My Lords, the purpose of the amendment is to ensure that the new homes that we want are built with sustainable drainage, protecting home owners against flooding and delivering wider environmental benefits to the community—and, indeed, for biodiversity.
At Report, the Government’s response was that we should wait to see how the presumption in planning works, given that it has been in place for only a year, but the evidence that we had in Committee, at Report and since is that it is not working. Since Report, Hampshire County Council, Essex County Council and South Tyneside Council have joined every water company and the National Flood Forum, which has links with local councils all around the country, to say that the problem needs sorting, and sorting now.
The amendment, which we proposed at Report, is a simplified version of an amendment that we moved in Committee. I humbly disagree with the Minister: the amendment does not increase bureaucracy but gives local authorities more powers in discussions about planning permissions to deliver the increase in SuDS we need. It gives them the power to talk to developers
at the earliest opportunity about sustainable urban drainage solutions. That is what the amendment, which removes the automatic right of connection, would do: make sure that housebuilders consider urban drainage at the beginning of the process, not at the end.
There has been overwhelming support from a variety of organisations, which we cited at Report and which I will not, for brevity’s sake, repeat this evening. The House of Lords Select Committee on National Policy for the Built Environment supported such an amendment. Again, we must think of home owners. Yes of course we must think of home builders, but as I said, this is not extra bureaucracy; it is a reasonable amendment. The Government’s very welcome Flood Re initiative, which came into effect last year and will give low-cost insurance for home owners, excludes homes built after 2009. By introducing the amendment, we will be increasing the amount of sustainable urban drainage and providing what the Government accept is a low-cost route to the protection that householders need and which we need for our environment.
Given that Ministers have been quoting other industry sources, I end by quoting the Construction Industry Council, which states that, “Maintaining the automatic right provides a get-out for developers by not requiring them to think about how they manage surface water”. It is time to end that automatic right. I beg to move.