Lord Roborough (Con)

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering for her commitment to this flooding issue, which impacts far too many households in this country and which, as our climate changes, is likely to impact far more. New housing built on flood plains since 2009 is not able to be reinsured under Flood Re, supposedly because that housing does not need it. However, as my noble friend points out, that is not the case. Her Amendment 70 requires greater flood resilience measures if we are not to rule out building on flood plains entirely. It seems eminently sensible to help protect homeowners and ensure that insurance is available at an affordable price, and so we support this amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, makes strong points in Amendments 86, 120, 121A and 121B, so ably introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. Clean drinking water in our country is a finite resource, and measures to improve efficiency, analyse demand and increase reuse are sensible. I will welcome any comments from the Minister that show what the Government are already doing and plan to do to address these matters. However, we would not be in support of adding this to our already overburdened planning process.