My Lords, noble Lords have made some important contributions in this debate. I would like to start by thanking the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, for his clear and helpful introduction on Monday evening to his Amendments 162 and 163. As we heard from the noble Duke, these two amendments would embed within drainage and sewerage management plans the requirement to continually improve the sewerage system and reduce the harm caused by wastewater management.
The noble Duke also talked about the importance of improving systems annually, while recognising that the upgrades needed to our drainage and sewerage systems constitute a serious level of investment. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, has just said, both the Treasury and Ofwat will have an important role to pay, but as the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, rightly pointed out, this will be a green investment, with an immediate benefit for the environment and for all wildlife. My noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone mentioned the lack of investment over many years; I thought her example of the difference she noticed between England and Scotland when she moved here was really quite striking.
Amendments 162A and 163A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, consider the importance of the new drainage and sewerage management plans to deliver environmental benefits. The noble Lord referred to the dramatic rise in planned housing provision—other noble Lords have mentioned this—and to how important it is that drainage and sewerage plans actually work. His amendment is designed to work not only for customers but for the environment. As he said in his introduction, nature-based solutions should be a compulsory part of the planning system.
Amendment 164, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, would end the automatic right to connect, enabling water companies to decline new connections to the sewerage system where this would cause environmental harm. His introduction, and the wider debate, have shown support for resolving this situation.
In the previous group, on Monday, we debated the Government’s new Amendment 165, on storm overflows. As we heard, this followed the huge support for the proposals contained within Philip Dunne’s Sewage (Inland Waters) Bill in the other place. This is welcome, yet, as my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch laid out, government Amendment 165 falls far short of the ambition of the Private Member’s Bill, which is why the amendments we are debating in this group are necessary and why we support them.
We strongly support putting drainage and wastewater management plans on to a statutory footing. However, within the Bill, we have two particular concerns. First, the Bill confusingly refers to
“Drainage and sewerage management plans”,
despite Defra and the industry jointly working on “drainage and wastewater management plans” for many years, and companies already publishing plans with that name. We do not consider this to be a minor point, because the terms “sewerage” and “wastewater” are not interchangeable; “sewerage” has a narrower meaning that excludes many sources of contamination that enters rivers. If drainage plans are to be successful, all areas of contamination must be included.
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Also, the Bill places obligations on water companies only for something that they are already doing. This does not reflect the scale of the challenge from climate change, or that drainage is universally recognised to be a shared responsibility, with other organisations also responsible for managing surface water. As written,
the plans will exclude significant bodies involved in drainage and eliminate much of the potential benefits that customers, society and the environment could otherwise gain. While water companies will lead the production of DWMPs, and are already committing significant resources in carrying out this role, it is a fundamental feature of drainage and wastewater planning that water companies cannot do this in isolation, because drainage is shared with other risk management authorities, as defined in the Flood and Water Management Act 2010.
There are, for example, large numbers of drainage assets that are not under the ownership of water companies, the management of which needs to be integrated into DWMPs. This has been recognised by the National Infrastructure Commission in its recommendation that
“water companies and local authorities should work together to publish joint plans to manage surface water flood risk by 2022.”
Therefore, we need to see within the Environment Bill that all other flood risk management authorities will have a duty to co-operate in the production of DWMPs. There should also be the ability to require other flood risk management authorities to provide any information needed for their production. It would be helpful if regional flood and coastal committees were statutory consultees for DWMPs.
I turn to Amendments 175 and 175A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. The use of grey water systems, blue-green flood risk management systems and other nature-based solutions would keep excess surface water out of sewers. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, talked about why we need to consider rainwater more when we look at our water usage, but also the involvement of catchment partnerships would ensure that we have local input to storm overflow reduction plans. I ask the Minister whether this is being looked at.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, talked about the opportunity to reduce water consumption and the need to improve the future homes standard, which is clearly very important. Many noble Lords have mentioned this, and the Government really need to take note.
Proposed new clauses in Amendments 192, 193 and 194 on water and development, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, are helpful in drawing attention to the impacts of housing development upon the water environment and in highlighting the role that nature-based solutions can play in tackling water pollution and flooding issues. The role that local authorities have to play was particularly mentioned by the noble Baroness, and she talked also about the need for alternatives to storm overflows.
The related proposed new clause in Amendment 194A, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, on amending drainage provisions, would require the Secretary of State to amend the drainage provisions of the Water Industry Act 1991, as the noble Lord explained in his introduction. He quite rightly talked about the importance of resilience to climate change and the increasing threat of flooding. We have an amendment on flooding, which will be debated later today. The noble Lord’s amendment would also embed a greater range of purposes in the drainage provisions and
better enable the water industry to contribute to the achievement of a range of objectives that the Government have laid out in their 25-year environment plan.
This has been a very interesting debate and I hope the Minister has listened carefully to the very constructive approach from noble Lords on how the drainage and sewerage systems can be improved. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, reminded the Committee, COP 26 will be soon upon us and so the world’s eyes are looking at what we are doing for our environment. Improving our rivers and water systems is one way we could show real leadership as a country. I await the Minister’s response with interest.