Member

I will speak briefly to a couple of points that were made in Committee. The first was about the importance of communities. My good friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, sadly is not in her place, although she has a very good representative here. She spoke beautifully about what sounds like a fantastic project in Tiverton that is changing the path of the River Exe to avoid local flooding. It delivers not only that but biodiversity and involves schools, farmers and our furry friends the beavers—“nice beavers”, as Frank Drebin, would say. Having the community involved in these schemes is key. It is better that the private sector is the convenor, given that it has the power and local knowledge, unlike Whitehall. My digging around suggests that many of these water companies already do a lot of community engagement, but obviously it is something that my noble friend is trying to address in her Amendment 26.