Water Framework Directive

Mr. Robert Key (Salisbury) (Con): Because I shall speak with passion, nothing that I say will be reported anywhere, so I can be candid.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) on introducing this very important debate. I also congratulate the Minister, even before I say a word about what he has achieved, precisely because he has achieved so much. He has fought and won a notable battle with the forces of No. 10 and Ofwat in ameliorating the decisions that have been taken about the future care of this country's water resources. The water framework directive preamble says:

" Water is not a commercial product like any other but, rather, a heritage which must be protected, defended and treated as such".

I do not always go overboard in my support for European directives, but on the present occasion I want literally to go overboard and splash in the shallows of the Hampshire Avon. Every weekend, in Salisbury, I look over the parapet of the Ayleswade bridge, which was built in 1247, and consider the depth and quality of the water; I observe the bottom and whether the river appears healthy. I reflect on what we are doing to that river.

I have known the river since I was a child. I paddled in it when I was two years old. I fell into it when I was four years old, and was rescued by the Bishop of Bombay. I have rowed on it and watched birds and flowers there. I am a keen supporter of the water meadows trust. As the Member of Parliament for what is a wonderful constituency, that river means a lot to me.

It is a short step from the general words of my preamble to the principle that the price of water must reflect the full cost of protecting water heritage. That is the issue that I want to discuss. The cost must reflect the full cost of finding alternatives to damaging abstractions and pollution. The long campaigning—20 years, in my case—to protect the quality of the Hampshire Avon from abstraction and effluents is a vivid illustration of what the water framework directive is about.

The first paragraph of article 1 of the directive states that the purpose of the directive is to establish a framework that

" prevents further deterioration and protects and enhances the status of aquatic ecosystems".

Thus the directive is about protecting water qualitatively and quantitatively, and therefore its objectives overlap with the ecological objectives of the habitats directive. That is what is at stake in the argument that has been raging for years in my constituency about abstraction by Wessex Water—a fine company with lots of dedicated personnel who are in constant conflict with Ofwat about their investment plans. In the middle is the Minister.

The price review process gives far too much influence to Ofwat. Back in 1999, Ofwat succeeded in reducing prices substantially by eliminating many environmental programmes in the Wessex Water area, such as the Blashford lakes programme. That was an irony, since I recall an occasion when I had to stand in unexpectedly for the then Secretary of State for the Environment, who had just been sacked, the day before he was due to open the new Blashford lakes complex. I was sent there instead, as a Parliamentary Private Secretary. I still have a very nice print of the Hampshire Avon hanging in my bathroom, with a hastily rewritten notice underneath, with the name "Key" instead of "Ridley".

This year Ofwat wanted to cut another £5 billion from the programme and it was only a courageous fight by the Minister that prevented that. The River Wylye in my constituency has been a particular victim of what I am describing. The structure of the price review programme should be reviewed in the light of the water framework directive and the habitats directive, to ensure that it gives sufficient weight to environmental protection.

Locally, Wessex Water's draft plan for 2005 to 2010 included virtually no investment in reducing abstraction or removing phosphates from sewage treatment works. There was an allocation of £8 million, compared with a £90 million minimum request from the Environment Agency and English Nature. I understand that after a lot of pressure, Wessex Water has verbally agreed to put £10 or £12 million in its final plan, to cover investigating an alternative to the 1 billion litres a month taken from the little chalk stream of the upper Wylye and exported to Somerset. It is madness. We have massive leakage in the area, yet we are abstracting the headwaters of one of our most precious river systems to fulfil the needs of quite another part of England. The earliest that even the present scheme could have any effect on the river flows would be about 2014 or 2015. That assumes agreement by Ofwat to let Wessex Water finance it in the 2005 price review period.

There is no funding for a solution such as an agreed building programme in a Wessex Water plan, because Ofwat forced the so-called statement of intent on the Environment Agency and English Nature. The statement of intent must be reviewed every year. January is usually the month, so I expect the review to be published shortly. The plan said that Chitterne abstraction would be used as a last resort. As so many of us predicted, however, there was a failure to protect the Wylye. The abstraction at Chitterne for five months was five times the target level. The flow in the River Wylye dropped to 40 per cent. of the average. The agreement nevertheless has to run until 2007, and allows Ofwat to delay the programme and the price increases to find a solution to the low flow problem for another five years.

In spite of all that, Wessex Water last year—last summer was quite warm and dry, as I am sure hon. Members recall—failed to apply for a drought order or introduce any restrictions on supply. Of course, the issue of prices lies behind all that. In retrospect, the policy of 2000 to reduce prices by 12 per cent. was idiotic. Wessex Water bills went down by 5 per cent. in real terms in the period 2000 to 2005. Even on that artificially low base, however, prices in Wessex Water's plan increased by only 12 per cent. for 2005 to 2010, compared with 31 per cent. nationally.

The key issues on which we are fighting locally are to ensure that the £12 million really is there to investigate alternatives to the Wylye abstraction and to ensure that the investigations result in a project agreed by all the parties to eliminate abstraction from the Wylye. Eliminating the abstraction must be the answer. We must also ensure that the full Environment Agency and English Nature programme for phosphate removal is in the Wessex Water final plan, but we have not yet been promised that it will be.

The argument has been going on since 1990, when the Wiltshire fisheries association starting fighting its corner, although I started fighting back in 1983. We shall not get an answer until 2014 at the earliest. It is not acceptable that we have had to wait for a quarter of a century to remedy serious environmental damage to a special area conservation site, which is supposedly the most important designation.

There is a huge problem of attitude. Water Voice Wessex wrote to me on 22 July 2002 about what it saw as a settlement for low flow rivers such as the Hampshire Avon. It said:

" Water Voice Wessex fought hard for customers against the original £105m proposal"—

that was Blashford lakes—

" which we did not believe was cost effective, and would have increased bills significantly by £11 per year ad infinitum. This new proposal will quickly improve the low flows on the Hampshire Avon and not significantly increase customers' bills. This is a win-win for all concerned."

It is a lose-lose for all concerned. The environment will lose and there will not even be any long-term benefit for consumers, because the other problems will become greater if, for instance, phosphorous and other chemicals are not tackled.

The public consultation draft, "River Avon candidate Special Area of Conservation Strategy", published by English Nature in October 2002, said:

" The River Avon is one of the most biodiverse chalk streams in the UK, with over 180 species of aquatic plant . . . one of the most diverse fish faunas, and a wide range of aquatic invertebrates"

having been recorded. There were populations of Atlantic salmon, bullhead, brook and sea lamprey, as well as flowing water vegetation, including water crowfoot. The river and adjoining areas also provided a habit for populations of Desmoulins whorl snail, with which I am sure we all familiar.

The key issue was that the discharge of substances, including hormone-disrupting substances, mostly as a result of the pill, discharged from sewage treatment works was affecting much of the sensitive environment. Discharges of phosphorous chemicals—detergents, in other words—from points sources were being reduced, but there was a long way to go. This country must decide what it wants to do. Are we going to go down the route of cheap water for everybody, with no regard for leakage or the consequences for the environment? The leakage levels are still enormous. Paragraph 6.7 of Wessex Water's first annual report to the Minister on progress, published in January 2003, says:

" During 2002 Wessex Water continued to reduce leakage. By March 2003 leakage should be reduced to 75 million litres a day."

That has been assessed as the economic level for leakage.

" For 2003–04 leakage is predicted to reduce to just over 74 million litres a day and remain at the economic level."

Who says that that is an economic level? What sort of economics of the madhouse is it that assumes that it is all right to lose 75 million litres a day, at the same time as 1 billion litres are being taken out of the headwaters of a sensitive chalk stream on Salisbury plain? It does not add up.

The Minister will be familiar with me banging on about this, but I am convinced that the answer must be water metering. There is no way that people will realise how much water they are wasting unless they can see a little dial going round that tells them, before a bill flops on the doormat to remind them every now and then. There are plenty of ways in which we can reduce water consumption—but we are not. Planning authorities are nearly always reluctant to go for grey water schemes and to operate sustainable urban drainage systems in their areas. Planners are put under huge pressure to build more and more housing, as is Salisbury district council. Water companies are not statutory consultees. The whole thing is completely mad.

All power to the Minister if he can persuade No. 10 to take a more enlightened view. Will he please get Ofwat and Water Voice under control, and talk to them about the consequences of their fighting for the consumer? In the long run, apart from the fact that we shall all be dead, we shall not have any decent rivers in this country. I hope that in my few minutes, I have been able to instil some passion into the debate, which was so ably introduced by the hon. Member for Stafford. I am grateful to him, and wish that we could convince our constituents of the importance of the work going on in this area. It is not just about people flopping around looking for things with long Latin names, but about one of the most precious parts of the heritage of this country. If we do not take care of it, we shall lose it.