Draft Flood and Water Management Bill

Water UKWater UK is the industry association that represents regulated UK statutory water supply and wastewater companies at national and European level. We are a policy-based organisation and represent the industry’s interests with Government, regulators and stakeholders in the UK and Europe.

The Energy Bill, now an Act, will have been occupying the time of many readers of the Energy and Utilities Directory last year. This year, the water industry - and Water UK on its behalf - has been busying itself with another piece of legislation – the draft Flood and Water Management Bill.

In May 2008, the Prime Minister announced that he intended to publish a draft Bill to implement the recommendations of Sir Michael Pitt’s report ‘Learning Lessons from the 2007’ Floods and to take forward the Government’s strategy for water ‘Future Water’.

Eagerly awaited, the draft Bill was published for consultation by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in April 2009, almost a year later.

The draft Flood and Water Management Bill covers a broad range of issues of interest to the water industry including flood management (creating surface water management plans) and the sharing of information, drainage and the role of Sustainable Drainage Systems, fixing misconnections, reservoir safety, water usage and hosepipe bans, the management of the water industry and Drinking Water Inspectorate charges. Water UK and its member companies have considered all its proposals in detail.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, chaired by Fylde MP Michael Jack, undertook the pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill in Parliament and took written, and then oral, evidence from a range of key stakeholders. These included Water UK, Ofwat (the industry’s economic regulator), the Environment Agency (the industry’s environmental regulator), Consumer Council for Water (which represents water customers) and many others. The Committee’s report will make a valuable contribution to the mix of responses to the draft Bill.

In addition, DEFRA and the Welsh Assembly Government launched a formal consultation on the draft Bill, to which Water UK has responded in detail on behalf of the industry.

Omissions from the draft Bill are of as much interest to the industry as what is in it, and Water UK has been clear to highlight where the Government has missed an opportunity.

Chief among these, are measures to make it easier for water companies to recover money from householders who choose not to pay their bill.

Of course, energy companies are able to install pre-payment meters, so helping customers to budget and avoid getting into debt in the first place, as well as using them as a means of recovering debt.

Water companies cannot install pre-payment meters because, on public health grounds, they are unable to disconnect customers. Water companies can offer some help to those customers who cannot pay their water bill, but those who will not pay present a significant and growing problem, costing those who do pay their bill around £11 a year. Debt in the water sector is around four times higher than it is in the gas or electricity sectors, even though the average water bill is around one third of the average household energy bill.

The timing of the draft Bill has not been ideal. The recommendations of Professor Martin Cave’s Review of Competition and Innovation (which reported on 22 April 2009), Anna Walker’s Review of Charging and Metering for Water and Sewerage Services (interim report published on 29 June 2009), as well as a consultation on the time limiting of abstraction licences, have not yet been incorporated into the draft Bill.

The Government’s draft legislative programme, announced by the Prime Minister in June 2009, included a Flood and Water Management Bill so we can expect to see it in the Queen’s speech in November 2009.

But, bearing in mind the short space of time until a General Election must be called by June 2010, Water UK predicts that it is likely to be a fairly narrow Bill. It may even change its name. We understand that the Bill will:
  • define the roles and responsibilities of everyone involved in flood risk management and give the lead to local authorities in managing the risk of all local causes of floods
  • place a duty on all relevant bodies to co-operate and share information in support of flood risk management
  • introduce an improved risk based approach to reservoir safety
  • encourage developers to include sustainable drainage wherever possible in new developments, built to standards which will help to reduce flood damage and improve water quality
  • update existing protection against drought increasing the scope and flexibility of water companies to restrict non-essential domestic uses of water during droughts
  • protect against the threat to continuation of water supplies posed by a water company becoming insolvent.
Water UK will generally support these proposals, though there are details that will need to be clarified. Other provisions in the draft Bill will need to wait for a new Parliament, and possibly a new Government.

Meanwhile, Water UK will continue to represent the interests, and concerns, of the water industry vigorously.

For further information: a section of Water UK’s website is dedicated to the draft Flood and Water Management Bill at www.water.org.uk/home/policy/flood-and-water-bill

Dawn Waterman
Public Affairs Adviser
Water UK