Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)

My Lords, I am delighted to speak briefly to this short but perfectly formed amendment. I hope to extract a commitment from the Minister and the Government on the question of making water and sewerage undertakings statutory consultees on a development consent order, as the Environment Agency currently is. Things have changed since Committee, and there is a reason why I have tabled this amendment on Report. We have already had the report from the Cunliffe review, commissioned by Defra, which now has a new Secretary of State. Recommendation 72 of the Cunliffe report states: “The role of water companies in the planning process in England should be strengthened to ensure they have sufficient sight and influence over upcoming developments”. The report goes on to say that the Cunliffe review believes that water companies should have a clear ability “to comment on planning applications above a certain threshold in England”. The review is asking the Government to consider making water companies statutory consultees or to introduce a requirement to notify, and I am hoping that the Government will confirm this. This would ensure that water companies can deploy site-specific technical advice and avoid delays. It would also save the Government time. For example, if it was inappropriate to build a major development of, say, 300 new houses in an area of water stress, making water companies statutory consultees would expedite the planning application. On 13 October, the Environmental Audit Committee published its report on flood resilience in England, which made a similar recommendation. Recommendation 25 of the report states: “The Government should initiate consultation on statutory requirements for assessing the cumulative impact of development on flood risk within local and regional plans by the end of 2025”. It goes on to say that “water companies should be made statutory consultees on major planning applications”. The Cunliffe review was set up at the behest of the Government, so I presume that they will follow the recommendations in its report. The Environmental Audit Committee’s report looks at how the current system is failing to prepare residents in this country for future flooding. With those few remarks, I hope this evening to extract a commitment from the Minister that the Government will proceed on this as a matter of urgency and that we will see it as part of the Bill. If they wish to bring forward an amendment of their own, that would be ideal. I beg to move.