COMMONS AMENDMENTS (Hansard, 13 November 2003)

§ Lord Whitty

My Lords, I beg to move that this House agrees with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 3 to 7 In speaking to those amendments, I shall refer also to Amendments Nos. 8 to 35.

All but one of the amendments in this group are technical or drafting changes. I shall be happy to explain any of them if pressed to do so. They deal with issues such as tightening the wording of the Bill and do not introduce issues relating to any change of substance to the Bill when it left this House.

Amendment No. 3, however, amends the definition of a transfer licence to include movements of abstracted water from one part of a source of supply to another part of that source, as well as between sources of supply. The amendment arises from our discussions with the Quarry Products Association. It will ensure, for example, that a transfer licence rather than a full licence can be granted where water abstracted from one end of a quarry is reinjected into the aquifer at the other end and where there is no intervening use of the water. We have discussed this at some length.

The only other amendment not strictly related to technical or drafting issues is Amendment No. 8. This amendment removes the change to Section 29 of the Water Resources Act 1991 that was introduced by an amendment moved on Report in this House. I understand that the intention of that amendment was to ensure that in individual licensing decisions, the Environment Agency must consider how long irrigation has been practised and that applications are fully considered in that light. If that was the intention behind the amendment, we fully agree with it.

I am happy to make it clear to the House that when transitional regulations are made to bring irrigation under licensing control, the agency will be required, as a matter of law, to consider the history of the irrigation in question. Also, there will be a period of up to two years for licence applications to be made. Abstractions for existing operations will continue to be lawful during this period. It is government policy that the Environment Agency should not issue any other licence that might derogate a currently exempt 1683 abstraction for irrigation operations during the period. I can reassure noble Lords that the transitional regulations will include those provisions.

When considering a licence it will not, therefore, be a case of the Environment Agency putting applications for licences for irrigation to the bottom of the pile. The agency will be able to set aside some of its normal considerations when determining a licence, such as whether the licence will derogate on others' rights. Clause 103(5) provides for this.

These provisions are helpful to irrigators in just the situations which the original Amendment No. 15 tabled on Report in this House was intended to address. It is, in fact, dealt with in other ways.

I would also note that the Environment Agency will be discussing this with groups representing all abstractors being brought into the system; that will include irrigators. It has already issued a briefing note on trickle irrigation to clarify how the new regime will work.

I hope that noble Lords will agree that, with those provisions safeguarding the position of irrigators, the change originally agreed by this House to Section 29 of the Water Resources Act 1991 is not necessary and that the Commons amendment will be agreed.