Draft Flood and Water Management Bill Cm 7582
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Draft Flood and Water Management Bill April 2009 Cm 7582 £42.55 Draft Flood and Water Management Bill April 2009 Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs By Command of Her Majesty April 2009 Cm 7582 £42.55 Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Nobel House 17 Smith Square London SW1P 3JR Telephone 020 7238 6000 Website: www.defra.gov.uk © Crown Copyright 2009 The text in this document (excluding the Royal Arms and other departmental or agency logos) may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium providing it is reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading context. The material must be acknowledged as Crown copyright and the title of the document specified. Where we have identified any third party copyright material you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned. For any other use of this material please write to Office of Public Sector Information, Information Policy Team, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 4DU or e-mail: [email protected] Information about this publication and further copies are available from: Flood and Water Management Bill Team Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Area 2C Ergon House London SW1P 2AL Email: [email protected] This document is available on the Defra website: http://www.defra.gov.uk/environ/fcd/floodsandwaterbill.htm Published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs ISBN: 978-0-10-175822-2 2 CONTENTS Number of pages Consultation Paper 160 Draft Flood and Water Management Bill 104 Explanatory Notes 63 Impact Assessment 32 (note: each section is independently numbered) 3 4 Draft Flood and Water Management Bill Consultation Paper Flood and Water Management Bill April 2009 5 6 Contents Foreword 9 Executive Summary 10 PART 1 – The consultation paper Section 1 – Introduction 12 1.1 Introduction 12 1.2 Why do we need a Bill? 12 1.3 Territorial extent 19 1.4 Cross border issues 20 1.5 Regulatory burden 20 1.6 Commencement 21 1.7 Queen’s consent 21 1.8 Offences and sanctions 21 1.9 The consultation process 22 1.10 Style and accessibility of the draft legislation 22 Section 2 – Flood and coastal erosion risk management – issues covered by draft Bill provisions: 23 2.1 New approaches to flood and coastal erosion risk management 23 2.2 Future roles and responsibilities 27 2.3 Main river mapping 33 2.4 Local flood risk management 34 2.5 Duty to cooperate and share information 40 2.6 Sustainable drainage systems 41 2.7 Regional Flood Defence Committees 52 2.8 EU Floods Directive 54 2.9 Water Framework Directive 61 2.10 Third party assets 62 2.11 Consenting and enforcement 64 2.12 Reservoir safety 65 Section 3 – Flood and coastal erosion risk management – policy issues not covered by draft Bill provisions 72 3.1 Possible reform to the role and governance of Internal Drainage Boards 72 3.2 Current funding structure 78 3.3 Reducing property owners’ and occupiers’ impact upon local flood risk 84 3.4 Single unifying Act 92 Section 4 – Water: issues covered by draft Bill provisions 94 4.1 Hosepipe bans 94 4.2 Environmental Permitting Programme 96 4.3 Power of entry – water resources functions 97 7 4.4 Minor amendments to the Water Resources Act 1991 and Water Industry Act 1991 98 4.5 Water administration regime 99 4.6 Drinking Water Inspectorate recovery of charges 102 4.7 Introduction of a mandatory build standard for sewers 105 4.8 Misconnections 106 4.9 Development of a project based delivery approach for infrastructure projects in the water sector 107 4.10 Complaint handling powers 110 4.11 Securing compliance 113 4.12 Scottish Fisheries Committee 114 Section 5 – Water: policy issues not covered by draft Bill provisions 116 5.1 Time limiting of abstraction licenses 116 5.2 Water efficiency 116 5.3 Hydromorphology 117 5.4 Cave Review of competition and innovation in water markets 119 5.5 Walker Review of charging and metering for household water and sewerage services 120 Section 6 – Next steps and how to respond to this consultation 121 Annex A – The policy position in Wales 124 Annex B – List of consultation questions 144 Annex C – Glossary of terms and abbreviations 155 Part 2 – The Draft Bill Part 3 – Explanatory Notes Part 4 – The Summary Impact Assessment 8 Foreword The drought in South East England in 2004-06 and the nationwide floods of Summer 2007 brought home to us what climate change means. We need to be better prepared in future for both flood and droughts, and ensure that we manage our water resources sustainably. The draft Flood and Water Management Bill, is an important part of the UK Government’s response to Sir Michael Pitt’s Report on the Summer 2007 floods. It also gives effect to a number of commitments in both the UK Government’s ‘Future Water’ document and the Welsh Assembly Government’s ‘Environment Strategy’ and ‘Strategic Policy Position Statement on Water’. We are publishing our proposals in draft to enable public scrutiny and to encourage full debate on the measures proposed. There are also two major independent reviews whose recommendations will need to be considered; these are 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. We will consider recommendations arising from these reviews, including those which require primary legislation. We will also be consulting shortly on the options for time-limiting abstraction licenses which may also need to be reflected in legislation. The aim of all this is to help protect ourselves better from flooding, to manage water more sustainably and to improve services to the public. We all share an interest in making this happen. Hilary Benn Jane Davidson Secretary of State for Environment, Minister for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Sustainability and Housing Defra Welsh Assembly Government 9 Executive Summary i. This consultation paper seeks comments on a draft Flood and Water Management Bill and on other matters where we wish to seek views before drafting legislation. It sets out the main reasons why the UK and the Welsh Assembly Governments believe we need to change the law and how we propose to change it. ii. The draft Bill aims to give effect to the UK Government’s response to Sir Michael Pitt’s Review, ‘Learning Lessons from the 2007 Floods’ (June, 2008) published in December 2008 and ‘Future Water’ the UK Government’s Water Strategy for England published in February 2008. The draft Bill also aims to give effect to the flood and water aspects of the Welsh Assembly Government’s ‘Environment Strategy’ its ‘New Approaches Programme’ including addressing issues identified by Sir Michael Pitt’s Review and the Welsh Assembly Government’s ‘Strategic Policy Position Statement on Water’. iii. The draft Bill will create a more comprehensive and risk based regime for managing the risk of flood and coastal erosion, which for the first time embraces all sources of flooding. It will also enable better management of water resources and quality. The Bill will help us to manage and respond to severe weather events such as flood and drought which are set to become more frequent as a result of climate change. iv. The draft Bill also ensures that those managing the risk of flood or coastal erosion will take account of other concerns such as sustainability, biodiversity and the whole water cycle. v. In addition to consulting on the issues covered by the provisions in the draft Bill, which are contained in Sections 2 and 4 of this document, we are also consulting in Sections 3 and 5 on the detail of how to implement a number of other policies to be included in the resulting legislation to be introduced into Parliament. vi. These include consulting on whether a case exists for wider reforms to the way in which flood and coastal risk activity is funded; reforms to Internal Drainage Boards; and the means for resolving neighbourhood disputes over flooding issues. vii. Matters of interest to the Welsh Assembly Government are set out in Annex A, which details their policy position and invites comments on a number of policy proposals for Wales. viii. In addition to the issues mentioned above, the UK Government and Welsh Assembly Government will each assess the recommendations of 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. Where they believe it necessary to legislate to implement any changes as a result of these reviews they each intend to do so as part of this Bill. Defra will issue a consultation before the Summer Recess on the retail competition package. The UK Government and the Welsh Assembly Government will be consulting separately on the time limiting of abstraction licenses. 10 ix. The draft Bill has several aims but they can be grouped under the three themes of security, service and sustainability. The draft Bill will provide: • greater security for people and their property from the risk of flooding and coastal erosion by creating clearer structures and responsibilities for managing that risk, building on the Government’s response to Sir Michael Pitt’s Review. It will improve leadership on flood risk, and enable better planning for and prediction and warning of floods. It will introduce a targeted approach to reservoir safety based on risk. It will deliver greater security of water supply in the event of water company failure, and improve the protection of essential supplies during drought; • better service for people through new ways of delivering major infrastructure projects, better protection of essential water supplies during drought and improving complaints and enforcement procedures; and • greater sustainability by helping people and their communities adapt to the increasing likelihood of severe weather events due to climate change, encouraging sustainable drainage systems in new developments, protecting communities and the environment better from the risk of flooding, and protecting water resources and improving water quality.