HL Deb 29 May 1945 vol 136 cc235-45

2.11 p.m.

Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.

LORD TEMPLEMORE

My Lords, on the departure, to our great regret, of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, to the Benches opposite, my noble friend Lord Munster should have moved the Second Reading of this rather complicated measure; but the noble Earl had a political engagement of long standing which he found it difficult to throw over, and therefore it falls to me to move the Second Reading We have seen a good deal lately in the newspapers of the word "caretaker." In a sense I am the caretaker for the day of this particular Bill, and I would inform your Lordships that on the future stages the noble Earl, Lord Munster, will be in his place and able to take the Bill. As your Lordships will see, the Bill is rather a long one, consisting of sixty-three clauses and five Schedules, of which one, the Third Schedule, is almost a Bill in itself. It deals with a not very exhilarating, but a very important element in our daily life. The Bill follows very closely the proposals in the White Paper, Cmd. 6515, published in April last year, which no doubt your Lordships have studied and with which you are familiar. A very large part of this Bill, including the Third Schedule, has already, in a way, been passed by this House in the Bills of 1939 and 1943. These passed this House, as your Lordships may remember, but were held up in another place and never became Acts.

The Bill deals with two main matters: first of all the conservation and use of water supply and water resources; and secondly, the improvement of administration of the supply. This Bill is very necessary because up to now the only large Acts dealing nationally with water have been the Act of nearly a hundred years ago, 1847, and its successor of 1863. The position of the Act of 1847, which is generally, I think, commonly known as the "Waterworks Code," is that it is not an Act which works of itself but which becomes operative when it is incorporated, with of course any necessary adaptations, in the special Act of any particular undertaking. The Act of 1863 added a few clauses to the Code but up to to-day there has been no general revision of the Code by any Act of Parliament.

This new Code is based on the Report of the Central Advisory Water Committee, which has now sat for some years under the Chairmanship of my noble friend the noble and gallant Field-Marshal Lord Milne, whom I am sorry not to see in his place, because I should like to take this opportunity of saying how very much indebted the Houses of Parliament and the country are to my noble friend and his Committee for their untiring labours. That Report formed the basis of the Water Undertakings Bills of 1939 and 1943, to which I referred just now, which were passed by this House but for which no time could be found in another place. So that the first object, I might say, of this Bill is to clear up the present old and, as it were, untidy Code, and to adapt it to modern conditions in a general Act, instead of in a series of special and local Acts.

To turn to the Bill, your Lordships will see that it is divided into five Parts with five Schedules, to one of which I have already referred. Part I lays on the Minister the duty of providing in England and Wales adequate water supplies, and in Clause 2 it makes permanent the Central Advisory Water Committee, to which I referred just now. Part II deals with local organization of water supplies, and includes two important clauses—Clause 9, which facilitates amalgamations of undertakers in the interests of greater efficiency, and provides for compulsory contributions, where necessary; and Clause 13, which sets out the default powers of the Minister in relation to companies and other statutory undertakers. Part III, which is, in a way, the most interesting Part of the Bill, deals with the conservation and protection of water resources and the prevention of waste. Clause 14 enables the Minister, if he thinks that special measures are required to conserve water in any area, to make an Order defining this area, and in that case a licence is afterwards required to sink any new well or to enlarge any existing well in that particular area. Part IV enables statutory undertakers to construct works, purchase land, and obtain a supply of water, and to deal with various matters incidental to the carrying on of their undertakings. Part V deals with matters of machinery, definitions, and so forth. I might mention here Clauses 24, 25 and 26, in which provision is made for water undertakers to acquire and hold land by agreement or compulsorily and to acquire water rights. Another important clause is Clause 37, which lays on undertakers the duty of supplying water for new houses. Clause 40 empowers the Minister to revise water rates and charges.

I think I have said enough about the purpose and details of this Bill, which is rather a complicated measure, and I am of opinion that the full explanation of its clauses and Schedules and its various provisions in the present congested state of business would entail too long a draft on your Lordships' time and patience. As the Minister said in another place, this country is greatly indebted to water undertakers of past years who have provided safe and ample water supplies for our cities and towns, whereby we have for many years now avoided the dangers of cholera, typhoid and such-like diseases. But His Majesty's Government are fully aware that one-third of the houses in our countryside are still without a piped water supply; and they are also aware of the very large demand, which increases from year to year and almost from month to month, both for domestic and industrial uses, besides a very largely increased demand for agricultural purposes.

This Bill received a very exhaustive examination in another place, including twelve days in a Standing Committee. I very much hope that the House will give a favourable reception to it and will be prepared to take the remaining stages at possibly shorter notice than is usually allowed, in view of what I think is probably a general agreement that the Bill is both useful and necessary and should be passed into law at the earliest possible moment. I should like at this stage to pay a tribute to the Department and also to the Parliamentary draftsman because I really think—and I hope your Lordships will agree—that they have produced in this Bill a very clear and concise measure, and one in which there is very little of a type of legislation to which your Lordships particularly object, that is, legislation by reference. In conclusion, I would say that the Bill provides the framework to ensure that the development of our water supplies will at all events keep pace with our needs, and I confidently recommend it to your Lordships for Second Reading. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Templemore.)

2.21 p.m.

LORD ADDISON

My Lords, I should like in the first place to associate myself with the noble Lord's expression of regret that my noble friend Lord Listowel was not, as he had prepared himself no doubt, provided with the opportunity of moving the Second Reading of this Bill. It is one of those accidents of political life which unfortunately occur from time to time, and he and I share our regrets in common. I notice that the noble Lord, in concluding his statement, referred to this Bill as "clear and concise." Well, all I have to say is that the noble Lord may be satisfied with this Bill as being clear and concise, but to a mind like mine it appears exceedingly complicated and difficult. I have done my best to study this Bill—in fact I spent quite a long time on it, and I am not unused to studying Bills—but it seemed to me to be an exceedingly complicated one. I am glad he referred to the Third Schedule. I hope that members of the House will have taken the trouble to look at the Third Schedule. It is a potentous affair. It is, in fact, another Bill and there is in it a very considerable amount of legislation by reference over which the noble Lord skated so gently.

LORD TEMPLEMORE

If the noble Lord will permit me, may I point out that in my remarks I did say that the Third Schedule was like another Bill?

LORD ADDISON

I was agreeing with you there. It was to the matter of legislation by reference that I was attaching a note of interrogation. I do not know whether other noble Lords know the Public Health Acts by heart, but I do not, and it would require a considerable amount of research in the Library of this House to ascertain what the alterations are. They may not be exceedingly far-reaching, but I will take them as good. I understand the position with regard to the Bill and that it may not, in the Parliamentary emergency, be possible to give as much time in the Committee stage as we should otherwise wish to have. We must acquiesce in that because it is a Bill, I am sure, that must be passed into law—we agree as to that. But it is an exceedingly complicated Bill and, in spite of the simplicity of the noble Lord's description, I am sure that if we were to take the Bill in Committee that would be the unanimous opinion of the House.

I do not myself share the enthusiasm which I have seen displayed for the Bill in some quarters. It does not establish a national water authority. It establishes a Central Advisory Committee, which has power to advise the Minister and to make suggestions but has not the power to do anything. There will be a certain amalgamation of water undertakings, which is exceedingly desirable, but I think it is fair to say that it does not approach anything in the form of a national water authority able to take cognizance of our water supplies and resources and use them rationally. We shall still have an enormous number of local or district water undertakings functioning as best they can, and there will not be the co-ordination of the management of our national water resources which, if we were not prejudiced by existing legislation, any rational set of people would set about creating.

However, it is a Bill which tries to make the best of the situation and will no doubt, in due course, lead to considerable amalgamations and harmonization of our water undertakings. Let us hope so. But I would not be too sanguine even about the rapidity of that, because if noble Lords will examine the Bill they will see that it is beset with hearings, appeals, notices and all the rest of it, and whoever else may do well out of this Bill the legal fraternity will. That prophecy you can make with complete confidence. The opportunities for objection, litigation and hearings are exceedingly numerous.

Having said that, I still would not fail to render tribute to the general purpose of the Bill, though it is not the duty, so far as I can see, except possibly at prohibitive expense, to supply our countryside with water as it ought to be supplied. It is true that new buildings will have to have a water supply, under Clause 37, but the owner may be required each year to pay specified sums, and noble Lords, I am sure, will be aware of the enormous cost that is involved in our country areas at present in obtaining adequate water supplies in a large number of cases. The noble Lord told us that one third of our houses in the country were not supplied with a piped water supply. It makes the supply of water almost prohibitive if the charge for pipes and so forth is to be placed upon the individual or group of individuals concerned. The charge should be distributed on a wide regional basis, and it should be made the duty of an authority to supply the countryside with water. Well, we have not got that yet and this Bill does not get us there except at what I think will prove to be prohibitive expense. We get plenty of water from one year's end to another in this country, and it ought to be possible, by distributing the charge equally over the whole of the community, to supply every group of habitations in the country with an adequate water supply. That is a physical possibility and it ought to be done. I do not think it will be done very quickly under this Bill, except, as I say, at rather high cost.

There are two minor matters to which perhaps the noble Lord will give thought between now and the Committee stage and which I have been asked to mention. In the Bill as it was introduced in another place there was a repetition of what is commonly known as the Birmingham Clause, which authorizes people to walk about on catchment areas so long is they behave themselves properly. It is quite reasonable that they should be allowed to do so. For some reason which I cannot understand at all, in the Committee stage in the other House the operative part of the clause as it was then introduced was dropped, so that it is not certain, as the Bill stands at present, that in this case the right may not be taken away. I think we ought to see that that is safeguarded, and in Committee my noble friend Lord Winster will move an Amendment which raises the point. We shall only be seeking to put back into the Bill the words that were in it when it was introduced in another place, so there is nothing excessive about the Amendment. We want to restore the clause to its previous condition so far as that particular power is concerned.

Another matter to which my attention has been called is that in some of these cases where boreholes for new works are made, water may be drained from areas of people who now have a water supply of their own. They may be deprived of their water supply. Those are cases where adequate provision should be made to make up to them what they have lost. In country districts that may be exceedingly important. What the people want who are deprived of water in those circumstances is an alternative supply of water, and that is what they ought to get. That is the point which I know others will mention and which I think ought to receive attention on the Committee stage. And there is one other point. I am informed that in some areas the extent of pollution that has been allowed to arise during the war period is very excessive, and although the authorities here have certain powers against pollution I certainly think the adequacy of those powers requires investigation. I only mention these more or less Committee points to give the noble Lord some notice of-the matters that may be raised. Generally, however, we shall seek to assist in the passage of the Bill.

2.30 p.m.

EARL DE LA WARR

My Lords, I desire to say a very few words about this Bill, because I think on the whole the House is in agreement with it and feels it is most desirable that it should be passed into law at the earliest possible moment. It certainly is a very considerable step forward in dealing with a problem that is of vital importance to the whole country and especially to the countryside. I cannot help sharing with the noble Lord, Lord Addison, who has just sat down, the view that this is not likely to be the last word on the subject. The noble Lord referred to the fact, now well known, that only a third of our rural cottages at the moment have an adequate water supply. This Bill will undoubtedly lead to an increase of that one-third to a very much higher proportion, but I am sceptical as to whether it is going to take us up to the 100 per cent. we all desire to get and which indeed was promised to us some time ago by the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, in what then struck me as a most admirable but rather optimistic speech.

I think it is a pity that we cannot have rather longer for the consideration of this Bill because undoubtedly it does raise most serious issues. On the other hand, matters for which noble Lords on this Bench are not entirely responsible have intervened and we must all try to work in with the position that has arisen. But there is one real point I want to raise. The noble Lord, Lord Addison, has already touched upon it briefly, but it might be useful to the House if I gave noble Lords notice now of an Amendment that I intend to put down. The point is very simple. Under Clause 14 power is given to the Minister to make orders defining areas in which after definition no one may bore for water without a licence. That is obviously right so far as it goes but it may well be, as the noble Lord said, that in certain specific cases an undertaker may go into an area which may be defined under Clause 14, and the undertaker may make full use of all the water there, thus depriving existing users of their water supply. The noble Lord referred to owners of existing wells. I had in my mind such undertakings as, say, watercress growers. I mention them particularly because I know they will command the instant sympathy of the noble Lord, Lord Templemore, whose neighbours are so intimately concerned in this very important little agricultural industry and I have no doubt when he replies he will tell me he is able at once to put all my fears at rest.

What I want to suggest in my Amendment is that an undertaker in such a case should have to make himself responsible for the provision of an alternative supply. There may be certain instances where that will be impossible, in which case money compensation should be paid to the existing user. I think we should all agree that money compensation is in fact a very poor form of compensation. We want the alternative supply, but in some cases it may well be that the national interest has to override the interest of the existing user and that an alternative supply cannot be provided. Then I propose that money compensation should be paid. That is the only point I want to mention and I do so now in order that His Majesty's Government may have an opportunity of considering it before the Committee stage is reached.

2.35 p.m.

THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH

My Lords, I will take up your Lordships' time for a very few minutes only. I desire in the first place to express my sympathy with the noble Lord who has just sat down on the particular Amendment which he is proposing to move, and also to say that I entirely agree with him that a Bill which is admittedly of such complexity and which involves such very long views for the future, is one which should not in normal circumstances be rushed through by Government, caretaker or otherwise. It is so very easy, speaking as a humble Cross Bencher, to approve the popular arid legitimate purpose behind this Bill. I have been a protagonist, not only in the dictionary and classical sense of the word but in the accepted Fleet Street sense of the word, of water supplies for many years now, and I realize fully how necessary this Bill is. At the same time there is probably nothing which will affect our future more seriously than hasty water legislation. To my mind, in spite of Part III of the Bill, which deals with water conservation, some safeguards are required. It has always been thoroughly understood as a convention of your Lordships' House that with the expert knowledge of particular members of your Lordships' House coupled with the long and sagacious view which they are able to take on matters of this kind, this type of Bill should have the very closest and most careful consideration in this House as well as in another place. While I am fully aware that twelve days were spent in Committee in another place, perusal of certain days of the Report in Hansard of that Committee stage has not given me full confidence that the issues were thoroughly understood or that the technique was mastered.

There is another point in Clause 13 which I wish to mention. There is so much opportunity in this Bill for legislation (which we have had again and again) by the good intention of the Minister. We are always ready to praise the Minister of the moment but the Minister of tomorrow and the Government behind him—I am not making any Party aspersions in any sense or any implication—may be an entirely different matter. I do not think we can legislate by the good intention of a Minister. That is one of the very serious faults I have to find in this Bill. Again—I think it is in Clause 3 of the Bill—there is machinery set up for regional water boards or area water boards for advice. There you will find local authorities and the statutory water undertakers have been mentioned as being the people, other than the Chairman whom the Minister will appoint, who will advise. In the long run the greatest harm that can be done through carelessness of water usage will be on the countryside itself, to the agriculture and the forestry of the country, and to all the people who gain their living thereby. Nobody is mentioned to give advice from their point of view.

It is such a long-term affair that I myself feel that the result will be that harm is done before you can really realize what has happened. It is only at the end of ten, fifteen or twenty years that you see the damage done and by that time all the other interests have become so definitely implanted that you may be in very great danger of producing almost an ecological cataclysm in the countryside without knowing it. I only wish on Second Reading to say by way of warning that I think, in spite of good intentions and in spite of the great deal of good that may be accomplished, we are very seriously endangering the future by not giving this matter the full consideration which ordinarily would be given.

2.40 p.m.

LORD TEMPLEMORE

My Lords, I am extremely obliged for the generally favourable reception given to this Bill. The noble Lord opposite, as he was bound to do I chink now that we have got back to Party Government, rather damned it with faint praise, but I do not take back what I said, that it is a simple, well-drafted Bill. The noble Lord seemed to infer that I did not understand every word of the Bill. Probably I do not, but I have read it as well as I could and I have read many worse Bills. I still stick to my opinion that the draftsmanship is excellent. I have taken note of the Amendments which the noble Lord said would be brought forward on the Committee stage. I am much obliged also for the remarks made by the noble Earls, Lord De La Warr and Lord Portsmouth. If it had been possible we should have liked to have given more time to this Bill but, as the noble Lord who is leading the House said at the beginning of our proceedings, we are very pressed fur time with the Dissolution coming or June if; and with the best will in the world we cannot give as much as we should like to give to this measure. I do not think, however, we are doing too badly. We are putting down the Committee stage for next Monday and with our congested programme I do not think that is too bad.

On Question, Bill read 2a and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.