HC Deb 17 May 1972 vol 837 cc649-62

9.47 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis (Rutland and Stamford)

The report of the Water Resources Board for 1971 is an innocent enough report, but within it I may be able to discover some hidden horrors. At a time when the organisation of the water supply is just over the hill, or just on tap, if that sounds more appropriate, the report gives me an opportunity to draw attention to one facet of the water supply problem which many take for granted. Pure water is costly, but it is necessary to living. It does not come free although it may appear to do so.

Most of the money in this sphere is spent by the river boards, but within the report are mentioned two interesting amounts of expenditure. The first amount is on research for desalination and the other is for the feasibility study which is presently taking place on the Wash barrage. Both matters are important because in a decade or so they may help us to avoid having to build reservoirs. One hopes that research in both spheres will be successful and that the Government will be able to make money available after research for implementing whatever is proposed in that connection.

In the introduction to the report there are some interesting comments on the administrative problems facing the many water authorities in England and Wales. These problems will be the subject of legislation in due course. One hopes that the Minister will be open to a certain amount of persuasion on the size of some of the new authorities which are proposed. Even water regions can stretch too far and some regions might be fitted a little better into the proposed new local government pattern.

The most interesting comment which is related to what is said generally in the introduction to the report appears at page 45. This concerns a reservoir being built in my constituency. If one reads paragraph 215 on page 45, one then has to ask the question: will Empingham Reservoir fill the need in the South-East of England well into the 1980s?

Paragraph 215 states: It can do this only if its resources can be deployed over the whole area either directly or indirectly by enabling existing resources (notably Grafham Water) to be deployed in new ways. When the private Bill for this reservoir was pushed through the House—it went through with only 10 votes—no one said that there would be any difficulty in disposing of the water which was to be provided by Empingham Reservoir. It was recognised that adjustments between various water boards in the take-out from Grafham Water and Empingham Reservoir together, when complete, would be necessary. These adjustments require negotiation. Presumably there had to be some financial accommodation between the various boards and at the end of the day there had to be agreement.

Looking at paragraph 220 on page 46, and taking it in conjunction with what appears on page 45, we see as follows: Negotiations for a bulk supply agreement have been in progress…for the past two years. That means that negotiations had been proceeding almost since the procedure started for taking the Bill on the Empingham Reservoir through the House seeking arrangements to take out the water and disperse it in the South-East. Yet the boards have failed to come to any agreement.

There is not time in a short Adjournment debate to go into the technicalities of this, even if I could. Suffice again to read from the report at page 47, paragraph 225: These basically simple transfers of water generate disproportionately difficult financial and administrative problems which can be solved, if at all, only by long, complicated and time-consuming negotiations between the parties concerned. Then comes the important punch line: It remains to be seen whether in the present case they can be solved in time to ensure that full use is made of the new reservoir in its early years. This, if nothing else, is complete justification for the Government's proposals for the reorganisation of water supply. It confirms, albeit too late, the fears which I and others have expressed about the need for such a large take-up of land for the Empingham reservoir.

We were told at the time that the private Bill was going through the House that it was vitally necessary to provide water in the early years. We are now told in the report that this massive expenditure, the destruction of almost 4,000 acres of agricultural land and the uprooting of far too many farmers is for a reservoir the full use of which is, to say the least, doubtful, and certainly in the early years extremely doubtful, if not unlikely.

We shall be able to fish in We shall be able to sail on it. We shall be able to ride round it and walk round it. We shall be able to picnic beside it. We shall be able to look at it. But it will probably be that a good part of that massive reservoir will be doing no good in terms of its original purpose, that is, supplying water to the South-East of England.

So much for believing the experts, for it was the experts who sold us the reservoir. The Empingham reservoir was approved by the House because the experts said that it was vital, and the sooner we had it the better. They agreed that, in the long term, we might have other supplies—they hoped that there would be other sources of supply available in the long term—but they said that, in the short term, Empingham was vital.

There is another matter of importance to my constituents. The construction of the reservoir, this great undertaking, is being done by the Welland and Nene River Authority. That Authority pro- mated the Bill originally, and it made promises about the compensation which it would pay to the farmers. In its submissions to the Committee, the Authority indicated clearly that it would be as generous as it could be within the law.

What the Welland and Nene River Authority said in the Committee proceedings was calculated to get the Bill. In my view, it was calculated to get consummation of a marriage even before the well-endowed bride was at the altar. Sometimes, that is called rape. Sometimes, it is just called opportunism. The trouble is that one can do nothing about it afterwards. Nevertheless, in such a case, one would expect that, afterwards, the bride, who has to obey because she has been caught, would be cherished and looked after.

What is the situation at Empingham where this reservoir is being constructed? The compensation payments for land taken for reservoirs are disgraceful. But that has nothing to do with any river authority; it is the law of the land. I acknowledge that. But a comparison of what farmers receive for their land for this reservoir and what people receive for selling land for building shows that the compensation to the farmers of is land is abysmal. What is given s no more than a willing seller would get from a willing buyer in the open market. It is not compensation. In my view, it is confiscation.

The Minister intends to improve compensation payments, and there is to be legislation for this purpose in due course—about time, too—but it will be too late for Empingham, too late for the farmers in my constituency, unless the Minister makes it retrospective. He ought to make it retrospective. In some areas of government, in payments to industry, for example, the arrangements are retrospective.

There is one respect, however, in which any river board, and especially the Welland and Nene River Authority, may make extra payments within the law. They can be generous within the law. I refer to the payments which a river board is allowed to make for disturbance, the payments which are called compensation for injurious affection—a very suitable term for a bride who has been carefully raped. The Welland and Nene River Authority has always clearly indicated that in this respect it would go to the utmost, that it would be generous. In my submission, it is not being generous, despite the overall impression which it gave to the Committee when promoting the Bill. The Authority pays as little as it can get away with. It pays what it must—no more and no less. Shylock——

It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Hawkins.]

Mr. Kenneth Lewis

Shylock sought to take what he must. The Authority gives as little as it must. In my view this is not generosity. Would anybody but a Shylock rest, as the Authority does, on the strict letter of the law on land value and then on top of that cheespare on the disturbance payments? Would anybody but a Shylock charge a farmer 4 per cent. interest as a rent on land that it has bought early—and I admit that the Authority bought it early for the farmers' benefit, but it has also bought it for its own benefit in the long term. The reservoir needs the land and certainly the farmer did not want to sell it in the first place. Yet the authority is charging a 4 per cent. interest as equivalent rent. There is not much cherishing of the bartered bride in that, and there is not much generosity about it.

Would anybody but a Shylock charge a farmer the authority's legal charges as well as his own on the transfer of his land? The Welland and Nene River Authority has farmers sitting on its committee's and on the sub-committee which is dealing with the reservoir. Some of these farmers are very rich. Many of the farmers who are being dispossessed of their land are modest and some of them are poor. I suggest to the committee skinflints that they should be ashamed of themselves at the way in which they resisted the suggestions that I have made from time to time that they should go out of their way to pay the utmost within the law, the utmost in those areas where they can be generous, to those people who are losing their land.

In the report of the Welland and Nene River Authority for 1970–71 the appendix sets out the recreational prospects for the Empingham reservoir. They include fishing, boating, riding and walking. Nine thousand cars a day may visit the area and there will be provision for caravans. There will be new roads, a 3,000-vehicle car park and a nature reserve.

This is splendid. It is very good for the Minister responsible for sport. It will he very good for the urban communities who will enjoy the facilities. But to the dispossessed farmers what? They get nothing from the revenues of the car park and they cannot trade in the area to make up for what they have lost. They are entirely dependent on the good will of the authority to see that they get the best possible deal out of their dispossession. In the authority's annual report it says that the Empingham reservoir is the largest project undertaken by any river authority and the biggest man-made lake in England. The way in which the authority has been conducting negotiations in recent months indicates that its heart is not as great as the project in which it is involved. The owners and the tenants are making a sacrifice in order to complete the project and make it worth while.

The authority is independent of the House and there is nothing we can do. Only public opinion can be brought to bear upon it. I find it sad that it should resist accepting the obligation which is clearly upon it in moral terms to do the best it can for the people who will have to get out of their work places in order that the authority can create the reservoir. The Secretary of the authority, Mr. Ackroyd, sent a letter to a farmer in my constituency implying that if his M.P. did not stop his criticism the authority would have to consider withdrawing whatever privileges it was providing. I consider that was an attempt to interfere with my parliamentary duty.

Apart from that, I was disappointed to think that this gentleman had obviously no conception that when land has been taken on the terms that the authority has to offer—I admit that it has to offer them—nothing it can do that is generous should be other than a pleasure. It is not my job to point out its duty. But it is clearly my obligation to try to see that it keeps faith with its promises and the total impression it gave when its Bill was before a Committee of the House. Its duty is to carry the law as far as it can in providing for the farmers the utmost compensation. Instead, it is being mean. For the authority to suggest that it is providing a privilege to the farmers it is dispossessing—for example, by making early financial settlements or any other minor accommodation—is not only arrogant but insensitive beyond belief.

The danger to the House and democracy is that it is responsible to no one. Eventually, when the Minister introduces his new legislation, at least it will be responsible to someone.

It is not fair, right or acceptable generally that when an enormous enterprise is created that will provide water for millions of people in the South-East of England the farmers and small landowners being thrown off their lands should bear the kind of burden that is imposed upon them. Still less do I think that the authority involved in the enterprise should fail to understand their real problems. The authority needs a proper sense of priority and needs to treat public accountancy with a sympathetic outlook. My hon. Friend should see that it acts in this way.

We have, I hope, the last of the massive reservoirs on the stocks in my constituency. I hope we shall learn lessons from the way in which this project has been dealt with financially, and that what I have said tonight will help in that connection.

10.9 p.m.

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

I am very glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) has given us this opportunity, though at a late hour, to discuss the eighth Annual Report of the Water Resources Board. He has, as always, eloquently spoken up on behalf of his constituents. He has dealt essentially with two main points—the possibility of delay in getting this important reservoir filled and into operation and whether compensation to his farming constituents is adequate.

Before I come to those two main points, I should like to remind the House briefly of the policy background. I begin by quoting the Board's own introduction: The most important issue left unresolved in the report is whether separate single-purpose authorities should continue to look after public water supply and sewage disposal, and river authorities to manage water resources, or whether all these functions should be brought together in the charge of a number of multipurpose authorities". Within a few weeks of the presentation of the report, and before its publication, the Government had announced their proposals for the reorganisation of the water industry. As my hon. Friend knows, and I think favours, we came down in support of all-purpose authorities. Our decision to do that rests essentially on four main objectives.

The first is to secure an ample supply of water for people, for industry and for agriculture. We are faced with a demand which is expected to double before the end of the century, and it will not be easy—it certainly will be expensive—to meet that rising demand.

Secondly, we need to provide adequate sewerage and sewage disposal arrangements to meet the rising demands for housing, for new and expanded industry and for more intensive methods of farming. This, too, will be expensive.

Thirdly, we have set our hand to the task of cleaning up our rivers. The River Pollution Survey shows that since 1958 the mileage of grossly polluted rivers has fallen by about 25 per cent. A start has been made, but it is nowhere near enough. We must, we can, and we intend to, do better, for grossly polluted rivers and estuaries are no longer tolerable or necessary in today's environment.

The fourth dimension of our strategy is the opening up of all our inland waterspace—rivers, canals, lakes and reservoirs—for recreational and amenity purposes and for nature conservation.

To weave these four strands of policy together and give proper weight to each, we shall require new administrative machinery.

We cannot go on with the present multiplicity of authorities. The Government's proposals therefore involve the formation of 10 all-purpose regional water authorities, each of which will be responsible within its own territory for all aspects of the hydrological cycle. I take my hon. Friend's point about the very large size of some of the proposed regional water authorities, and we shall look at his views and those of others before making any final decision.

I turn now to the Board's report in more detail. I note that it says that increased demand for water makes increased storage capacity essential, indeed, inevitable. But neither the Board nor the Government would wish to see any of our farmland or any other land flooded if there were any acceptable and practicable alternative.

The report therefore, quite rightly, discusses any possibilities that may reduce the acreage of land that may otherwise require to be flooded, and those possibilities include the controlled management of underground water bearing strata—we are studying that intensively—for example, in the Great Ouse catchment and the artificial recharge of aquifers, on which experiments are in hand in the Lee Valley and in Nottinghamshire. There have also been studies of estuarial storage in Morecambe Bay and the Dee Estuary, and, of course, there are the very large and to me exciting possibilities of the Wash. My hon. Friend and I have participated in debates from time to time in pressing the case for studies to be made of the Wash, and he will join me in thanking my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for having agreed that these should now go ahead. We all hope that the studies now under way will lead to the best of prospects. It remains to be seen.

Future developments may also call for long distance water transfer systems. The Ely Ouse-Essex transfer scheme is one such and there will no doubt be others. I assure my hon. Friend that we are also continuing to study the possibilities in desalination. But when all these possibilities have been examined, the inescapable fact remains that more inland reservoirs will be required from time to time, and that brings me of course to Empingham.

Empingham reservoir and Grafham Water are seen in the report as a possible source of supply for North Buckinghamshire, which as my hon. Friend knows will include the new town of Milton Keynes. But the report also refers, as my hon. Friend did, to the financial and administrative difficulties which face the present undertakings in reaching agreement about what ought to be a basically simple engineering solution to a problem of supply. I accept what my hon. Friend says about a long time having been taken to reach a decision. I recognise his concern about the need to get the job done in time.

North Buckinghamshire falls within the territory of the proposed new regional water authority for East Anglia. I believe that the regional water authorities, with their all-purpose powers, will be able to resolve these problems more rapidly than the present fragmented arrangements. Both the reservoirs of course will fall within the territory of the East Anglian water authority and there seems to be little doubt that the new authority would regard a connecting pipeline or aqueduct as a necessary feature of its long term regional distribution network, particularly to the south and east.

It may be that the present undertakings themselves are already reaching towards this conclusion. I can tell my hon. Friend that an immediate decision is not called for on that distribution point. The Empingham reservoir will not commence to fill until 1975. But I note paragraph 225 of the report, to which my hon. Friend drew attention, and recognise the force of the Board's argument that agreement on what is to be done ought not to be delayed until reorganisation has taken place. Therefore, my Department is in touch with the authorities concerned and we will seek a resolution of this question by the end of this year.

My hon. Friend also dealt with compensation and he has of course been in touch with me over recent months about the arrangements which the river authority is making to compensate land owners. He has made it crystal clear that he is not happy with those arrangements. As he said, when their Bill was before the House, counsel for the promoters promised that the river authority would …be not merely as fair as the law requires but as generous as the law permits. I can confirm that they told the Private Bill Committees in both Houses that they would do this in three specific ways. First, they would be willing to negotiate and complete purchase of land at an early date, whether or not it was required immediately. I think my hon. Friend will agree that they have discharged that obligation.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis

I re-emphasise that they have discharged that obligation but they are charging an interest to the farmer while he continues on the land.

Mr. Griffiths

I note that point.

Secondly, they undertook that the occupier, whether owner or tenant, would be allowed to continue to occupy the land on very favourable terms until it was physically needed for construction purposes. Third, the promoters would purchase by agreement additional land outside the limits of deviation. I have been assured by the river authority that it stands by these pledges and is honouring them.

I was surprised to hear my hon. Friend say that there had been a suggestion that the terms of compensation might be less generous in the event that he as the Member of Parliament for the constituency should seek to intervene to protect his constituents. He will understand that I can make no comment upon that, save only to say that I was surprised to hear in the House that this could happen. I have the assurance of the river authority that it stands by its pledges.

My hon. Friend will also know that the construction of the reservoir is a matter for the promoters and not for the Government. I heard what he said about Shylocks and skinflints and about the alleged lack of generosity that had been displayed, but on that point I can only say that the compensation issue is not one in which my right hon. Friend has any locus to intervene.

Where a settlement cannot be reached by agreement, the case may be referred to the Lands Tribunal for a determination. No one need fear that he will get less than the fair sum properly due to him under the law if he were to go to the Lands Tribunal. My hon. Friend knows of the discussions in the course of the Trent River Authority's 1971 Act which bore on this point. Under a section of that Act payments could have been made over and above those to which people displaced would normally have been entitled under the statutory code. The Government thought that was wrong. That is why they opposed the Clause. Why should people in just one part of the country be entitled to extra payments, and then only when the acquisition is made by one authority among others? If extra payments are justified, our view is that they should be available over the whole country.

My hon. Friend knows that we are engaged in a comprehensive review of the compensation code. I note his point—it is a view which I share—that the present arrangements for compensation are inadequate, but the review includes the position of tenant farmers, and we do not wish to pre-judge the outcome of that review by making partial changes in advance. I hope that my hon. Friend will await the White Paper which my right hon. Friend has promised. I cannot say that there is a prospect of retrospection being built in, as he urged, but I am sure that the White Paper will go some way towards meeting the desire which is shared on both sides of the House for compensation to be fairer than it is at present in many cases.

My hon. Friend also knows of the possible use of Section 22 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act. The Section was designed to put farmers on the same footing as business tenants who received compensation payments under discretionary powers. 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, but it is now used by Government Departments only to make payments to those who have no statutory entitlement; for example, to licensees and 364-day tenants.

The Government's policy is that discretionary powers such as Section 22 should be used only to provide compensation where no statutory entitlement exists. River authorities are independent bodies. How they use the discretionary powers of Section 22 is a matter entirely for them. I have no doubt that the Welland and Nene Authority is perfectly well aware of this provision. It knows what it can do, and it must decide whether or not to do it. I am sure the authority is aware of my hon. Friend's concern. If it is in doubt, it can be seen from his speech tonight which will appear in tomorrow's HANSARD.

Reservoirs, as I know from my own constituency, are inevitably contentious matters. I sympathise with all those who are affected, and in particular with those who run the risk of losing their farm land. There are difficulties and sometimes hardship that have to be faced, and those whose land is taken or threatened have a right to expect that their cases will be dealt with considerately and with understanding, both by those whose responsibility it is to see that they receive the fair treatment and just compensation for which the law provides, and also by those from whom they seek advice. To raise false hopes of exaggerated claims can only add to their distress and must in the end do them a grave disservice.

For my part, I believe that, with generous desire to meet the difficulties of the farmer, on the one hand, while accepting the statutory duties of the river authority, on the other, there is a way in which common sense and a decent regard for one another's sensitivities and difficulties can go a long way to resolving this problem.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis

Would it not be rather nice if, for a change, an Authority of this sort decided to be so generous that it might find itself in difficulties with the law? My hon. Friend has suggested a number of possibilities whereby the authority could take action under the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act. He indicated what the Ministry did and said that the authority did not have to do what the Ministry did. My hon. Friend said, in effect, as I understood him, that it would be rather helpful to do something under that Act or to give additional payments for injurious affection. It would be at least better to do that than to take the opposite line, which is that of saying, "We are fearful to move in case we go over the top with the law."

Mr. Griffiths

My hon. Friend will not expect me to suggest that a river authority should sail close to the wind with the law, let alone press matters to a point where my Department might wish to object. I can only repeat that this is essentially a matter for the river authority. I am sure that the river authority is well aware of the pledges which were given in its name in the House. It is well aware, too, of the possibilities that may be open to it under the law. It is, however, for the authority to judge how best to manage its own affairs.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-seven minutes past Ten o'clock.