Clause 9 - Rights to abstract for drainage purposes, etc
Water Bill [Lords]
4:15 pm
Ms Sue Doughty (Guildford, Liberal Democrat)
I shall not detain the Committee for long, unless we decide to rush to a vote. The aim of the amendment is to try to define what the Government mean by ''serious damage''—a loose term. I am concerned that someone may claim that certain damage is ''serious'', and that the matter will go to law, which would be an unhappy event. Solicitors will become rich discussing what is serious and what is not.
In reality, we quite understand the need for emergency abstraction, especially as defined in new subsection (2A)(a), as occurring when there is a risk
''to a human being of death, personal injury or harm to health''.
It is clear that that is serious. However, what is ''serious damage to works'' or
''serious damage to the environment''?
Will the Minister clarify what that means? We believe that the replacement of ''serious'' with ''significant'' would help the legal definition, but these are strong powers, which must have some justification. We would welcome his response.