I support strongly Amendments 119 and 120, which are important. Before turning to them, I point out that today, we have truncated the last nine groups of amendments to suit the Government’s timetable agenda. Some of us had to concede that because we wanted to ensure that we had two opportunities to debate these amendments, in Committee and on Report; under the proposal made by the Patronage Secretary, that was not precisely the case.
For those Members of the House who have not been following our proceedings and have wondered what was happening this evening—and there will be those who have not—the central issue in this whole Bill has been the fact that it is a skeleton Bill. We have not been able to discuss all the controversial provisions because they are to be introduced later, after Royal Assent, in the form of statutory instruments which we cannot amend. That is the fundamental objection here. That is why all these arguments have taken place.
Amendment 120 would offer at least some security for prospective purchasers of housing. In the event of flooding, at least on the first occasion, the cost of dealing with a property that had been flooded would fall on the developer, not the insurer. Of course, the amendment does not deal with what subsequently happens, when the insurer would carry the liability;
but under it, a developer would have to have in mind the potential cost to themselves of failing to design the property they were constructing to deal with the potential for flooding.
I hope this amendment will be enshrined in law, because it seems to me eminently sensible. It contains the phrase:
“the housing developer to be liable for the full cost of flood damage to a new dwelling if such damage occurs within ten years of the property being first sold”.
Of course, the developer can go bankrupt—and then where is the liability? Who then is responsible for paying the bill? In the event that this were enshrined in law, provision would surely have to be made for the developer to buy insurance to cover the possibility of flooding happening at some stage. I presume that the credit rating of the developer would influence the amount of premium payable on the insurance policy.
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Amendment 119 would ensure that a requirement to construct adequate systems of culverts and watercourses was firmly enshrined in the law before Parts 1 and 6, which deal with new starter homes, were introduced. We would be protecting the public who buy these properties from potential damage from faulty culverts and watercourses.
I have personal experience of this. I live in Keswick, very near Cockermouth, the town that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, was referring to. What happened with the flooding in Keswick over a number of years was that the culverts broke—it was not the river that did the damage but the culverts breaking. I actually watched a property being built in Keswick on the flood plain at a time when we knew that the culverts were at fault, but we could do nothing about it because the local planning authority had given permission. If this amendment were accepted, that would be highly unlikely to take place.
I say to Ministers that I hope these very sensible amendments will be treated seriously. The incentive my noble friend referred to for developers to see in advance the potential problem and address it before it arises is one the Government might wish to take into account in deciding to accept these amendments.