Clause 8 - Rights to abstract small quantities
Water Bill [Lords]
3:00 pm
Mr Bill Wiggin (Leominster, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 48, in
clause 8, page 8, line 10, at end insert—
'(1A) Where the construction of a bore hole in connection with an exempt abstraction could affect the essential characteristics of water resources used by the licensed natural water abstractor, the consent of the Environment Agency must be sought.'.
The amendment is important because it addresses the fears of the drinking water abstractors. I shall begin by saying how much I appreciated the 20 cu m small abstraction allowance. That is a positive provision, and I welcome it. However, if smaller abstractors sink a bore hole into the substrata and start abstracting water for use as drinking water, such as this Hildon water, or the excellent Radnor Hills, or the various other drinking waters and mineral waters that we all enjoy, they are subject to an enormous number of inspections and their water quality must be of the finest. I can see that the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) is itching to intervene on behalf of that blue-bottled water of which he is so fond.
There is, however, a risk. Not only will the abstraction licence for such a business be for 12 years, when it would normally expect to spread its costs over 20 years, but there is now a risk that others may also sink bore holes into the same rock substrata,
which could have a damaging effect on the quality of the water that the original company abstracts.
We are all aware of how much marketing is done on that type of bottled water, particularly with reference to the name of the spring. That means that those companies have very little flexibility in moving their source of water and so, since they have gone to the expense of setting up bottling facilities and quality control, they need to be protected. The amendment would offer them that protection and would also enable the Environment Agency to fulfil admirably what we would like to see as its role: policing the abstraction that takes place, for the quality of our environment.
I hope that the amount of water abstracted by bottling companies is not such a huge quantity as to be damaging, and it is important that we support that particularly British industry. Some 1.4 billion litres of domestic bottled water are drunk annually, out of a total of 1.8 billion bottles. A huge proportion of our domestic consumption is supplied from domestic sources, and we look to the Environment Agency to protect that industry properly. That is the purpose of the amendment, and I hope that the Minister, if he does not find my wording perfect, will at least adopt the concept that I have proposed. The issue is important to us all, and particularly to hon. Members, who are lucky enough to find mineral water in Committees such as this.