Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), who as Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee obviously speaks with great authority on such matters. As one of her vice-chairs on the all-party parliamentary group on local environmental quality, I am used to following her—I have certainly done so for the past couple of years. Perhaps in future I will get ahead of her, but that is something to hope for. I shall not speak for long. I want to raise two issues, the first of which is the Thames tideway tunnel and how it will impact on my constituency. I am grateful to the Minister, who has responsibility for the natural environment and fisheries, for the letter he sent to London MPs yesterday to explain how the Bill will help. The second issue relates to water for fire sprinkler systems, which we have discussed before. It could be referred to in the Water Industry Act 1991, which the Bill amends. This might be a missed opportunity to amend the Act further to deal with that issue. I shall deal with the constituency matter first. As a former Minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and a former Minister for London, I am familiar with the challenges facing the Government in dealing with the problem of massive sewage discharges into the Thames. Since the formation of the coalition Government, all the political parties, as well as the Select Committee, have considered the matter and concluded that something needs to be done. In my constituency, Thames Water's original plans would have taken nearly all of King Edward memorial park, which, given the population density, is one of the very few green open spaces in Tower Hamlets in east London. Not surprisingly, the plans caused considerable outrage—and that hostility continues today—and it led to the formation of the Save King Edward Memorial Park campaign. It comprises local residents, freeholders, leaseholders, council and social tenants, and residents from the new expensive blocks on the river as well as from the established estates and nearby. All were determined to protect the park from being destroyed by Thames Water. I pay tribute not only to the campaign officers but to all residents, local councillors and officers of Tower Hamlets council, as well as to the local papers, the East London Advertiser and The Wharf, for the campaign to save the park. The campaign officers are Carl Dunsire, Emma Dunsire, Robin Milward, Toni Davey, Mahbub Mamun Alam, Raihan Islam and Mark Baynes. They have all done an excellent job bringing the community together and lobbying Thames Water and myself—and I have been in discussions with DEFRA, so the campaign has clearly made an impact. Local celebrities, including Sir Ian McKellen, Lee Hurst and Helen Mirren—to name but a few—have also registered their support. I must also pay tribute and give credit to Thames Water. That will not go down well in the constituency because it is still regarded pretty much as the enemy, but to its credit, it has engaged with us, understood and several times changed its plans for King Edward memorial park. Mr Phil Stride and his team deserve credit for that. Some months ago, Thames Water also engaged as a consultant our former colleague, Mr Martin Salter, the former Reading MP. That has helped the consultation process with local residents. Also, I recently chaired a constituency public meeting to which more than 100 people turned up. The Save KEMP campaign, which, as well as local residents, comprises people of professional standing—for example, Carl Dunsire is an engineer—identified an alternative brownfield site on Heckford street. That proposal was put to Thames Water a considerable time ago, and since then the company has floated it as a secondary option. Having said that, the company's preferred option remains to build out on to the river from the foreshore of King Edward memorial park, rather than in the park. John Biggs, the Greater London assembly member for east London, and I wrote to Thames Water this week seeking the latest consideration of the two options and the costings. Heckford might be slightly more expensive but given the disruption to the local community, the support for the project and everything else, if the costs were equitable, the local community would be strongly in favour of Heckford.