Housing Development Planning: Water Companies

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck in the Chair]

14:30:00

I beg to move, That this House has considered the role of water companies in new housing development planning. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Lewell-Buck. It is something of a cliché for a Liberal Democrat to be talking about sewage, but today I am breaking the mould and talking not about sewage in seas, lakes and rivers but about sewage in people’s homes and gardens. Buying a home in the UK is not easy. People spend years and years saving penny after penny, and when they finally sign on the dotted line and complete the purchase, they are relieved and delighted. They are not expecting to be forced to become an expert in complex regulations relating to drainage and the planning process. Most of all, they are not expecting raw sewage to start backing up through the manhole covers in their garden, the drains or, in the worst-case scenario, their downstairs loo, but unfortunately, that is what some of my constituents have had to deal with when buying or living near newly built houses in North Shropshire. I think the whole House should be asking itself how any water company, developer, conveyancer or local authority could think that this situation is acceptable. During my time as MP for North Shropshire, there have been multiple incidents in which constituents have been put in this troubling position by the sewerage network failing, and I am quite angry about the lack of progress in dealing with the issue. Just two weeks ago, I attended a meeting with residents of a village in my constituency that has seen a relatively large amount of development in recent years; their village is low-lying and on a gentle slope. Severn Trent, the water company, has adopted the drainage system from the new developments, so this is not a case of a dodgy developer failing to build suitable infrastructure, but it is an old, medieval village and unfortunately the existing combined sewer infrastructure is inadequate to deal with prolonged rainfall and the additional homes connected to it.

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this really important debate. Speaking of medieval villages, I met residents of a little village called Mudford in my constituency last week. Two new housing applications have recently been approved for up to 1,000 homes just upstream on the River Yeo. Mudford already suffers from extreme flooding and relies on inadequate and fragile sewerage systems that already overflow regularly during heavy rain. Worryingly, the developers plan to use the same system despite clear environmental risks. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that water companies must be fully involved in the planning system, to ensure that water infrastructure can handle the demand and prevent future flooding and spills of sewage?

My hon. Friend describes a situation that I think we are all familiar with. I agree with her about the role of water companies and will go on to talk about that point at some length in my speech, so I thank her for that intervention. When there is heavy rain, the residents I met struggle with surface water flooding and, unfortunately, with sewage backing up into homes and gardens, which we all agree is pretty horrible. Further homes in the area are in the planning process, so the residents are extremely concerned. Each year, their situation gets worse. An elderly resident told me that sometimes, when it has been raining heavily, she has to ask her neighbours not to use their bathroom, because sewage will flood into her garden if they do. That is not a position that any homeowner should be put in, so we need to ask ourselves how we have allowed this to happen in the first place. We are acutely aware of the need to build more homes, and we support the Government in their mission to build more homes, but it is essential that the infrastructure for both new and existing residents keeps pace with development. Astonishingly, water companies are not statutory consultees when a housing development goes through the planning process. That means that there is no statutory safeguard for home buyers that the company responsible for dealing with their foul waste has ensured or confirmed that its existing sewers will cope; nor is there any statutory safeguard for existing residents against a new development bringing some unpleasant surprises.

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this very important debate. River Mole River Watch, a local citizen scientists’ charity, has found that smaller pumping stations near new housing developments are seeing a sharp rise in storm overflows. More homes mean more sewage, as she has eloquently explained, and if the infrastructure cannot cope, raw sewage ends up in the River Mole. Does she agree that water companies must be statutory consultees in the planning process, so that sewage infrastructure is upgraded at the same time as building takes place? Otherwise, the problem will only get worse.

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Water companies have certain powers to object to developments that exacerbate existing capacity problems, but they are very much constrained by duties under the Water Industry Act 1991, which obliges them to accept domestic flows from new developments. Moreover, developers have an automatic right to connect to the existing network for domestic flows, which limits the ability of the water companies to object solely on the basis of network capacity. They can apply for Grampian conditions—planning conditions attached to a decision notice that prevent the start of the development until off-site works have been completed on land not controlled by the applicant. Developers can do that through the planning authority, but only if there is already a scheme promoted and a date for the improvements to be delivered has been set, so Grampian conditions are rarely used. My hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) tabled an amendment in Committee to the Water (Special Measures) Bill, which would have provided some of those safeguards by making water companies statutory consultees and ensuring that water infrastructure requirements were considered.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. She mentions the amendment we pushed in the Bill Committee, which was not accepted by the Government. It is indeed vital that water companies are statutory consultees throughout the process, but we should bear in mind that there is an incentive for water companies to say that there is no problem: the additional buildings mean more water bills and more income for the water company. If the company concedes that there is a problem, it may have to respond by making improvements to the infrastructure, costing it money. Do we not need better regulation? Ofwat and the Environment Agency need to be put together into a single, new clean water authority, so that we enforce clean water standards on the water companies that are currently running rings around our regulators.

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He has campaigned endlessly and consistently on that point and I entirely agree with him. I was concerned when both the Government and the Conservatives voted against his amendment in Committee. Perhaps in their winding-up speeches, they will explain the rationale to my constituents, who are faced with the reality of putting cling film over their toilet every time there is a big storm. The current requirements, all of which allow consultation, have been inadequate in the example I have given, and indeed in many others. The local plan process requires local authorities to consult the water companies on infrastructure requirements. That should be a positive step; it is how future infrastructure should be determined, with plans made by both the local authority and the water company. However, many councils fail to develop local plans. Shropshire’s Conservative council has just had to withdraw an inadequate plan, having failed to satisfy the requirements of the planning inspectors, leaving the county open to a planning free-for-all in which it is unnecessary to consult water companies. I therefore urge the Minister to ensure that in the review announced at the beginning of this week, water companies are added to the list of statutory consultees. I urge him also to tighten up the rules to prevent such a fiasco from emerging again, when after years of work and of taxpayers’ money being spent on a local plan, it is not fit for purpose and the whole process has to be started again. That is unacceptable for my residents, who are paying their council tax. Another development 10 miles to the north has had similar issues, but in that case, in addition to concerns about the capacity of the pumping station and existing surface water flooding problems, Severn Trent has refused to adopt the drainage network, citing as its reason that the sewers were not built to the standard agreed under the section 104 arrangement in place. The developer, which I should say disputed that there were defects in the system, requested that Severn Trent return its section 104 bond, and it did. All of that was done without the residents’ knowledge. They only found out nearly three years later, following repeated complaints to the water company, which is tanking sewage away from the village on a weekly basis.

On the section 106 moneys being returned to the developer, this week I had a meeting with Southern Water and then a meeting with a significant regional house builder in the south-east. A very similar situation was presented to me, wherein Southern Water had not actually managed to carry out the £2 million of improvements to the sewerage network that were required as part of the section 106 agreement. Does she agree that in such a situation it is incredibly hard for politicians and councils to make the case to residents that development is justified, when time and again they are let down by the development system?

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Residents are genuinely concerned about the impact on their village or town when the rules clearly are not allowing for additional infrastructure to be built. It is reasonable for them to expect that infrastructure to be built. We would see far less nimbyism if people had confidence that the infrastructure will be there when new houses are built. The point I am trying to make is that the section 104 process is not fit for purpose. It is ridiculous to require a financial bond. The point of that bond is to deal with exactly the situation where the sewerage network has been inadequately built and needs to be adopted. The bond is there to ensure that the water company brings that sewerage system up to standard, so that it can be adopted.

My hon. Friend has just said that a lot of sewerage is unadopted. Say it was built in the 1800s by public subscription and nobody has adopted it since. That allows water companies to shrug and say, “Search me, guv’” when there is a problem. Does she think that the Government should by statute or law require that all of these unadopted watercourses be adopted by a water company or the Environment Agency, so that when there is a problem there is someone we can point to and say, “This is your problem to solve”?

The problem of historical sewers is particularly difficult, because there is no immediate developer to put on the hook. We certainly need a mechanism for dealing with historical sewers. It is a complicated problem, because we certainly do not want sewage from inadequate systems to start going into the main system, and it is difficult to say the taxpayer should to have to pay for something that happened a long time ago. Nevertheless, we need a mechanism to deal with historical sewers; there is no doubt about that. The homeowners in The Pines in Higher Heath are in a situation where the developer has refused to rectify the issues and Severn Trent has washed its hands of the matter by returning the bond. They have nowhere else to go. One resident told me: “The whole system has failed us, from start to finish…we have layers upon layers of Water, Building, Planning, Council Regulations, Controlling Authorities and processes and procedures, all designed to protect the public and the environment. Yet, a pre-existing local drainage problem, a planning process and building supervision and approval all failed to pick up and address it, and then allowed ‘defective’ drains to be built, then a Developer and a Utility company agree among themselves to terminate the S104 and totally wash their hands of us/the people who pay the taxes that fund the system that is supposed to protect us/the people.” We see there the root of the problem. People who rely on the regulatory system to protect them in their homes are being hopelessly let down by a system that provides no protection when the worst happens and push comes to shove. Clearly, the section 104 process is not fit for purpose. The conveyancing process, when solicitors are involved, never seems to detect this type of situation either. I have sympathy for the people affected. When the section 104 agreement and bond have been put in place, and people have found that through their search, they should be able to have reasonable confidence that the sewerage network will be completed as planned. I have raised many times the situation of people living in The Brambles in Whitchurch, so I will not go into all the details again. People bought houses in that development, but the developer was a rogue developer, who collapsed the company as soon as the final house was occupied. The sewage pumping system was inadequate, and another property was illegally connected to it. Fourteen households had to spend £1 million between them to fix that situation. Those householders were the people left holding the management company when everything crashed down around them, and they were liable to fix that situation. That was totally unacceptable, as well.

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. I have a couple of questions. In North Bedfordshire, the pace of housing growth is about two and a half to three times what it is nationally, and we also have two major watercourses—the River Ouse and the River Ivel. The issue with the way that section 106 moneys go with new housing developments is that it is always about the incremental impact on the network, but the problem is that the overall structure needs financial support. The hon. Lady has been thinking about making water companies statutory consultees. Does she think that that could help with a more comprehensive understanding of the impact across a network of any major development? Secondly, does she think that it could change the system to have greater demand for an escrow of funds by developers for the long-term issues she mentioned, rather than leaving those to individual householders?

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, particularly about holding funds in escrow, which is a sensible suggestion. I am reluctant to let water companies off the hook, because they have made enormous profits, and they have been able to predict the growth in housing and changes in the weather, but they have done nothing to invest in the existing infrastructure. Let us not feel too sorry for them, but there clearly needs to be a long-term plan in place for overall infrastructure in an area. I agree that that needs to be taken into consideration in the planning process. Local planning authorities have discretionary powers to try to prevent the situations I have described. They could stop occupation of the final properties on the development until the defective sewerage has been remediated. There are various conditions they could put in place up front to prevent these situations, but in practice that is not happening.

In my constituency, South West Water promised residents in the Chapelfields development in the village of St Mabyn that sewage treatment would be put in place, only for families to move in and find raw sewage being collected in tankers, with no proper connections and frequent sewage back-ups, which is similar to what my hon. Friend has described. Does she agree that water companies must be held properly accountable to ensure that infrastructure is in place before homes are built, not years later when the damage is already done?

My hon. Friend makes a good point. That is where we are going with having them as statutory consultees in the process. It is no good the water companies saying, “You cannot build those houses.” They need to be able to say, “We have this plan to improve the infrastructure. You can build those houses when we have done it.” It is probably also quite critical that they are able to say, “We are doing it fairly quickly.” I will come back to section 104 for a second. One problem is that council planning departments are hollowed out. They have neither the human nor financial resources to get involved in expensive planning enforcement action, or to ensure that every person has been thought about and invited to consult on a planning application. They need to be required to do that, because the idea that cash-strapped councils will go above and beyond is currently unlikely; many are desperately just trying to stave off a section 104 situation. We have planning legislation coming, which is welcome. I implore the Government to address section 104 agreements and the bonds that secure them, because at the moment they are not the iron-clad guarantees they should be. We need to ensure that drainage systems are built to an appropriate standard and adopted, so that people can have confidence that, when they buy a home, they will not have to deal with a raw sewage problem for years and be unable to sell their house in many instances.

The hon. Lady makes an eloquent and moving case about the impact of inadequate sewerage systems on residents moving into new properties. Does she agree that there is also a need for a stronger regulatory system for the supply of fresh water? In my constituency we have a water management zone, which prevents new businesses, such as a brewer I spoke to recently, from expanding. At some times of the year, there is too much water, and at other times, there is too little. Does the hon. Lady agree that more effort needs to be put into strategies to manage the supply of fresh water, as well as the issues she raises?

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Shropshire is quite wet, so we do not often find ourselves talking about a lack of water; it would have to be an extreme summer before we found ourselves in that situation. He makes a good point that the country increasingly sees very dry periods and then extreme rainfall in winter. We need a water system fit for the future to deal with that and with localised capacity issues in the freshwater network. Finally, I call on the Government to implement the recommendations of the report published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in 2023 on schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. The schedule would provide a framework for the approval and adoption of drainage systems; a sustainable urban drainage systems approving body, or a SAB; and national standards on the design, construction, operation and maintenance of sustainable urban drainage systems, which also have a lovely acronym—SUDS. Critically, it makes the right to connect surface water run-off to public sewers conditional on the drainage system being approved before any construction work can start. Currently, that is not a statutory requirement, but those things are often built as part of the planning process. That means that when a development happens in an area that has previously been, say, fields, the water must drain off at the same rate as it would have done had the area still been a field. That is a clever way of managing surface water, and it seems odd that the previous Government, and indeed the current Government, have not yet adopted schedule 3. That would be an important start in protecting new and existing residents from the nightmare of both surface water and foul water flooding. In conclusion, the current planning-led approach is clearly not fit for purpose. Numerous colleagues have turned up today to tell similar stories of residents dealing with raw sewage in their homes, which is just not acceptable. The planning process is failing to protect residents of both new and existing homes, opening the risk of surface water and foul water flooding. Most of us cannot imagine how awful untreated sewage in the home must be, but a failed planning system is making it a reality for far too many people. I urge the Minister to make water companies a statutory consultee in planning, to implement schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act and to tighten the rules around section 104 so that rogue developers cannot get away with building illegal connections to the sewers.

I remind Members that if they wish to be called to speak, they should bob. I ask Members to try to keep their contributions to around four minutes so that everybody who has put in to speak can get in.

14:52:00

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell-Buck. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on securing the debate; we are all impatient for change and proper accountability from water companies, so it is an important one. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on an issue that directly impacts communities such as mine in Weston-super-Mare. Irresponsible water companies, failing regulation, red tape and suffocated local planning departments have created a perfect storm when it comes to developing the infrastructure and services that we need to deliver for our communities. For too long, our local communities have been underserved by a “computer says no”—or, in this case, a “red tape says no”—approach to planning. It is astounding how many cases I have seen as an MP of sensible, well-thought-out, environmentally based planning applications, that are clearly in the public benefit and that could be easily actioned, being held up by needless and inexplicable bureaucracy. When I speak to people in Weston, it is clear that although new housing developments bring much-needed growth, that is not without concerns about water infrastructure—not to mention roads, health, offices and retail infrastructure—failing to keep pace. However, the hand-wringing has to stop, and I am genuinely impressed by the ambition the Government have shown in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to deliver for our people, who are sick of delay after delay and of a “Britain cannot get projects moving” mentality. These things are not just constraints in an inbox to be managed, but genuine concerns that affect people’s daily lives. Residents feel frustrated by rapid developments proceeding without the necessary improvements to essential services such as water supply, drainage and—this is really important in my constituency—rhyne maintenance, which is such a fundamental part of flood prevention. My constituents are frustrated that water companies do not currently have a formal role in the planning process, so I really am supportive of changing that. The Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 is the first part of the transformation of the English water system, not the sum total of the Government’s ambitions—I am sure the Minister will talk about that later. I am proud that the Government have acted on these issues, and I was able to play an active role in the passage of the Act, which strengthens accountability. Locally, we have seen the consequences of generations of poor management. Weston’s main beach, as well as Sand Bay and Uphill, are all now classified as having poor bathing water quality. The issues the hon. Member for North Shropshire talked about in her constituency—the flooding and sewage—come to coastal constituencies all around the country. These issues are really interlinked. The people of Weston and North Shropshire have always deserved so much better. With our water and planning and infrastructure reforms, we are turning the tide on a broken system that has left far too many with a seemingly inevitable decline in opportunities, living standards and water quality. This issue is about getting the balance right, delivering the homes and services we need, while ensuring that our infrastructure keeps pace. I know that the Government are committed to that, and I will continue to work with all concerned to make sure that communities such as Weston-super-Mare are not left behind by an outdated attitude to red tape and bureaucracy, but also by inaction on critical infrastructure such as our water.

14:55:00

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for securing today’s important and timely debate on an issue that is critical for my constituents in Chichester and for people up and down the country. The challenges facing our water infrastructure are well documented, and waste water treatment works across the country have been operating well beyond their capacity for years, with serious consequences. During the general election, I knocked on the door of a lady in my constituency called Alison, who I had not seen in many years. She is a wheelchair user, and she told me how delighted she was to have been moved to a new social home. She had lived there happily for two and a half years until a new development was built in the field just next door. Suddenly her toilets no longer flushed, and she had no access to her wet room. When she spoke to her water company about sewage rising up in her toilet, it recommended that she go to the local pub to use its facilities. That is totally unacceptable for Alison and for every single constituent facing such situations. When our systems become overwhelmed, storm overflows and sewage spills pollute our rivers, harbours and coastline—failures that are visible nationwide. Water companies have a duty not only to provide clean water, but to manage waste water safely and effectively. Yet the system has been failing for many years. In my constituency alone, there were 990 recorded sewage spills last year, which lasted over 17,000 hours.

I slightly regret asking my hon Friend to give way at this particular moment, because she has just mentioned 17,000 hours of sewage. As a result of a recent freedom of information request related to my constituency, Thames Water had to reveal to me that it has released sewage into Surrey Heath’s rivers for 543 hours since the general election on 4 July. That is a slightly more modest number than the 17,000 hours my hon Friend’s constituents have faced, but it is none the less hugely significant, given that we have only four sewage outlets in the whole of my constituency. Does my hon. Friend agree that if we want new housing built—which we do—then water companies, which we are often very hard on, need to be treated as strategic partners in development, and forced through tougher regulation to deliver the rapidly growing communities we want for all of our residents?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we are tough on water companies—and so we should be. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire said, they have made large profits and they have a duty to make sure that every single constituent in this country has access to clean and safe water and that it is disposed of appropriately. But I absolutely agree that they should also be included as a strategic partner, and I will come on to that. Those failures harm our environment, endanger public health and threaten local economies, particularly tourism, which relies on clean water and a thriving natural landscape. In the Government’s plan for change, they set out an ambitious proposal to build 1.5 million homes in England and accelerate planning decisions. While there is no doubt that new homes are needed, they must be accompanied by the appropriate infrastructure to support them. Water companies have a duty to maintain, improve and extend their water supply networks to account for future water needs, but they are currently excluded from the planning process by not being listed as a statutory consultee. That omission means that, when a development is proposed for a site where there is no capacity, water companies lack the opportunity to formally object or to insist on necessary infrastructure improvements before the permission is granted. The issue is compounded by how capacity in our waste water treatment plants is measured. Instead of assessing the real-world resilience of our waste water infrastructure, capacity is gauged by measuring dry spells over a 12-month period. That means that a company’s capacity can change year on year, depending on the weather. With an ever-changing climate, that is not an accurate measure of the capacity that a site can cope with. It is not a realistic reflection of demand on new developments. If they were statutory consultees, water companies could highlight those inefficiencies at an earlier stage, ensuring that essential upgrades are planned and delivered before new developments are approved. In Chichester, we are currently dealing with the absence of a proactive water management system; a lack of capacity at a specific waste water treatment works in Apuldram is delaying the regeneration that the city centre so desperately needs. To address these challenges, we must adopt a more proactive and consistent approach to waste water management. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire mentioned, sustainable drainage systems—otherwise known as SUDS—are a key element of this. I am pleased that Chichester district council has included SUDS as part of its local plan, which is currently being consulted on, but they should not be applied on an authority-by-authority basis; we should have legislation making SUDS the standard across the country.

15:01:00

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Lewell-Buck. I thank the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for securing this important debate. This is an issue on which I hope we can find cross-party consensus and bring about the meaningful and effective change that we and our constituents badly want to see in the water industry. I start with a case study from my constituency that illustrates the problematic nature of how the current planning framework operates in relation to water companies. Cranbrook is a rapidly growing new town in east Devon: the 2021 census recorded just 6,700 people, but the local council is proposing to grow the town to 8,000 homes, which will accommodate around 20,000 people. During the planning phase for the town, our local water company, South West Water, promised a dedicated sewage pumping station to treat waste locally and prevent the overloading of existing infrastructure. However, South West Water has since scrapped the proposed pumping station, and instead redirects Cranbrook’s waste six miles away to the Countess Wear sewage treatment works in Exeter. Countess Wear is already under pressure and suffers regular sewage spills into our beautiful River Exe. It does not take big brains to work out that, at Cranbrook’s projected growth rates, the current plan is unsustainable at best and dangerous at worst. If local politicians and pressure groups had known at the time that South West Water would not make good on its promise or be held accountable, I should imagine that objections to the town being built would have been louder and more persistent. As we all know, this Labour Government have committed to building 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament, yet they have not adequately explained how they will ensure that infrastructure will keep pace with development. With multiple proposals for new housing in my constituency, as well as proposals for a new town—in addition to Cranbrook—I fear that the same avoidable mistake will happen to my home twice. For the record, I am not against house building, but I am against house building that is delivered without the corresponding infrastructure. The issue of water infrastructure planning has long been overlooked, yet it is crucial to ensuring that new housing developments do not lead to avoidable environmental and public health disasters. As we have heard, water companies are not statutory consultees in the planning process. Their role is limited to local plan development, meaning that they often engage far too late, once planning applications are well under way. This lack of early involvement leads to delays, unco-ordinated infrastructure and, ultimately, a failure of accountability when things go wrong. To offset that flaw in planning law, local councils are resorting to other mechanisms to force compliant behaviour from water companies. We have heard about Grampian conditions, which are designed to prevent development from proceeding until certain infrastructure requirements are met. However, they do not force water companies to deliver the necessary infrastructure. If a water company delays investment, a development can be stalled indefinitely —or, worse, proceed without proper infrastructure, leading to sewage overflows and environmental damage. We have heard about section 106 agreements, which are legally binding and require developers to fund infrastructure projects. However, water companies are not legally required to use these funds for local improvements, meaning that money intended for vital infrastructure could be diverted elsewhere.

Water companies have a responsibility to the community they are in and the developments that they play a part in. I am keen to hear from the Minister what the Government’s reforms will do to encourage water companies to be front and centre on plan-making and infrastructure building.

I too want to hear from the Minister what plans he has to make sure that infrastructure keeps pace with development. The community infrastructure levy is another funding mechanism, but CIL revenue is stretched across multiple infrastructure needs, and not all funds go towards water and the sewerage system. The local plans allow local councils such as mine, East Devon district council, to set policies to ensure sustainable development. However, the policies depend on voluntary co-operation from water companies and developers. If a water company refuses to engage early, the council lacks the full picture when making planning decisions. Developers can also challenge infrastructure requirements if they increase costs, which leads to weak enforcement. Given these issues, I argue, as other Members have, that water companies must become statutory consultees in planning applications. That would mean that developments could not proceed unless water companies confirm that infrastructure is in place to support them. The case of Cranbrook in my home area demonstrates the consequences of failing to integrate water infrastructure planning with house building. If we do nothing, we will see similar issues arise across the country, with more communities left to suffer the consequences of inadequate water and sewerage systems.

15:06:00

It is an honour to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Lewell-Buck. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on securing this debate on both housing and sewerage. These matters are clearly important to the 13 Liberal Democrat MPs who have been present in the debate, but they are frankly important to all 72 of us. I am pleased to follow my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Exmouth and Exeter East (David Reed)—I do regard him as a friend on this issue, because we share the same sea, which has been dogged by sewage pollution from the same water company. We co-operate very well on this issue. I recognise what my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire talks about regarding sewage backed up in people’s homes; at a surgery six weeks ago in the village of Feniton, I had people come to see me who showed me photos of sewage in the leat or stream at the end of their garden. It was very visible; the toilet paper and condoms give us a pretty good idea that it is not naturally occurring sewage. They told a story of neighbours having to knock on the doors of people in their street to ask that flushes are not pulled and baths are not emptied at a time of heavy rain, for fear that the sewage will back up into people’s private homes. Water companies and Ministers, when seeking to excuse the volume of sewage that is spilled, have told us for a while that it is a simple choice between either having sewage backing up into people’s homes or its being emptied into our rivers and seas. The purpose of this debate is to show that it is not a straightforward, binary choice. There are other options. We heard this week that the Government are removing Sport England, the Theatres Trust and the Gardens Trust as statutory consultees on planning. I am hoping to hear that they are doing that to make way for water companies. To again use the example of Feniton, the village has been subject to flooding over a very long period, a fact well recognised by both councils and the water company. East Devon district council has spent £6 million of taxpayers’ money to introduce a flood alleviation scheme to the village. That spending would not have been necessary had there been good advice at the outset from water companies when planners were proposing to build in that area. In Acland Park in Feniton, residents have been left to try to get their sewer adopted by the water company themselves because the developer has gone bust; again, had the water company been consulted at the planning stage, that might not have come about. We have heard about water companies objecting to being statutory consultees. That is not my experience. I met the chief executive of South West Water in recent months—I have been a thorn in the side of South West Water; if we are having a competition this afternoon about the volume of sewage spilled, I think I can win it, with over half a million hours of sewage spills in 2023 in the south-west region, though I confess that is not the figure for my constituency alone. The south-west region is dogged by sewage spills, and there was an 83% increase in spills from 2022 to 2023. The chief exec of South West Water asked me to lobby the Government to have water companies as a statutory consultee. I say that not because I am being lobbied, but because it is in the interests of the residents I represent. I would be curious to know whether the Minister, too, has been asked to make water companies statutory consultees.

15:11:00

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Lewell-Buck. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on securing the debate. As I said to her beforehand, it has been a while since we were in Westminster Hall together; now we have renewed that acquaintance once again. Housing development in Northern Ireland is a completely different ballgame, as the Minister will know—he has not answered my queries about that, because it is not his responsibility. The system is very different, but this debate gives us an opportunity to participate. I welcome this Labour Government’s commitment to 1.5 million houses, which will potentially regenerate the economy and create jobs and development. It gives people opportunity, and it is the right thing to do, but we need enough skilled workmen to be able to do that job. To give a local perspective from Northern Ireland, water infrastructure for new housing developments there is managed by Northern Ireland Water, which is a Government body. Some people might say, “At least that way, you only deal with one person and it all gets done.” Our system is quite simple. My office deals with numerous issues each week that are under the responsibility of NI Water and I am glad to have a good working relationship with it. We do complain now and again, and we find that its reaction to our complaints is positive, and it does its best to deal with them. The hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) referred to the half a million hours of sewage spills in the south-west region—it gives me goose pimples just to think about that. In addition to NI Water, we have dozens of fantastic developers looking to expand and enhance the property scene across Northern Ireland, and they will have to work closely with Northern Ireland Water on decent infrastructure, which is critical to departure. In many cases, network reinforcement and new infrastructure is needed, which can be very costly but is necessary for new and improved housing developments. Another pivotal issue over the last couple of years has been flooding. We used to always talk about 100-year floods, but they now happen about every two to three years and have become the norm rather than the exception. The hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) referred to looking to the future and what the stats suggest needs to be done. I have dealt with many flooding issues in my constituency, and it is important that this issue is taken into consideration in terms of water supply and drainage in new housing developments. Developers must comply with many environmental regulations from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, including those relating to water pollution and sustainable drainage. I am old enough to remember a time, not too far back, where the sewerage system and the storm drain water all went into the same system. That is not the case today—nor should it be, because the capacity is not there to take it all—but it did happen in the past. We need to ensure good communication and good working relationships with Government and non-governmental agencies, from planning to environmental and from water companies to developers. Northern Ireland Water and water companies are obligated to supply water connections to all residential properties, but there has to be good engagement. Northern Ireland Water has good capacity and a good relationship with elected representatives. Developers have the working relationship with Northern Ireland Water that they need to make it work. On the occasions when the sewerage system is unable to take a development of, say, 100 houses, the developer must take it upon himself or herself to provide for those 100 houses a system whereby the sewage can be taken away, either by lorry or whatever. The Minister perhaps cannot answer this point, but some of the things we do in Northern Ireland, including having Northern Ireland Water as a governmental body, may just be the answer. I am not a socialist, by the way —just for the record—but some things are just right. It does not matter whether it is a socialist policy or another policy; if it is right, it is right. I gently suggest to all Members in this Chamber that maybe all the water companies need to have a new boss.

15:16:00

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Lewell-Buck. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for securing this important debate. It was deeply disappointing to hear this week about the bodies being removed as statutory consultees. I completely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord). Although it is deeply regrettable that we are taking away rights from organisations like Sport England, I hope that will make space for the water companies. We have been calling for them to be statutory consultees for a long time. Although water companies have a statutory duty to connect all new homes to the sewerage system, it seems quite ridiculous that, apart from us, nobody seems able to speak up in our communities to say that there is no capacity left in the system. If water companies are not allowed to say no, how can we make sure that there is enough space? I have been working with the local water company, Wessex Water, and a fantastic campaigner, Bill Burridge, to deal with a problem in the village of Merley. The community was built predominantly in the ’70s and ’80s, and the sewerage system is already at bursting point—literally. Most of the homes were built at a time when the surface water was allowed to go into the sewerage system. As a result, whenever it rains a brown sludge washes across the Stour Valley way, which is a well-used leisure route, and directly into the nature park and the River Stour, exactly where the local rowing club trains and the Wimborne angling club fishes. It is beyond ridiculous—you can see the two side by side. Six hundred new homes are about to be built at the location, between the existing homes and the river, which will increase the capacity the community needs by 25%. Although some section 106 obligations are in place, there appears to be little enforcement. When we told the people at the sewerage company that some of the houses were already occupied, they said, “Oh, we will get a project team down there to see whether things need to be upgraded.” It really was laughable. If the Government are serious about getting homes occupied, the water companies need to be required to act before the homes are ready to go, so that we do not end up with situations in which homes are waiting for connections and for sewerage systems to be upgraded. There is another problem that affects not only people moving into new homes but the people already living there. As water companies are being forced to repair the sewers and reduce the spills, the surface water that has been flowing through the systems, often for decades, is now backing up in people’s gardens. The houses were built long ago, the concrete has been laid and there is absolutely nowhere for all this excess water to go. There is water from the ground and water from the surface. Homes in Broadstone, including in the Springdale area, are finding their gardens unusable, and houses slightly further down the hill are using sandbags to prevent the water from flooding into their homes and gardens, despite the fact they are around 5 miles from the nearest river. The water companies say it is not their problem because they are fixing their drains and sewers, and the councils say it is not their problem because it is not public land. Whose responsibility is it? Homeowners cannot be suddenly faced with gardens that are underwater. Like the homes my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire mentioned, homes in Broadstone have seen sewage bubbling up, sometimes in their living rooms. The only reason the water companies have given us is that they are the oldest homes in the area and are closer to the water treatment plant, and therefore when all the new homes are connected they have to face the consequences of inadequate systems. The water companies have absolutely no answer. Individual homeowners are expected to put up with it, and the only new investment is where the new homes are. What is the Minister doing to ensure that the water companies and developers are providing for the homes that are already in communities?

15:20:00

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Lewell-Buck. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on securing this important debate. For too long, our rivers, streams and seas have been treated as a dumping ground for sewage. Water companies have failed to maintain and invest in the infrastructure necessary to protect our natural environment. This has a devastating effect on local residents, businesses and tourists, who rely on clean water and unspoiled landscapes. It is clear that the current system is failing and that urgent action is required, which is why we must make water companies statutory consultees in the planning process for all new housing developments. Currently, water companies are not required to be consulted when new housing projects are proposed; it is merely best practice. That is a glaring omission, considering the fact that the waste water and sewage from new developments will inevitably place further strain on an already struggling system. The consequences of failure can be seen across the country, including in my West Dorset constituency, where sewage pollution has reached crisis levels. In 2023 alone, West Dorset experienced more than 4,100 sewage spills from storm overflows. Of the 500,000 hours that my constituency neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) said the south-west has suffered, our beaches and rivers suffered 45,000 hours of sewage discharge from the existing degraded sewerage and water system, tarnishing the landscape that makes my region so special. The River Lim, which flows into Lyme Regis, was declared ecologically dead due to the severe pollution it has suffered. We are aware of that only thanks to the efforts of the citizen scientists of the River Lim Action group. This state of affairs is simply unacceptable. West Dorset is part of the Poole catchment area, where an excess of nitrogen has had a disastrous effect, leading to significant reductions in biodiversity. Without proper infrastructure, any new homes built in the catchment area will only add to the pollution burden. We must ensure that the impact of the waste water from new developments is properly managed. The Governments’ nutrient mitigation scheme is a step in the right direction, but it cannot be the only answer. Water companies must be consulted from the outset to ensure that sustainable infrastructure is in place before new homes are built. Without that, we risk compounding an already dire situation. The Minister issued a written statement on 10 March 2025 about the reform of the statutory consultee system. That provides an opportunity to review the role of water companies in the planning system. If the Government are serious about tackling the sewage crisis, they must seize the opportunity to ensure that water companies are statutory consultees, without delay. This is not just about the environment; it is also about our local economy. Tourism is a vital industry for West Dorset. Visitors come to enjoy our beautiful beaches and waterways. It is unacceptable that residents and tourists must check pollution alerts before they can swim. If we do not act now, the economic consequences for my area will be severe, and local businesses and communities will bear the brunt. We need real accountability and meaningful change. Making water companies statutory consultees will help to ensure that new housing developments do not further damage an already failing system. It will bring transparency to the planning process and force water companies to take responsibility for the new infrastructure planning that is essential for our environment, for our economy and for public health.

15:24:00

It is truly a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Lewell-Buck. I join colleagues in commending my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for securing time to discuss this vital issue, which I feel is a symptom of a wider malaise in our planning system, as I shall explain. First, regrettably, I have to add my local examples of the problem to the many others we have heard. In Didcot, during the early stages of building Great Western Park in 2014, there were major sewage issues—so much so that tankers had to be brought in to deal with the sewage created by the new homes. Before long, temporary tanks were installed. Simply not enough capacity was delivered in the local system before the significant housing growth. As colleagues have said, this was accompanied by all the usual extremely circular and tedious arguments about whose fault it all was and where responsibility for sorting it out lay. I am sure that all Members can agree that our local residents are not particularly interested in whose fault it was: they just want these things sorted out—now, and for the future. In the new street and houses of Anderson Place in the village of East Hanney, the pump station and sewerage system were not constructed to a standard acceptable to Thames Water for adoption, even though the approved plans listed the infrastructure as “proposed adoptable”. On the Childrey Park estate in the village of East Challow, the council has been unable to adopt the drainage and residents are currently in a state of limbo. A section 104 application was submitted, but everyone is unsure whether that means the infrastructure has been adopted. Thames Water says that adoptions are not a short process and that it has a high standard of inspection before it adopts, so it cannot commit to a timescale. Meanwhile, local planning enforcement is, as we have heard elsewhere in the debate, struggling with how to deal with sewerage systems that are not fit for adoption by water companies. Developments are being built with drainage and sewerage systems that the water company refuses to adopt and that, in any case, are not capable of being adopted without expensive remedial work. The Liberal Democrats want to ensure that all new development is accompanied by the necessary infrastructure to support it. Given the missed opportunity of the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, I call on the Government to ensure that provision is made in upcoming legislation to ensure that providers of essential infrastructure are held to account. We will continue to challenge water companies to stop sewage spills, but also hold developers to account so that infrastructure for good water management is built with new developments. This all reflects a wider problem with our planning system. We certainly need houses, but central Government enthusiasm for housing targets is not generally matched with as much passion for ensuring and measuring the improvement of infrastructure and key public services alongside them. I approach my final point with some trepidation. I have already established something of a reputation as a geek among my hon. Friends, but I will take the risk and continue. I will confess to being a fan of the 2015 computer game “Cities: Skylines”. If the Minister has not yet had the pleasure of playing that game, perhaps he could request it as an early Christmas gift. The game is all about the planning and building of cities, and it teaches us much about effective planning. Insufficient sewage and waste water capacity leads to fewer people moving in, as well as reduced tax revenues. The game elegantly demonstrates how a “predict and provide” approach is far better than reactive chaos. I hope the Minister will tell us how the Government plan to move the real world in that direction.

15:28:00

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Lewell-Buck. I congratulate my hon. Friend the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on securing this debate and on her tireless work in North Shropshire, which I have seen for myself. This is a particularly timely debate, with the Government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill having had its First Reading earlier this week. As Liberal Democrats, we want to see more housing built. In particular, we urge the Government to set a target of 150,000 homes for social rent per year. We also need a new generation of rent-to-own housing for a generation for whom the housing ladder has risen out of reach. However, as the Government push for their 1.5 million homes target, the way to get Britain building is to deliver the infrastructure —the GPs, schools, bus routes, water and sustainable drainage—that communities want to see. The best way to do that is to ensure that local people are at the heart of decisions about how their towns, villages and neighbourhoods should take shape and develop. Water infrastructure is one of the most challenging things to get right, not least because of the dire state of the existing infrastructure after years of under-investment, as private companies siphoned off funds, often to overseas shareholders and in bonuses, under the previous Conservative Government. Those outflows of money are thrown into even sharper relief by the increasingly unpredictable rainfall and weather patterns that are becoming more frequent and intense as a result of climate change. Fixing this issue is therefore important not just for new homebuyers, but for everyone in communities up and down the country who increasingly face the risk of the disastrous consequences we have heard about. Many of my Taunton and Wellington constituents know about the risks only too well. In Ruishton, for example, children are frequently unable to reach their local secondary school due to flooding on Lipe Lane, the only road from the village that leads to it. Ruishton is now facing a lot more development that could make things worse. Young people in Creech St Michael face the same problem. Meanwhile, at Hook Bridge in Stoke St Gregory, the River Tone is surging across the floodplain.

One of the things that the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and mine share is that we are quite close to floodplains. The rhyne management has been a real problem. That goes back to the austerity cuts of the coalition Government, and we still have not got back from that. That is a real problem for many coastal communities, and it should unite us in getting back to a position where rhyne management allows housing to be delivered sustainably.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we need more investment in this area, which is why the Liberal Democrat manifesto was the only manifesto to identify the additional funding that the Environment Agency needed for flood defence work, and that Natural England needed. He mentioned the floodplain; much like the other villages that I mentioned, a large part of my constituency is in the floodplain. When the river surges across that floodplain, it far too often carries sewage from the sewage works with it, right across a vast area, in ways that are totally unacceptable. Nobody should have to deal with that raw sewage coming into their home and garden. My hon. Friends the Members for North Shropshire and for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) are absolutely right that schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 needs to be commenced. The schedule would require the approval of drainage and would require sustainable drainage systems—SUDS—to be provided in all but the most exceptional cases. It would also establish a proper authority for the regulations to ensure they are properly designed and maintained. It is not right that the burden of poorly constructed drainage systems should fall on individuals, who have saved for years to get their first home, because of inadequate regulation and safeguards. Alongside schedule 3, we should have proper planning enforcement—too often the Cinderella service of planning, as my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) mentioned. In fact, planning departments recover nothing like the full costs of planning services from applicants, due to the cap that central Government has placed on them for decades. Council tax payers are therefore subsidising those developers. My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, was absolutely right in November 2023 to introduce a Bill to remove that cap on planning fees. We were delighted to see in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill published this week that that campaign for full cost recovery has finally won the day; it looks as though it has, in any event. Without the proper enforcement of sustainable drainage, there is a real risk that the drive to increase housing numbers will exacerbate this problem. Having worked with Sir Michael Pitt in a past life, I looked up last night his report on the 2007 floods and exactly what happened to his 2008 recommendation that schedule 3 should then be commenced. By 2014, the Government had consulted on the necessary guidance and were on track for completion of commencement before 2015. I am sad to say that, in 2015, the trail goes very cold. We had to wait until 2023, when the Conservative Government said in their document, “The Review for implementation of Schedule 3 to The Flood and Water Management Act 2010” that they had instead decided to rely simply on policy. In fact, the 2023 Government review concluded that their approach was—using technical language—“not working”. It went on, in yet more technical language, to say that, “non-statutory technical standards for sustainable drainage systems should be made statutory: as the” current “ambiguity makes the role of the planning authority very difficult. The review also found that in general there were no specific checking regimes in place to ensure that SuDS had been constructed as agreed, leaving concerns about unsatisfactory standards of design and construction, and…difficulties of ensuring proper maintenance once the developer has left the site.” If only they had followed the advice of the Pitt review and commenced schedule 3 back in 2015, many of the people we have heard about would not have had the same problems. In the past, there was a body of law to control drainage into traditional sewers—in the words of the Public Health Act 1936, “communicating with a public sewer— but relatively new SUDS do not have the same body of regulation. There is therefore no longer any reason why schedule 3 should not be commenced as soon as possible, if not immediately. It should not take another flood to make that happen. Having water companies as statutory consultees is also an excellent suggestion, as hon. Members from across the country have pointed out, and I am not sure why it cannot be enacted. In conclusion, it is time to implement the recommendations of the 2008 Pitt review, of the Government’s consultation on the response in 2014, and of the 2023 DEFRA review that I quoted, and time to finally implement schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, before communicating with a public sewer becomes something that our constituents are forced to do in an all too upfront and personal way in their own homes and gardens.

15:35:00

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Lewell-Buck. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on her speech on issues that all hon. Members in this House can share concerns about. As MPs, we often get the same casework, and there are issues in my constituency similar to those in hers. This debate is particularly timely. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) on some charming revisionism of his party’s record in government. I will tackle comments made by some of the contributors in this debate and then make some general remarks about this Government’s current policy. The hon. Member for North Shropshire highlighted the genuine hell of her constituents who live in homes that were built many years ago and which are now surrounded by a housing development that has not been properly connected to sewer or drainage systems. That is a particular issue in old villages. In Botley, in my constituency, around 3,000 houses have been built in the Botley-Curbridge corridor. In sections of the Boorley Green development we have a housing estate that cannot be used because the developers did not put in adequate infrastructure. Those houses cannot be sold because backed-up sewage is coming out of the drainage systems. I understand the frustration that the hon. Lady has faced, as a Member of Parliament, in trying to go to the right organisation, and through the right channels of communication, to get those things sorted. I have gone through that and know how challenging it is. This is genuinely not a criticism of the hon. Lady, but her remarks—and many of the contributions this afternoon —targeted water companies for not doing enough. I agree with those remarks, but there are examples, in my constituency and across the country, where water companies have tried in vain to sound the alert about their frustrations regarding building infrastructure, or to convey their concern about a development. For example, water companies have made it very clear that they are very worried that they have not been listened to in the planning process in connection with One Horton Heath, a large-scale development in my old constituency of Eastleigh, which borders my new constituency. Their concerns about the land that the development is being built on, and where it is to be situated, and their descriptions of the infrastructure that they want provided, have not been heard. The hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) is a local hero in my constituency because she has a history of speaking on issues such as this, although I hope she does not become too much of a hero in the northern villages of my constituency. She will know that our constituencies are sharing infrastructure investment from Southern Water and Portsmouth Water in the water for life scheme. Like her, I have serious concerns about transparency, and some of the plans going forward. She was absolutely right to mention some of the infrastructure that will be built to try and deal with the overall issue that the hon. Member for North Shropshire described, but I remain concerned that this is a lot of money for a short-term project with Southern Water—a company that has shown that, quite frankly, it could not run a bath properly. I deeply share her concern to ensure that it manages the project properly. I hope we can work together to ensure that that project is fully looked at. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Exmouth and Exeter East (David Reed) mentioned a large-scale development in the village of Cranbrook, which is being expanded, where South West Water has not made good on the promise that it made. He made an interesting point about the 1.5 million homes; he is clear that the Government need to be clearer on reform. As we go through the parliamentary stages of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill—the Minister will be delighted that I will be sitting opposite him for many months to come unless the leader says otherwise—I am hoping that the Government will make that reform clearer. My hon. Friend the Member for Exmouth and Exeter East will know that many people have challenged whether the 1.5 million homes are achievable. As a party, we have always made it clear that home ownership should be made a reality for many hard-working families, and we do generally support the 1.5 million new homes. However, I must stress an essential caveat: the new homes must be the right homes and be delivered in the right places, as I have said to the Minister. Development must be sensitive to local needs, sustainable in its approach, and guided by the voices of the communities that it serves—including water services. This is important in rural communities, where water supply concerns pose significant challenges. Water demand in rural areas fluctuates due to climate change, tourism, and agricultural needs. Despite that, the Government’s new housing targets fail to account for those systemic pressures, leading to a dramatic increase in required housing numbers—106% in New Forest, 199% in North Yorkshire and a staggering 487% in Westmorland and Furness. Rural voices must be heard, particularly in discussions surrounding water infrastructure and the continued lack of a statutory footing for water companies. To mitigate these challenges, early collaboration between strategic policy-making authorities and water companies is essential. I know the Minister will agree. Last December, the updated national planning policy framework acknowledged this need, continuing the previous Government’s commitment to aligning water infrastructure with development. While water companies are not statutory consultees, and we agree that they should be in the later stages of the process, good practice dictates that their involvement in the planning process should be encouraged from the outset. Simply put, we cannot afford to ignore the critical role of sustainable water management in housing development. That is why the last Government implemented the “Plan for Water”, focusing on reducing demand, halving leakage rates, developing new infrastructure and ensuring drought resilience. We set clear, legally binding targets, including a 20% reduction in public water supply usage by 2038 and significant cuts to leakage rates. The previous Government’s record is clear. In 2010, only 7% of storm overflows were monitored; under our leadership, we ensured that 100% are now monitored. We fast-tracked £180 million of investment to prevent over 8,000 sewage spills and secured £60 billion from water companies over the next 25 years for the largest infrastructure upgrade in history. However, the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 does not adequately address the root causes of water pollution. Environmental groups like River Action have criticised the Bill, arguing that “one-off actions” will not resolve systemic pollution issues. The truth is simple: the current system does not ensure that water demand and environmental protection are balanced. There is no real oversight, no accountability, and no sense of urgency to fix the problem. We also face a major disconnect between planning and water management. Water companies create water resource management plans to project future demand, but these plans do not always account for real-time pressures from new housing developments. Similarly, drainage and wastewater management plans are meant to assess waste water capacity, yet they lack the detail needed to align with local planning. What is worse—as has been outlined by the hon. Member for North Shropshire and many other Liberal Democrat colleagues—water companies are not statutory consultees in the late stages of the planning process when detailed applications go before local authorities. That means that local councils approve new developments without properly assessing whether there is enough water supply or sewage treatment capacity. Under the law, water companies are forced to connect new developments, even when they know they lack the resources to do so sustainably. Only the Secretary of State can make changes to the list of statutory consultees through secondary legislation. During the passage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, the Government at the time committed to consulting on whether water companies should become statutory consultees on individual planning applications, and if so, how this could be facilitated. Will the Minister outline where we are with that review and whether the evidence is still with his Department? He may not be able to tell us this afternoon, in which case he may write to me and concerned parties. It may be that Members have to propose amendments in the forthcoming Planning and Infrastructure Bill to see that these changes are necessary for water companies. We call on the Government to publish the review of the statutory consultee system, which I have just mentioned, and look to include the views of water companies on supply and treatment capacity before local authorities grant planning permission. That would enable water companies to input into the planning process effectively and better align investment plans with local development needs. To conclude, the stakes are clear. We need a housing policy that is ambitious but also realistic. We also need more water infrastructure that is sustainable and resilient. Most importantly, however, we need a Government who listen to local communities, rather than a Government who impose top-down and unachievable targets and remove statutory consultees from the national planning policy framework and other systems. I urge the Government to build upon the solid foundation laid by their predecessors —as they would expect me to say—to deliver on the “Plan for Water” and to ensure that home ownership remains within reach for hard-working families without compromising the integrity of our national resources.

15:45:00

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Lewell-Buck. I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on securing this important and informative debate, and on not only clearly articulating a number of legitimate concerns about the role of water companies in planning for new residential development but eloquently outlining the plight of her constituents in the cases that she mentioned. In addition, I thank the other hon. Members who have participated in the debate and shared valuable insights and experiences from their own constituencies. I know and appreciate the various concerns that have been raised about the issue, and I also recognise the strength of feeling. I hope that in my remarks I will convey both that the Government have already acted in numerous respects and that we are alive to the need to do more to address the fact that in many parts of the country the system is clearly not delivering the outcomes that we want to see. A number of distinct issues were raised during the debate and I will seek to address as many of them as possible in the time that I have available. As ever, if I overlook any specific issues that hon. Members raised, I would be more than happy to find time to discuss them outside the Chamber, and to speak more widely to the group of hon. Members who are here today and others who have concerns about this issue. I will start by talking about the principle of sustainable development, as set out in paragraph 7 of the national planning policy framework, which states: “The purpose of the planning system is to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development, including the provision of homes, commercial development and supporting infrastructure in a sustainable manner.” The framework goes on to state: “Planning policies and decisions should play an active role in guiding development towards sustainable solutions”. It also says that sustainable development should be pursued both through the preparation and implementation of local development plans, and the application of policies in the framework. In short, the Government are clear that housing must come with appropriate infrastructure, including appropriate water infrastructure. A number of Members mentioned sustainable drainage systems, including the hon. Member for North Shropshire. Hon. Members will know that the revised NPPF that we published on 12 December last year makes it clear that developments of all sizes should use sustainable drainage techniques when the development could have drainage impacts and should have appropriate maintenance arrangements in place. These are important changes to the NPPF that will mean that sustainable drainage technologies are taken up more widely in new development. We continue to explore whether more needs to be done, either through planning policy or by commencing schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, and a decision on the best way forward will be made in the coming months. On a related matter, I appreciate that there are some instances of existing sewers not being able to cope adequately with new developments; we have heard a number of pretty troubling examples of that this afternoon. To avoid that issue, the planning practice guidance sets out that good design and mitigation measures should be secured during development, both through site-specific and non-site-specific policies on water infrastructure. For example, it suggests using planning conditions and obligations to ensure that development is phased and not occupied until the necessary waterworks have been completed. I would be very interested to hear from hon. Members who said that some local authorities are not using those conditions and obligations as to why that might be the case. However, I will give further thought to the issue in light of the various examples that have been referred to today. The hon. Member for North Shropshire and other hon. Members rightly mentioned the role of local plans in delivering sustainable development. Planning is principally a local activity and the Government are clear that the plan-led approach is, and must remain, the cornerstone of the planning system. We are determined to progress towards universal local plan coverage. As the Deputy Prime Minister and I have repeatedly made clear, we will not hesitate to use the full range of ministerial intervention powers at our disposal to that end. A key function of local development plans is to guide development to the most suitable and sustainable locations and to ensure that the associated infrastructure requirements are addressed. As hon. Members are aware, water companies are under a statutory duty to provide new water and sewerage connections to residential properties, as well as planning to meet the needs of growth as part of water resource management plans, and drainage and wastewater management plans. The water resources planning guidance published by the Government set out how those companies should forecast demand for water based on existing customers and planned levels of household and non-household growth, with the number of planned developments being based on published local plans, but I note the comments of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), about how the operation of that system might be improved. Effective co-operation early in the plan-making process is essential to ensuring not only that housing and infrastructure need is appropriately planned for, but that they are aligned with each other. The national planning policy framework makes it clear that local planning authorities should collaborate with each other and with other public bodies, including infrastructure providers, to identify relevant strategic matters to be addressed, including providing for sustainable water supplies. I have heard and noted the concerns of hon. Members that, despite the Government’s very clear expectations in this regard, such collaboration is not always evident and I will reflect on the implications of that for national planning policy. We are very clear that the statutory consultee system is not operating effectively. We have been told as much not only by house builders, but by local planning authorities from across the country. Hon. Members will be aware that the Chancellor and the Deputy Prime Minister have imposed a moratorium on new statutory consultees. I also draw the House’s attention to my written statement on Monday setting out how the Government intend to reform the statutory consultee system to ensure it operates effectively, including consulting on limiting the scope of statcons to where advice is strictly necessary and removing entirely a limited number of them. I have heard the calls made today—organised calls, I might infer—from Lib Dem Members to add water companies to the list of statutory consultees. I gently say to hon. Members that I do not think this is the panacea that they imply it is. Indeed, I think that doing so would risk allowing water companies to argue against the delivery of new homes, rather than focusing on their responsibility to ensure the appropriate infrastructure is in place at the outset. That is why it is important that, although water companies are not statutory consultees on individual planning applications, statute requires that they are consulted in the preparation of local plans. That is because strategic issues such as water capacity are best dealt with at a strategic level through the plan-making process, rather than through individual planning applications. Ensuring that we take a strategic spatial planning approach to the management of water, including tackling pollution and managing pressures on the water environment at a catchment, regional and national scale, is a core objective of the ongoing independent review into the regulatory system of the water sector, launched in October 2024 by the UK and Welsh Governments. As I hope hon. Members are aware, the commission is expected to report by the second quarter of next year and I know hon. Members will engage with it. The Government are acutely aware that the sustainable supply of water in some areas—for example, Cambridge and north Sussex—is an immediate constraint on growth and we are tackling that in various ways. For example, in those instances, we work closely with local authorities, regulators and water companies to find creative solutions to unlock growth and address environmental pressures. Our work in Cambridge to address water scarcity, for example, has already helped to unlock applications for over 9,000 homes and 500,000 square metres of commercial space, and similar initiatives are possible in other areas. The hon. Member for North Shropshire and a few other hon. Members drew our attention specifically to section 104 agreements outlined in the Water Industry Act 1991. Developers and water companies can enter into these voluntary agreements, which, where they work, ensure that newly constructed sewers, first, are built to an appropriate standard and, secondly, become the responsibility of the local water company for maintenance once they are operational, but I have heard and note the critiques that have been made. If hon. Members will indulge me by putting to me in writing some of the cases that have been specified this afternoon, I would like to look into the matter further to see whether the system needs improvement in various ways. As I have the time, I will speak briefly about two other issues: first, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. Alongside targeted local interventions, the Government are taking steps to ensure that we can more quickly and effectively upgrade major economic infrastructure across the whole country, including water supplies. In last year’s Budget, the Government confirmed their commitment to delivering a new 10-year infrastructure strategy, providing more certainty and stability for the supply chain and helping to unlock private investment by setting out the Government’s vision, objectives and priorities for infrastructure over the next decade. Additionally, hon. Members will know that yesterday we introduced our flagship Planning and Infrastructure Bill. One of the Bill’s five overarching objectives is to deliver a faster and more certain consenting process for critical infrastructure, including vital water infrastructure, through streamlining consultation requirements for nationally significant infrastructure projects, ensuring that national policy statements are kept up to date—hon. Members will know that some of them date back to 2012—and reducing opportunities for judicial review. I encourage and welcome the engagement of hon. Members from across the House as that legislation progresses.

I hear the points that the Minister has made. Will he confirm that his Department is not going to make water companies statutory consultees in the planning process?

I cannot be clearer than I was in my written statement: the Chancellor and Deputy Prime Minister have imposed a moratorium on new statutory consultees. We do not think that the system is operating effectively—as I said, local authorities and house builders are telling us as much. Water companies have a statutory role in the local planning consultation process, and they can provide their view on any application: not being a statutory consultee does not prevent them from doing so. I want briefly to comment on water quality and pollution. Beyond the provision of water infrastructure, we are facing challenges in maintaining the quality of our water because of ever-increasing pressures from pollution, climate change and unsustainable practices. This Government are prioritising water quality as a key element of our environmental and public health agenda. Significant steps are being taken to address pollution, enhance infrastructure, and ensure clean and sustainable water sources for future generations. For example, as part of our efforts to create a plan-led system that is underpinned by a genuinely accessible and understandable policy framework, we intend to consult on and produce a set of national policies for decision making later this year. It will include policies on topics such as pollution, plan making, healthy and safe communities, and the delivery of homes, and how all of that interlinks. Further details will be announced in due course. The Government are also working with farmers to reduce agricultural pollution. The Environment Act 2021, introduced by the previous Government, set a legally binding target to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment contribution from agriculture by at least 40% by 2038. That is why, alongside developing a new statutory plan to restore nature and meet these targets, we are enforcing key regulations, such as the farming rules for water, and have carried out thousands of inspections through the Environment Agency. I underline that the Government expect sustainable development to be pursued both through the effective preparation and implementation of local plans and through the application of relevant national planning policy. As a Government, we have already taken, and will continue to take, steps to ensure that new housing developments have adequate water and waste water infrastructure as a matter of course. I have heard the concerns of the hon. Member for North Shropshire and other hon. Members about what more may be required to ensure that that is the case, and I assure all those who have participated in the debate that their concerns will be at the forefront of my mind as we continue to progress our planning reform agenda.

15:57:00

I thank everyone who contributed to the debate. It was good to see cross-party agreement on some of the issues that our residents face, such as the lack of capacity in local drainage systems when houses are built and the lack of appropriate planning conditions in some of these localised incidents. I also thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), the Minister and the Lib Dem spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos), for their thoughtful contributions. They were all excellent. I particularly thank the Minister for not ruling out the adoption of schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act. I understand the Minister’s point that water companies being statutory consultees would pose a risk to getting planning applications through the process, but I ask him to consider the fact that the local planning system does not work either. Many councils do not have a local plan. They do not have the planning officers, and cannot afford them, to develop good local plans. We have to find a way to address that problem. Finally, I will write to the Minister on the specific issues that I have had in relation to section 104 agreements. I would be grateful for a meeting with him to go through them in detail. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the role of water companies in new housing development planning.