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This publication contains a consultation paper, draft Bill, explanatory notes and an impact assessment. The proposals in the draft Bill aim to give effect to: the Government's response to Sir Michael Pitt's review "Learning lessons from the 2007 floods" (http://archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/pittreview/thepittreview/final_report.html and http://www.defra.gov.uk/environ/fcd/floods07/Govtresptopitt.pdf); "Future water - the Government's water strategy for England (2008, Cm. 7319, ISBN 9780101731928); and to the flood and water aspects of the Welsh Assembly Government's "Environment strategy" and "Strategic policy position statement on water" (http://wales.gov.uk/topics/environmentcountryside). The proposals cover flood and coastal erosion risk management, including a strategic overview role for the Environment Agency and provision for a new local authority leadership role in local flood risk management. Other policies cover main river mapping, co-operation and sharing of information, sustainable drainage systems, Regional Flood Defence Committees, implementation of the EU Floods Directive and the Water Framework Directive, reservoir safety, surface water management plans and hosepipe bans. Two major independent reviews are also awaited: Martin Cave's review of competition and innovation in water markets and Anna Walker's review of charging and metering for household water and sewerage services. Their recommendations will have to be considered and could lead to further legislative proposals in this area.
Government must act to tackle the twin challenges of protecting over five million properties from flooding and maintaining clean, reliable and affordable water supplies. The Committee is concerned that the Government has cut flood defence funding and will in future require communities to pay a greater contribution towards the defences from which they benefit. At a time of budgetary constraint, the committee believes there is no certainty that this funding gap can be filled. The report tells Ministers they must: spell out how the Government will deliver its pledge to focus public money for flood defence on those communities at greatest risk and least able to protect themselves; ensure adequate and stable funding for local authorities and other agencies given new responsibilities under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 to plan for and respond to flood events. The report calls on the Government to sharpen the regulatory framework for the water industry to ensure it places customers' views at the heart of a future strategy that will deliver improved affordability and water efficiency. Ministers should: clarify the role for social tariffs in helping those who have difficulty paying their water bills; implement a solution that brings down bills for customers in regions where water charges are at present disproportionately high due to the need for large-scale capital investment in sewage systems; publish a strategy to implement a wider programme of metering and variable tariffs designed to improve water efficiency while protecting those on low incomes from unaffordable price rises.

Draft Water Bill

Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee

Published: 2013-02

Total Pages: 144


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The Draft Water Bill sets out proposed new legislation, much of which would extend competition in the water industry. The MPs are concerned that the Draft Bill contains only a broad framework and leaves too much of the important detail to be decided by the regulator, Ofwat, or to be introduced through secondary legislation that receives less parliamentary scrutiny. In welcoming the opportunities for greater competition within the retail water sector (providing billing services) the MPs ask Government to get on with implementing changes that would reduce flooding - many of which were recommended nearly five years ago. The MPs highlight the importance of managing our water resources sustainably and efficiently. They recommend that encouraging sustainable development be elevated to a primary duty of the regulator and that the Government brings forward legislation to enable the abstraction regime to be reformed by 2022. In addition they recommend implementation of existing provisions on bad debt and encouraging greater use of water meters, both of which would lower customers' water bills. However, the report concludes that the Government needs to undertake further work before embarking on "upstream" competition, which would enable companies to compete in the supply of water.
This paper contains the draft Water Bill itself and explains the context and rationale for its measures. The draft Water Bill will deliver legislative commitments set out in the Water White Paper (Cm. 8230, ISBN 9780101823029). It will, implement a package of retail and upstream market reforms; allow complementary changes to Ofwat's regulatory regime; allow the scope of the environmental permitting regulations to be extended from prevention of pollution to include the abstraction and impounding of water, flood defence consenting and fish pass approvals; and make minor changes to existing legislation to reduce and simplify regulatory and administrative burdens. The reforms will mainly apply to England and Wales but will also allow for a joint water and sewerage retail market with Scotland
In recent decades agricultural commodity surpluses in the developed world have contributed to a mantra of 'land surplus' in which set-aside, extensification, alternative land uses and 'wilding' have been key terms in debates over land. Quite suddenly all this has changed as a consequence of rapidly shifting commodity markets. Prices for cereals, oil seeds and other globally traded commodities have risen sharply. A contributor to this has been the shift to bioenergy cropping, fuelled by concerns over post-peak oil and climate change. Agricultural supply chain interests have embraced the 'new environmentalism' of climate change with enthusiasm, proudly proclaiming the readiness of the industry to produce both food and energy crops, and to do so with a neo-liberal confidence in markets to determine the balance between food and non-food crops in land use. But policy and politics have not necessarily caught up with these market and industry-led changes and some environmentalists are beginning to challenge the assumptions of the new 'productivism'. Is it necessarily the case, they ask, that agriculture's best contribution to tackling climate change is to grow bioenergy crops or invest in anaerobic-digesters or make land over for windfarms? Might not there be an equally important role in maximising the carbon sequestration or water-holding properties of biodiverse land? What is Land For? tackles these key cutting-edge issues of this new debate by setting out a baseline of evidence and ideas.
A report in which the Committee calls on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to review Ofwat's entire remit so that the regulatory regime will keep pace with the changes set to follow from greater competition and the challenge posed by scarcer water resources.
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