Water Law

Happy memories of my Salisbury childhood tell me that it was hot in summer and winter was white. Was it not so? School holidays would find me splashing about in the river between Town Path and Harnham Bridge, fishing, hunting for crayfish, or exploring every creek and waterway open to our little rowing boat. Here I learnt early about the world of water and the crucial part it plays in our everyday life.

Our interference in the river basin is most perilous when we take water out - and in what state we put it back after use. Most people take water for granted. It comes out of taps and goes down drains. But that won't do any more. If we won't take care of our water voluntarily, then we'll all have to pay someone to do it for us. Water will cost more.

It is twenty years since the last major revision of water law. The current government has been consulting for several years on what should be done. Their Water Bill has been through the House of Lords this summer. It will come to the Commons in September. I hope to speak at Second Reading - and to serve on the legislative (Standing) Committee that will consider the Bill line by line. I will be working closely with the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, English Nature, and others to try to get the balance right between environmental interests and commercial and consumer interests who want water to be as cheap as possible.

I will want the Government to go further than it wishes in giving water companies a new legal duty to promote water conservation. I will argue that maintaining sustainable levels of water abstraction and sustainable volumes of effluent and sewage should be a statutory duty of planning authorities. So, in considering planning permission for new housing, for example at Laverstock or Amesbury, Salisbury District Council would have powers it does not now have to say, 'enough is enough'.

Our use of water should be a matter of common sense. It should be all about abstracting it from the chalk, from our streams and our rivers at the right place, at the right volume and at the right time. If we can get our water law right, then not only will England continue to be a green and pleasant land, we will also go with the grain of nature to ensure our grandchildren can spend their summers splashing in our streams and messing about in boats.

Robert Key MP