Clause 16 - Publication of application for licence
Water Bill [Lords]
9:45 am
Mr Bill Wiggin (Leominster, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 34, in
clause 16, page 17, line 45, at end insert
'of less than 50,000 cubic metres'.
I return to the word of the day—''proportionality''. The amendment would mean that the powers that be would not be required to publish every single application for a licence to abstract. It is designed to reduce the cost of those licences.
I recall the Minister describing those against whom he was legislating as the sort of people who, when damming a stream, take their cement mixer with them. That is a reasonable description, and so I have included 50,000 cu m as the amount. That is probably far too much, but it is a sort of opening bid, so that we can decide exactly how much water must be impeded before it is necessary to go through all the hoops that the clause demands, and the costs that that would incur. It is not a crucial matter, but I did not feel that it was essential to publish in the case of every single dam or misdirection of a stream.