Clause 85 - Water conservation by public authorities
Water Bill [Lords]
9:00 am
Mr Bill Wiggin (Leominster, Conservative)
The position of the clause is useful because we dealt with the bulk of the argument at the beginning of the Bill. We revisit it now, and it is helpful to have read Government new clause 16, which would amend the Bill to take into consideration the views expressed in another place.
This is an important part of the Bill because it is incumbent on everyone in authority, not just members of the Committee, to conserve water. New clause 16 provides for that, but does not go into the same detail or place the same emphasis on duty as amendment No. 211, which will be popular with hon. Members, as similar amendments have been tabled by Members on both sides of the Committee.
It is extremely important that we get this part of the Bill right. When speaking to clause 80, the Minister was keen to emphasise that there must be
improvements in terms of leakage and water efficiency. In that way, we could avoid the need to build new reservoirs—with all the costs and awkwardness involved—for as long as possible. We are trying again to tackle the same problem, but this time I seek to tighten up the wording so that we put a duty on each public authority.
The alternatives are the named authorities such as the Welsh Assembly or the various authorities named throughout the Bill. The difference is that the duty would apply not just to the authority, but to its members, who would have to further water conservation so far as they could while carrying out their functions and where it was consistent with the exercise of those functions.
The structure of the amendment is different from the Bill, although at first glance they appear similar, because the amendment implies that it is the duty of everybody to conserve water in the way in which they carry out their job. It is a useful amendment and, although I accept that the Government have captured the spirit of it in their new clause, it would do no harm to add this wording. It would shift the emphasis enough to satisfy those of us who want proper conservation to take place at every opportunity, and it would facilitate that process.