
McLoughlin, rh Mr Patrick
McPartland, Stephen
McVey, Esther
Menzies, Mark
Metcalfe, Stephen
Miller, rh Maria
Mills, Nigel
Milton, Anne
Mitchell, rh Mr Andrew
Moore, rh Michael
Mordaunt, Penny
Morgan, Nicky
Morris, Anne Marie
Morris, David
Morris, James
Mosley, Stephen
Mowat, David
Mundell, rh David
Munt, Tessa
Murray, Sheryll
Murrison, Dr Andrew
Neill, Robert
Newmark, Mr Brooks
Newton, Sarah
Nokes, Caroline
Norman, Jesse
Nuttall, Mr David
O'Brien, rh Mr Stephen
Offord, Dr Matthew
Ollerenshaw, Eric
Ottaway, rh Sir Richard
Parish, Neil
Patel, Priti
Pawsey, Mark
Penning, Mike
Penrose, John
Perry, Claire
Pickles, rh Mr Eric
Pincher, Christopher
Poulter, Dr Daniel
Prisk, Mr Mark
Pugh, John
Raab, Mr Dominic
Redwood, rh Mr John
Rees-Mogg, Jacob
Reid, Mr Alan
Robathan, rh Mr Andrew
Robertson, Mr Laurence
Rogerson, Dan
Rosindell, Andrew
Ruffley, Mr David
Russell, Sir Bob
Rutley, David
Sanders, Mr Adrian
Sandys, Laura
Scott, Mr Lee
Selous, Andrew
Sharma, Alok
Shelbrooke, Alec
Simpson, Mr Keith
Smith, Chloe
Smith, Henry
Smith, Julian
Smith, Sir Robert
Soames, rh Nicholas
Soubry, Anna
Spelman, rh Mrs Caroline
Spencer, Mr Mark
Stephenson, Andrew
Stevenson, John
Stewart, Bob
Stewart, Iain
Stewart, Rory
Streeter, Mr Gary
Stuart, Mr Graham
Stunell, rh Sir Andrew
Sturdy, Julian
Swales, Ian
Swayne, rh Mr Desmond
Swire, rh Mr Hugo
Syms, Mr Robert
Thornton, Mike
Thurso, John
Timpson, Mr Edward
Tomlinson, Justin
Tredinnick, David
Truss, Elizabeth
Turner, Mr Andrew
Tyrie, Mr Andrew
Uppal, Paul
Vaizey, Mr Edward
Vickers, Martin
Walker, Mr Charles
Walker, Mr Robin
Walter, Mr Robert
Ward, Mr David
Watkinson, Dame Angela
Weatherley, Mike
Webb, Steve
Wharton, James
Wheeler, Heather
White, Chris
Whittaker, Craig
Whittingdale, Mr John
Wiggin, Bill
Willetts, rh Mr David
Williams, Roger
Williams, Stephen
Williamson, Gavin
Willott, Jenny
Wilson, Mr Rob
Wollaston, Dr Sarah
Wright, Jeremy
Wright, Simon
Yeo, Mr Tim
Young, rh Sir George
Zahawi, Nadhim
Tellers for the Noes:
Mark Hunter
and
Amber Rudd
Question accordingly negatived.
6 Jan 2014 : Column 118
6 Jan 2014 : Column 119
6 Jan 2014 : Column 120
6 Jan 2014 : Column 121
Arrangements for water undertakers to take water from other persons
Amendment made: 13, page 48, line 8, after ‘213’, insert ‘(2) to (2B)’.—(Dan Rogerson.)
Amendments made: 55, page 63, line 25, leave out ‘against’ and insert ‘regards’.
Amendment 56, page 63, line 32, after ‘resources’ insert ‘in sustainable ways’.
Amendment 57, page 63, line 32, after ‘demand’ insert
‘for water so as to reduce pressure on water resources’.—
(Dan Rogerson.)
Standards of performance: water supply
Amendments made: 14, page 69, line 42, after ‘retail authorisations’, insert ‘or restricted retail authorisations’.
Amendment 15, page 69, line 42, leave out ‘Secretary of State’ and insert ‘Minister’.
Amendment 16, page 70, line 3, leave out ‘Secretary of State’ and insert ‘Minister’.
Amendment 17, page 70, line 6, leave out ‘Secretary of State’ and insert ‘Minister’.
Amendment 18, page 70, line 8, leave out ‘Secretary of State’s’ and insert ‘Minister’s’.
Amendment 19, page 70, line 31, at end insert—
(a) the Secretary of State, in relation to supplies of water made in accordance with a retail authorisation;(b) the Welsh Ministers, in relation to supplies of water made in accordance with a restricted retail authorisation;
“prescribed” means prescribed by regulations made by the Minister.”.’.
Amendment 20, page 70, line 47, leave out ‘prescribed’ and insert ‘specified in the direction’.
Amendment 21, page 71, leave out lines 16 to 18 and insert—
‘(2) In the application of section 39 by virtue of subsection (1)—
(a) a reference to a water undertaker is to be treated as a reference to a water supply licensee, and
(b) a reference to the Secretary of State is to be treated as a reference to the Minister (as defined in section 38ZA(6)).
(3) Regulations under section 38ZA are to be made by statutory instrument.
(4) A statutory instrument containing regulations under section 38ZA is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of—
(a) either House of Parliament, in the case of regulations made by the Secretary of State;
6 Jan 2014 : Column 122
(b) the National Assembly for Wales, in the case of regulations made by the Welsh Ministers.
(5) Section 213(2) to (2B) applies to regulations made by the Welsh Ministers under section 38ZA as it applies to regulations made by the Secretary of State.”’.—(Dan Rogerson.)
Standards of performance: sewerage
Amendment made: 22, page 72, line 31, leave out ‘prescribed’ and insert ‘specified in the direction’.—(Dan Rogerson.)
Expenses of relevant bodies
Amendment made: 58, page 115, line 34, leave out ‘relevant insurers’ and insert
‘insurers of a description specified in the regulations’.—(Dan Rogerson.)
Transitional, transitory or saving provision
Amendment made: 59, page 123, line 20, at end insert—
‘( ) Schedule (Orders under section77: further provision) (further provision about orders under this section) has effect.’.—(Dan Rogerson.)
Orders under section 77: further provision
Introductory
1 (1) The provision that may be made by an order under section 77 (“a section 77 order”) includes such provision as is mentioned in this Schedule.
(2) Nothing in this Schedule affects the generality of section 77.
New retail authorisations and the threshold requirement
2 (1) A section 77 order may make provision for the threshold requirement (see section 17D of the Water Industry Act 1991) to have effect for a relevant period in relation to the supply of water to any premises, where the supply to those premises is made in connection with the introduction of water into the supply system of a water undertaker under a new wholesale authorisation.
(2) Provision under sub-paragraph (1) may in particular include such modifications of Schedule 2A to the Water Industry Act 1991 (forms of authorisations given by water supply licences) as appear to the Secretary of State to be appropriate.
Modifications relating to new wholesale authorisations
3 (1) Where a section 77 order makes provision as regards new wholesale authorisations, that provision may include provision for provisions of the Water Industry Act 1991 to have effect for a relevant period with such modifications as appear to the Secretary of State to be appropriate.
(2) Provision under sub-paragraph (1) may include provision for applying old provisions of the Water Industry Act 1991 with such modifications as appear to the Secretary of State to be appropriate.
(3) Provision under sub-paragraph (2) may in particular provide for the application of provision in old section 66D(2) to (8) for the purpose of determining—
(b) the terms and conditions on which,
6 Jan 2014 : Column 123
a water undertaker’s duties under new section 66B or 66C are to be performed.
(4) Provision under sub-paragraph (2) may in particular provide for the application of provision in old section 66E for the purpose of determining charges payable in respect of the performance of a water undertaker’s duties under new section 66B or 66C.
(5) Provision under sub-paragraph (1) may in particular make provision about the interpretation of references to a water undertaker’s supply system, including in particular provision for such references to be treated as references to the supply system of a water undertaker as it is described in old section 17B.
(6) Provision under sub-paragraph (1) may provide for modifications to have effect for different relevant periods.
(7) Provision under sub-paragraph (1) may make provision—
(a) in relation to new wholesale authorisations that authorise the introduction of water into the supply system of a water undertaker whose area is wholly or mainly in England,
(b) in relation to new wholesale authorisations that authorise the introduction of water into the supply system of a water undertaker whose area is wholly or mainly in Wales, or
(c) in relation to new wholesale authorisations that authorise the introduction of water into the supply system of any water undertaker.
(8) Before making provision falling within sub-paragraph (7)(b) or (c), the Secretary of State must consult the Welsh Ministers.
Modifications relating to new supplementary authorisations
4 (1) Where a section 77 order makes provision as regards new supplementary authorisations, that provision may include provision for provisions of the Water Industry Act 1991 to have effect for a relevant period with such modifications as appear to the Secretary of State to be appropriate.
(2) Provision under sub-paragraph (1) may include provision for applying old provisions of the Water Industry Act 1991 with such modifications as appear to the Secretary of State to be appropriate.
(3) Provision under sub-paragraph (2) may in particular provide for the application of provision in old section 66D(2) to (8) for the purpose of determining—
(b) the terms and conditions on which,
a water undertaker’s duties under new section 66B or 66C are to be performed.
(4) Provision under sub-paragraph (2) may in particular provide for the application of provision in old section 66E for the purpose of determining charges payable in respect of the performance of a water undertaker’s duties under new section 66B or 66C.
(5) Provision under sub-paragraph (1) may provide for modifications to have effect for different relevant periods.
(6) Before making provision under this paragraph, the Secretary of State must consult the Welsh Ministers.
Old section 66D agreements and new water supply licences
5 (1) A section 77 order may include provision for securing that an old section 66D agreement continues to have effect in a case where the person who entered into the agreement as the holder of an old water supply licence is granted a new water supply licence.
(2) Provision under sub-paragraph (1) may provide for the modification of the agreement and may in particular include—
(a) provision for treating a reference in the agreement to the old water supply licence as reference to the new water supply licence;
(b) provision for treating a reference in the agreement to an authorisation given under the old licence as a reference to an authorisation or authorisations given under the new licence;
6 Jan 2014 : Column 124
(c) provision for the Water Services Regulation Authority to vary the agreement by order, on application by a party to the agreement.
(3) Before making provision under this paragraph in relation to old section 66D agreements to which a water undertaker whose area is wholly or mainly in Wales is party, the Secretary of State must consult the Welsh Ministers.
New section 66E and old section 66D agreements
6 (1) A section 77 order may provide for new section 66E (rules about charges that may be imposed under a section 66D agreement) to have effect for a relevant period as regards—
(a) charges payable under old section 66D agreements, or
(b) specified descriptions of charges payable under old section 66D agreements.
(2) Provision under sub-paragraph (1) may include provision for making such modifications of—
(a) new sections 66E to 66ED, and
(b) old sections 66A to 66D and 66F,
as appear to the Secretary of State to be appropriate.
(3) Provision under sub-paragraph (1) may provide for the modification of old section 66D agreements and may in particular include provision for the Water Services Regulation Authority to vary the agreement by order, on application by a party to the agreement.
(4) Before making provision under this paragraph in relation to the supply of water using the supply system of a water undertaker whose area is wholly or mainly in Wales, the Secretary of State must consult the Welsh Ministers.
Interpretation
“new restricted retail authorisation” means a restricted retail authorisation given by a new water supply licence;
“new retail authorisation” means a retail authorisation given by a new water supply licence;
“new supplementary authorisation” means a supplementary authorisation given by a new water supply licence;
“new water supply licence” means a water supply licence granted under new section 17A;
“new wholesale authorisation” means a wholesale authorisation given by a new water supply licence;
“old section 66D agreement” means such agreement or determination as is mentioned in old section 66D(3);
“old water supply licence” means a water supply licence granted under old section 17A.
(2) In this Schedule “relevant period” means—
(a) a period specified in or determined in accordance with a section 77 order, or
(i) begins at a time specified in or determined in accordance with a section77 order, and
(ii) ends at such time as the Secretary of State may specify by order.
(3) Before making provision under sub-paragraph (2)(a) or (b)(i) or making an order under sub-paragraph (2)(b)(ii) that affects provision to which paragraph 3(8), 4(6) or 6(4) applies, the Secretary of State must consult the Welsh Ministers.
(4) In this Schedule a reference to an old provision is a reference to a provision of the Water Industry Act 1991 as it has effect before the coming into force of an amendment or repeal of that provision made by this Act.
(5) In this Schedule a reference to a new provision is a reference to—
(a) a provision of the Water Industry Act 1991 after an amendment of that provision made by this Act has come into force, or
(b) a provision of the Water Industry Act 1991 inserted by this Act.’.—(Dan Rogerson.)
Brought up, and added to the Bill.