HC Deb 14 March 1972 vol 833 cc495-506

1.25 a.m.

Mr. William Whitlock (Nottingham, North)

Almost anyone who takes the slightest interest in current affairs will have heard that we face some quite acute water supply problems, but one often hears people say that they find this difficult to understand in a country which seems to have so much rain. It is, however, a surprising fact that England and Wales have one of the lowest residual rainfalls per head of population in Western Europe. Residual rainfall, as the Minister knows, is the rainfall which is usable after evaporation and transpiration and in our small crowded island, so densely populated and so heavily industrialised, we are having difficulty in making our rainfall go around, as it were. It is not that we are short of water but rather that we are short of the means of storing it and regulating its use; and of course, while the bulk of the rainfall is in the west of the country, the bulk of the population is in the eastern side and this in itself presents problems.

As soon as one mentions the need to store water, some conservationists will, inevitably, point to desalination plants as the answer to our water problems, but since these plants must be on the coast the cost of conveying water inland from them is very high indeed. In any case, the works associated with them are also of a character offensive to the preservationists. Estuarial barrages are also mentioned as an alternative to new inland means of storage of water but barrages, it seems to me, are way ahead, and a six years' feasability study, for instance, has yet to be carried out on the Wash barrage scheme. It is true that other barrage schemes may be nearer implementation, but even with these coastal schemes of storage of water, and with improved methods of the re-use of water which we must increasingly adopt, more inland reservoirs must be built—not, of course, the huge impounding reservoirs of the past but those of the type by means of which the flows of rivers are regulated.

It is estimated that in the next 30 years the total land "take" which will be necessary for reservoirs will be no more than the amount of agricultural land taken for urban use in just one year. By the year 2000 no more than 0.24 per cent. of the total land surface area of England and Wales will be used for reservoirs, and that is surely a small amount of land for an essential of life.

In the area of the Trent River Authority, which has its headquarters in Nottingham, 16 water undertakings make their major demands. Their total demands, at present 360 million gallons per day, will increase by the end of the century to 870 million gallons per day, a deficiency of 510 million gallons daily. The demands in the western part of the authority's area will continue to be met by water imported from Wales and the River Severn, but there will nevertheless be 50 million gallons per day in 1981, and 272 million gallons per day in 2001, to be met from sources inside the Trent River Authority area.

Deficiencies are most critical in the central part of the area, the water undertakings most concerned being the Staffordshire Potteries Water Board, the North Derbyshire Water Board and the South Derbyshire Water Board. The needs of these and other undertakings must be met from the Rivers Dove and Derwent and this can best be achieved by the construction of a reservoir to regulate and so to augment the natural low flows. This reservoir must be operational by 1979 at the latest. I stress that it is desperately needed.

A number of sites for the reservoir have been considered and those most favoured on technical and other grounds are Brund on the River Manifold in the Dove catchment, Carsington on the Hen more Brook, also in the Dove catchment, and Hassop on the River Derwent. Of these sites, together with others which have been considered, only the Brund site has been fully investigated. To enable a proper comparison to be made a detailed geological survey of the other two favoured sites must be undertaken. Because the landowners concerned have withheld their consent the Trent River Authority has been forced to apply to the Secretary of State for the Environment for compulsory works orders under Section 67 of the Water Resources Act, 1963, to enable it to undertake these investigations. As soon as the investigations are completed a site will be selected for development and it is expected that the Authority will begin to acquire land in 1973–74.

I come now to the problem of compensation to those displaced by a reservoir and the resistance to the building of the reservoir by those who would suffer from the complete inadequacy of present compensation arrangements. Compensation under the current code is generally considered unsatisfactory in many respects; in particular, tenant farmers are likely to suffer considerable hardship because their basic statutory entitlement is a maximum of six times the annual rent which they pay for the land which is taken. In the case of land such as that taken for reservoir sites the rent paid is often low because of long family associations between tenant and landlord, or because the quality of the land is not good. This results in very low compensation, which is quite inadequate when one remembers that men's livelihoods and homes are being taken from them by the building of reservoirs in this way. An additional hardship is that it is often very difficult to find another farm to rent.

At Brund, one of the sites I have mentioned, a number of tenant farmers would be displaced and undoubtedly severe cases of hardship would result for them. These are not prosperous landed gentlemen but in many cases virtually slaves of the soil. To illustrate this I give briefly the details of one farm at Brund. It has been occupied by the same family for 400 years as tenants. The area of the farm is 99 acres, the present rent is £250 per annum and so the maximum compensation, apart from extras for fixtures, improvements, etc., is £1,500. It is obvious that this is totally inadequate to replace the livelihood of the tenants, in this case two brothers in their fifties who will find it hard to obtain other employment. If the community as a whole is to benefit from the building of a reservoir, as it undoubtedly will, the farmers are part of the whole and should not suffer, as they will under present provisions.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis (Rutland and Stamford)

I have the same problem in my constituency. I hope the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Whitlock) appreciates that some of these tenant farmers cannot even draw unemployment pay, and their situation is very serious.

Mr. Whitlock

That is just another indication of the hardship that follows for tenant farmers who are dispossessed in this way.

The Trent River Authority is all too conscious of the inadequancy of the compensation now available and in the 1970–71 Session of Parliament the authority promoted a Bill containing a Clause which would have enabled it to make discretionary payments in cases of personal hardship to persons displaced from the land. The Clause was precedented in earlier Private Acts authorising construction of reservoirs. Nevertheless the Department of the Environment opposed the Clause on two grounds. It said it would prejudice the current Government review of compensation and that it was undesirable that one public authority should be able to pay more in compensation than others. The Clause was allowed by the House on the condition that it was restricted to land acquired for reservoirs but it was dissallowed by the Lord Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords.

One of the reasons mentioned by the Lord Chairman of Committees in disallowing the Clause was that the authority already had a general power to pay extra compensation under Section 22 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1963. In spite of that statement by the Lord Chairman of Committees on the Third Reading of the Bill in the House of Lords, it was revealed that current Government policy prevented payments from capital under Section 22 except where recipients would otherwise receive no compensation. The authority is left in the situation, therefore, that it knows that Section 22 is available in theory for use but that the Government have indicated that it should be used only in certain restricted circumstances which do not apply in the building of the much-needed reservoir to which I have referred.

This is an urgent matter, and since a review of compensation has been in hand for several years it is time the Government made an announcement. Can the Minister say when a White Paper on compensation will be published? Will it provide for improved compensation for tenant farmers? When is the necessary legislation likely to come before the House? What is the justification of the Government in restricting the operation of Section 22 of the 1963 Act when it might well be used to improve the compensation for tenant farmers, pending amendment of the compensation code? I hope that the Under-Secretary will be able to give some information on these points.

1.47 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Eldon Griffiths)

I am glad that the hon. Member for Notting- ham, North (Mr. Whitlock) began with a review of the general water situation of the country. He is a vice-president of the Association of River Authorities and like him I have a special fascination and deep concern for the water industry and all that goes with it. Our water supply is by no means assured for the future and it will require large sums of investment and considerable organisation and skill to make certain that there is sufficient water to drink and sufficient water for industry in the generations to come. That is why I should say in general at the outset that the Government are now committed to a national water strategy which has four main objectives.

The first objective is to secure an ample supply of water for people, industry and farming. This will mean massive investment if we are to meet the growing demand, which is expected to double before the end of the century. The second object of this policy is to provide adequate sewerage and sewage disposal arrangements to meet the rising demands from new housing and new industrial and agricultural developments. This, too, will be very expensive. Thirdly, we must clean up our rivers, partly because I suspect we shall need to take more water from them for drinking but also because we cannot accept polluted rivers as part of a twentieth-century environment. In this respect the river pollution survey published at the end of 1971 shows that we are making good progress.

The mileage of grossly polluted rivers has fallen by about 25 per cent. since the 1958 survey, but clearly we must and can do better. We must set ourselves a target of achieving an improvement in the quality of our rivers of the same order of magnitude as the improvement in our city air which has followed the Clean Air Act.

The fourth dimension of this national water strategy is to open up all our water supplies—the rivers, canals and inland waters of all kinds—for recreation, amenity and conservation. In this the contributions from all sides at the Conference on the Better Uses of Water Space which I held on 28th February will be of considerable help.

To achieve those objectives we need new machinery and more money. The sort of money involved was presaged by my right hon. Friend's announcement that our total investment in the water and sewerage services would be about £1,400 million over the next five or six years. The new machinery was envisaged in the Government's proposals for the reorganisation of water and sewerage services last December. These will involve the formation of 10 all-purpose regional water authorities, one of which will have responsibility for the Trent and Severn basins. All these regional authorities will be responsible for all aspects of the hydrological cycle, from the raindrop not merely to the drinking glass but all the way to the estuary. They will be able to control all their rivers and other inland waterways on an integrated basis.

I turn to the particular problems in the area of the Trent River Authority. The hon. Gentleman referred first to the growing water demand of his area. He will be well versed in this from the many excellent publications of the Trent River Authority, including the "Water Development Plan" and "Water Resources—A Preliminary Study" and the Water Resources Board's report on "Water Resources in Wales and the Midlands." The Water Resources Board's recommendations agree broadly with the river authority's view of the situation. The board felt that the needs of the West Midlands could best be met from outside its area, from or through the Severn. This illustrates why we have proposed a regional water authority covering both the Trent and the Severn.

A strategic source of water is also required urgently for the North Midlands. This could best be found, in the board's view, within the Trent River Authority's own area by regulation of the Rivers Dove and Derwent from new reservoirs in the Peak District. It mentioned, as the hon. Gentleman did tonight, three potential sites, of which one, at Brund, on the Manifold, a Dove tributary, has already been successfully proved. Applications for orders authorising the investigation of the other two sites at Carsington, on the Hen more Brook, and at Hassop are at present before the Secretary of State, but these proposals, as the hon. Member knows, met with strong opposition and the report of the local inquiry held into the objections is now under consideration. I am sure the hon. Member will appreciate that I cannot anticipate my right hon. Friend's de- cision on these applications, but I assure him that a decision will be made as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the Trent Research Programme is evaluating various possible ways of using the Trent itself and the results may throw light on the question of whether the river can be used for potable water supplies as a natural water pipe instead of a drain and a sewer. We cannot reach firm conclusions until all these results are available but it is interesting to note that the Water Resources Board assume that for the purpose of Wales and the Midlands the Trent would not be a source for public water supply in the foreseeable future. It could emerge that known treatment methods do not suffice to render water as polluted as the Trent really safe for potable supplies. We await the results with great interest.

At the same time my Department is discussing with the river and sewerage authorities capital expenditure on sewage treatment over the next few years. These discussions will be extended to works on water resources so that comprehensive programmes can be put in hand. The sewerage authorities are of course being encouraged to play their full part in this.

The principal treatment authority is the Upper Tame Main Drainage Authority which has a substantial programme in hand for building new treatment works or improving existing ones. The two authorities and my Department, after some earlier difficulties, are now in accord on the broad objectives and phasing of this programme.

Turning to compensation, which was the main theme of the latter part of the hon. Member's speech, I shall look with considerable interest at the example he gave of the two brothers. He referred to the Clause in the Trent River Authority's 1971 Bill which was disallowed in Committee. That Clause would have enabled payments to be made over and above those to which people displaced would normally be entitled under the compensation code. My Department opposed this for two reasons. First, if extra payments are thought to be right they should be available over the country as a whole, not just to people in one part. Secondly, we were engaged in a review of the compensation code which included the position of tenant farmers and it would be undesirable to make any partial changes before the outcome of the review was known.

We have been pushing ahead with the review as fast as the complexity of the subject allows and my right hon. Friend has promised a White Paper as a prelude to legislation as soon as decisions have been made. Meanwhile, I assure the hon. Member that the particular problems of farmers have been very much in our minds and their representations are receiving most careful consideration. I fully recognise the difficulties which arise for landowners and tenants in areas where compulsory acquisition is necessary. Where land is acquired by the Government, for example, for road schemes, the Government do all they can to help within the existing law.

The construction of reservoirs is a matter not for the Government but for the river or water authorities. It is not for the Government to tell them as independent statutory undertakers how to run their affairs, but there is no doubt that difficulties arise, and my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) has recently raised a case with me. While I recognise both the independence and the difficulties of the river authorities, I hope that they in turn will recognise the importance of carrying schemes through as smoothly as possible once they have been approved. Every argument about compensation which hon. Members feel they must raise with me only makes the next reservoir case the more difficult. This does no good to anyone because it is inevitable that more reservoirs will be needed.

The hon. Gentleman has suggested that Section 22 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1963, should be used to increase compensation payments to farmers pending the outcome of my right hon. Friend's review. As is clear from the debate which took place when that Section was introduced, it was designed to put farmers on the same footing as business tenants who received payments under discretionary powers under the Land Compensation Act, 1961. Section 22 was used briefly to make payments to tenant farmers on the basis of the special provisions in the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1968, in advance of enactment, but it is now used by Government Departments only to make payments to those who have no statutory entitlement, for example licensees and 364-day tenants.

The Government's policy in respect of discretionary powers such as Section 22 is that they should be used only to provide compensation where no statutory entitlement exists. River authorities are independent of the central Government, so that how they use the discretionary powers of Section 22 is a matter entirely for them.

I think the House as a whole would agree that the taking of land for reservoirs is always and always will be a contentious subject involving inevitable conflicts of interest often between one service to the public, namely water supply, and another service, food production. I have this problem in my constituency and many hon. Members will know how difficult it can be.

The Government are fully conscious of the social costs involved in the construction of storage and regulating reservoirs and we are fully investigating all realistic alternatives. We are looking at estuarial storage behind barrages. The Water Resources Board has just published a report on its feasibility study of a Morecambe Bay barrage. A similar study is being undertaken of storage reservoirs in the Wash and we are also looking at the Dee.

Technology, too, may offer some future comfort. Many people see desalination as the scientific answer to the problem. I personally hope to see the day when desalination will prove to be economic, but unfortunately none of the present methods offers water at a cost anywhere near competitive. For all that, the Government are continuing to support research and are seeking effective ways of co-operating with other European Governments.

Despite this, at the present stage of development the enlargement of existing reservoirs and the building of some new ones will be unavoidable. This makes it absolutely essential that we deal objectively and fairly with objections to schemes and with landowners and tenants whose land is affected by those schemes which are approved.

Therefore, I can only say to the hon. Gentleman, who very fairly has shown a degree of impatience to know when the review on compensation will be completed, that we are pursuing it as rapidly as we can, that we have very much in mind the situation of the tenant farmer needing compensation, that the White Paper will be published as soon as possible and that legislation will no doubt follow thereafter.

Mr. Whitlock

The hon. Gentleman seemed to infer on compensation that the use of Section 22 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1963, is open to river authorities, provided they make payment out of revenue—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Tuesday evening and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Deputy Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at five minutes to Two o'clock.