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
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 interesting 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
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.