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(Alliance News) - Extra powers should be given to a beefed-up water regulator to take action against house builders and other businesses that cause pollution in rivers and seas, peers have heard.
The UK government's proposed Water (Special Measures) bill will ban bonuses and impose tougher penalties for law-breaking. Water bosses could face prison for serious pollution incidents.
However the House of Lords was told that water firms could, under the new legislation, be held responsible for the actions of companies such as housing developers.
Labour peer Larry Whitty said: "Water companies should not be pursued by the law or by the authority for things which are not their fault, and which they are unable to do anything about.
"However I think this underlines the need to ensure the new authority, whatever it is, is a very powerful authority."
Whitty added: "We need somebody who can take steps, not only against the water companies, but against other bodies which make the water companies' task impossible or extremely difficult.
"That applies not only to developers, although I think developers are explicitly the worst in this context… at some stage the government is going to have to consider giving powers to the new authority which cover those companies, or particular actions by those companies, as well as water companies themselves."
Anne McIntosh said she wanted to change the bill so water bosses could not be held liable for pollution that was not their fault.
McIntosh said: "The purpose of these amendments is to reflect the fact that water companies should only be held responsible… for those activities within their specific responsibility."
The Conservative peer highlighted the problem of "misconnections", where waste water pipes are incorrectly plumbed into drainage sewers for rainwater, meaning sewage is not properly processed and instead gets into rivers and streams.
She added that major house developers in particular were sometimes behind pollution coming from new housing estates, with existing pipework having to take a higher amount of waste than it was built for.
She said the government should end the automatic "right to connect" for developers, where they have the right to connect to a public sewer regardless of capacity issues
As the bill stands, the regulator would not be able to take action against developers.
She said: "For example, where there are misconnections between wastewater pipes and major developments, water companies should not be held responsible if they are obliged to fit these new connections into inadequate, antiquated pipes, which simply cannot take the amount of waste coming."
She added: "This one measure alone would mean that misconnections would simply not happen in the future, whereby the existing infrastructure is deemed to fit the amount of wastewater coming from major new developments, often and mostly of four and five-bedroom homes… coming out of them and into inadequate Victorian drains."
Responding for the government, Lords Environment Minister Susan Hayman said: "There may be exceptional circumstances where a payment should not be prohibited.
"For example, if an incident leading to a rule breach was clearly and demonstrably beyond the control of the company, this could be grounds for an exemption from the ban."
Severn Trent shares were 0.3% lower at 2,622.00 pence each on Tuesday morning in London, while United Utilities shares were 0.1% lower at 1,050.00p each.
By Harry Taylor, PA Political Staff
Press Association: News
source: PA
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