My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for tabling this amendment and to all noble Lords who have spoken. I add to the noble Baroness’s plea for a meeting with the Minister. Everybody except us seems to having Ministers, so she is not alone. Perhaps at some point the Minister can respond to some of our asks as well.
I return to the issue at hand. We are concerned that, as it stands, Clause 83 gives the Government extended powers to amend the regulations implementing the EU water framework directive. This directive was hard fought for and is an iconic part of our continuing EU water quality standards, so the Minister will understand why we are suspicious of this proposed change. Of course, we understand that the composition of chemical pollutants might change over time, and there is an urgent need to manage the impact of these pollutants. The Environment Agency’s own data show that not a single lake or river in England that has recently been tested has achieved a good chemical status. This has an inevitable negative impact on wildlife as well as being a threat to public health, particularly as a result of the new trend towards wild swimming.
We have to be assured that any change will be absolutely based on the best technical and scientific standards and not used to dilute our current high
standards of regulation. This is why we support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, which would create a broad-based statutory advisory group to advise on these changes. It is also why we support his amendments to seek advice from the new OEP and to require the regulations to be approved by the affirmative procedure. In this way, we can be assured that the standards and targets can be altered only in line with the best scientific advice and following appropriate stakeholder consultation. It would lay to rest our concerns that the Government seem to have a very different interpretation of non-regression of environmental standards from what we understood during the course of the withdrawal Act.
We also very much thank the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, for tabling Amendment 189. We have had a very good debate on this, and she has set out a compelling argument as to why it is necessary. All the evidence shows that we are running out of water and wasting water at alarming rates. The Environment Agency has warned that within 25 years England’s water supply will simply not meet demand. We have to start dealing with it as the scarce and valuable resource it really is, so it is important that we incentivise manufacturers to make water-efficient appliances, in the same way that they are incentivised to make energy-efficient appliances.
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As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, it is a scandal that new houses are not being built with energy and water efficiency as an automatic obligation. I hope the Minister can reassure us that this is his intention in the very near future; perhaps the discussions he is having with the Ministry of Housing can speed that up.
As we discussed in earlier debates, standard labelling of appliances to inform consumer choice is also key. We agree with the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady McIntosh, and others that this should be accompanied by minimum appliance standards.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, that behavioural change is also necessary and that we have to learn to adapt to using less water. This would be helped by measures to accelerate the introduction of smart water meters, and we agree that a deadline of January 2023 for regulations to be laid is both achievable and necessary. We agree that thereafter every household should have a smart meter installed by 2025. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, made an excellent argument for the water savings that could be made by this measure and, as the noble Lord, Lord Curry, said, if you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it.
Finally, we welcome the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, for a water strategy for England, which would bring together all the Government’s policies and initiatives into a coherent whole. We need an integrated plan for the long term, particularly to maximise value from the inevitable expenditure. This would ensure that measures to introduce water efficiency and lower usage work hand in hand with our biodiversity ambitions, particularly across our inland waters and wetlands. It would ultimately upgrade our outdated sewerage system once and for all.
We very much welcome these amendments and hope the Minister will feel able to give them his wholehearted support.