My Lords, Amendment 108 refers to the rights to discharge and its purpose is to support the installation of sustainable urban drainage systems, or SUDS. It is generally recognised that SUDS are part of the long-term solution towards the sustainable use and drainage of water. They improve surface water management and reduced the risk of flooding, and they may include rain gardens, permeable paving, swales and the like. They are designed to collect water and release it slowly back into the environment.
Clause 21, which we have just agreed, clarifies the function of a sewerage undertaker under the Water Industry Act 1991 to include the building and maintenance of SUDS features, so we are here to promote SUDS and the Bill does that. However, there is a problem. To install a SUDS scheme an undertaker, a water company or a drainage company has at present to negotiate the right of discharge. Without such a right or with the prospect of costly negotiations and litigation—there has been plenty of that—there is little incentive to deliver SUDS schemes as opposed to surface water sewers.
The amendment would remove this uncertainty, which has led to litigation and to a lack of incentive for the installation of SUDS. It helps sewerage undertakers to deliver SUDS schemes. We are of course awaiting secondary legislation, which is a separate issue, on the maintenance and the issues with local government on SUDS. That apart, this deals with a much more fundamental issue. It would resolve the legal uncertainty that has arisen since 1989, when a previous water Bill removed the right of sewerage undertakers to discharge. The amendment would therefore restore the legal position to where it was before 1989, when sewerage undertakers had a statutory right, as highway authorities still have,
to discharge pure water into any watercourse. I emphasise that it has to be pure; no one is suggesting that there should be a licence to pollute in any shape or form.
At the moment traditional pipe discharges, which are inferior in many respects to SUDS, as I have explained, can be acquired by compulsory purchase powers. However, again, under the Bill we are not extending compulsory purchase powers to SUDS. I am not suggesting that they should be but that once you have the right to discharge, these powers will give an incentive for SUDS to be installed. That incentive is greatly needed, and I beg to move.