Clause 4 - Restrictions on Impounding
Water Bill [Lords]
11:00 am
Mr Elliot Morley (Minister of State (Environment and Agri-Environment), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Scunthorpe, Labour)
On that latter point, certain species may be protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 or by SSSI status. However, as the hon. Gentleman rightly states, we must consider the characteristics of bodies of water. The agency is currently working examining those characteristics with a view to producing definitions, and it must finish its work by the end of 2004. The obligation will be included in the regulations to transpose the directive. There is still work to be done, but this point will be addressed.
We must consider how discrete waters are treated under the regimes rather than simply imposing abstraction controls. The controls must be co-ordinated and planned in light of the needs of catchment areas. The amendments are intended to bring discrete waters fully into the licensing regime, but they would not achieve that as they would not bring discrete waters under abstraction control. They would take a different approach to abstraction controls from that taken in any other regime, and they would pre-empt the outcome of the consultation by DEFRA and the Environment Agency on how the directive should be implemented.
I understand the hon. Member for Guildford's point. It is being addressed by ongoing work on the directive, and those definitions and clarifications will emerge as part of that consultation.