Water Abstraction Regulations — House of Lords, 2018-01-15
Topic: Environment
Margaret Beryl Jones (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I pursue this Motion to Regret the four water abstraction regulations that have been tabled for three main reasons: first, the policy implications contained therein; secondly, the pattern of delays in Defra dealing with regulations; and, thirdly, the wider capacity issues within the department to deal with future legislation The background to the Motion is the excellent report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which was published on 16 November 2017. As ever, the committee has carried out its responsibility with scrupulous attention to detail and to the public policy implications of the regulations. The report describes how the four sets of regulations have the combined effect of ending exemptions from the requirement to obtain a licence to abstract water. This has significant environmental implications as, in the past, unfettered water abstraction—for example, in the use of irrigation—has impacted on the flow of water available for other users further downstream. As the Defra Explanatory Memorandum makes clear, currently 5,000 significant water abstractions are exempt from licensing, compared to 20,000 that do have to have a licence. This creates an unfair playing field and allows unlicensed abstractors to put pressure on the environment and other water users Given the environmental importance of this issue and our understanding of the need for careful management of water catchment areas, particularly in the light of recent flooding crises, I would have thought that the Government would have been keen to act. Sadly, the opposite has been the case. As the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has highlighted, these regulations have been tabled 14 years after the requirement to do so in the Water Act 2003, and five years after a deadline set by the EU water framework directive. Not only is this negligent but it put us at odds with our EU obligations, which could have led to the Commission bringing formal proceeding against us, which, in turn, could have led to taxpayers funding the Government’s defence. I have to ask: why did it take so long to act on this issue Over this period, the Government carried out two consultations on proposals to remove the licensing exemptions. The first was instigated in 2009, resulting from the Labour Government’s decision to consult on the need to comply with the EU directive. Not surprisingly, those who already had licences and those concerned with the environment supported the regulations, and, again not surprisingly, those who did not have licences were resistant to the proposals. When the new Government came in in 2010, they failed to implement the changes required as they decided that the business concerns were more important than the environmental concerns. It then took another six years for the Government to decide that a new consultation was necessary. As the SLSC report makes clear, this proposed a, "light-touch, risk based approach to licensing … which is now being taken forward" Indeed, the impact assessment concentrates its concerns on the cost to business of making these changes. As the SLSC report concludes: "It is clear that Defra’s concern to mitigate the impacts on business has been an important cause of the protracted timescale for removing these licensing exemptions" My first reason for pursuing this Motion to Regret is to highlight our concerns that business interests are being put before environmental interests and before the need for fair play between those who are already in compliance and those who seem to want to continue to act outside the system. Is this the way that the Government are going to go forward? If it is, it rather contradicts everything that the Secretary of State has said about putting the environment first, and the rather lofty ambitions of the 25-year environment plan, which will require some hard choices, considerable behaviour change and potential costs on the part of business. It would be helpful if the Minister could clarify whether the Government’s policy in the most recent consultation, based on prioritising business needs over environmental objectives, remains the same Secondly, I would like to raise the inconceivable delay in bringing forward these regulations. We are now 12 years past the Water Act 2003 and five years past the deadline for compliance with the EU directive. How can the Minister justify this delay? I raise this with particular concern, because it is not a one-off event. This is not the first time that the SLSC has criticised Defra’s treatment of secondary legislation. In July, the SLSC noted that the Marketing of Fruit Plant and Propagating Material (England) Regulations 2017, which transposed three EU directives, missed the transposition deadline of 1 January 2017. The Commission issued a formal notice to the UK in late January and, in response, the department set a revised transposition deadline of June. In the same week, the committee also noted that the Single Common Market Organisation (Emergency Aid) (England and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2017 were based on a short, two-week consultation in September and October 2016. That was done for good reason, but the committee questioned why, given the early October consultation deadline, it then took six months for the regulations to be laid In March, the committee noted that Defra’s answers to its questions on the Commons (Registration of Town or Village Greens) and Dedicated Highways (Landowner Statements and Declarations) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2016 had misrepresented the position of user groups. The committee wrote to the Minister to bring the case to his attention. In his response, he acknowledged that the department may have given the committee the wrong impression. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain why these delays and mistakes are taking place and what is being done to address these failures. The prompt and accurate processing of secondary legislation is an essential part of legislative scrutiny and I hope he can confirm that it will be taken more seriously in the future Finally, I want to raise the wider issue of the department’s capacity to handle forthcoming legislation. We already know that 80% of legislation affecting Defra is derived from the EU level. The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill will give ongoing legal effect to the directly applicable legislation, which the UK will of course take on board. At the same time, the technical details, in the form of statutory instruments, will need to be crafted accurately and in a timely manner. The noble Lord will know that the January 2017 House of Commons Library briefing found there are 922 regulations relating to agriculture, 1,122 to fisheries and 527 in the field of environment, consumer and health protection. While not all of these will be relevant to the UK, it is clear that Defra will have a significant amount of extra work to carry out between now and March 2019. At the same time, we already have promises for an animal sentience Bill, a fisheries Bill and an agriculture Bill—all of which are expected this year In November 2015, RSPB and Wildlife Trusts economists said that cuts to Defra’s budget would be equivalent to 57% in real terms over the course of two Parliaments. I accept that this has been partially mitigated as, in October, the Government confirmed extra funding for Defra in order to prepare for Brexit. At the time, the department said that it expected to hire an additional 1,200 civil servants to cope with its extra workload. However, a National Audit Office report published this month suggests that only half this number of posts had been filled as at November, and of course these posts are only intended to cover the work of Brexit, not the wider day-to-day running of the department. Is the Minister satisfied that Defra now has the resources necessary, at the right level of knowledge and training, to process the huge workload linked to Brexit, as well as the day-to-day work such as preparing primary and secondary legislation and rolling out the 25-year environment plan I look forward to the Minister’s response on these three challenges—the Government’s approach to regulating business in the context of environmental priorities, the need to address the delays and errors in the processing of secondary legislation, and the overall capacity of the department to deal with the upcoming workload.