There is still no formal legal requirement for Lead Local Flood Authorities to implement their flood risk management strategies by a specified deadline, despite criticism from a Parliamentary Committee.

The issue has been flagged up with the publication by the House of Commons Environment Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee of the Government’s formal response to the Committee's Second Report of Session 2012–13 on the Water White Paper.

The Government response said it welcomed the Committee's report on the Water White Paper and that it looked forward to engaging further with the Committee through pre-legislative scrutiny on the draft Water Bill.

On flooding, the Committee said:

”Five years on from the devastating floods of 2007 we are not convinced that Defra’s work to improve the management of surface water has been carried out with sufficient urgency. Defra must ensure that implementation of the relevant provisions of the Flood and Water Management Act is not subject to any further unnecessary delay. The White Paper says disappointingly little about the retrofitting of Sustainable Drainage Systems …”

The Government said that the majority of provisions in the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 have been commenced and that Defra was encouraging Lead Local Flood Authorities (LLFAs) to prepare, publish and implement their local flood risk management strategies by spring 2013.

The strategies would “help identify areas where retrofitting of sustainable drainage systems may be useful” …The Government response continued:

“The recent flooding experienced in many parts of the country has yet again demonstrated the urgent need for better management of surface water flooding caused by heavy rain and local authorities working in partnership with sewerage companies are now well placed to undertake this work.” On SuDS, the Government said it was now “developing… policy proposals to ensure that implementation achieves effective outcomes”.

On the continuing lack of agreement with the industry on flood insurance, which the Committee Report described as “deeply worrying”, the Government said it was working hard with the industry to deliver widely available and affordable household insurance in flood risk areas. However, it described it as “a difficult issue with no easy answers, and …it may take a little more time to find the right solution.”

The Government is currently considering an internal industry levy which would formalise the existing cross-subsidy in place between policyholders.

In response to the Committee's recommendation that both Defra and the Environment Agency should work with the Institution of Civil Engineers to complete the reviews of both the guide to the Reservoirs Act 1975 and the Floods and Reservoir Safety guidance by December 2012, the Government said that both reviews were currently in progress.

The review of “A guide to the Reservoirs Act 1975” would be completed once the amendments set out in Schedule 4 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 have been commenced. The review of “Floods and reservoir safety guidance was commissioned in August 2011 with “Target timescale two years, subject to consideration of a detailed programme and budget’ and the government working with the Institution’s working group to achieve publication as soon as possible.

The Response also addresses a number of ongoing key issues for the water sector.

On bulk trading and interconnections, the Committee said that Defra should remain open to considering whether large-scale infrastructure may be an appropriate and cost-effective solution in some circumstances. The response says that “large scale infrastructure investment is costly, and water is heavy and expensive to move. Relatively local connections are likely to be the most attractive options, incrementally building a more integrated network. The Environment Agency is currently looking at the environmental barriers to large scale transfers via the existing rivers and canal network and we will be considering this as one of a range of options, including opportunities presented by other large infrastructure projects. “

On the Committee’s criticism that the timescales to introduce changes to the current abstraction regime lacked ambition and unnecessarily risked further environmental damage and its call for reforms to be in place no later than 2022, the Government said that far from lacking ambition, the White Paper had set out a challenging timescale. It expects implementation to start in the highest priority catchments in advance of the Committee’s proposed target date of 2022. However, implementation would have to be phased to reflect the number of licences that would need to be varied and to minimise disruption to major industries, such as manufacturing, food and drink production, and power generation. The aim was to have completed full roll out by the mid to late 2020s.

The Government has accepted the Committee’s recommendation for the White Paper’s proposal that funding for the Restoring Sustainable Abstraction Programme be incorporated within the price review process to be implemented in time for the 2014 price review. The Government said it was working with the Environment Agency and Ofwat to put in place a range of measures to deal more efficiently with current licences that pose a risk to the environment and to identify how this could best be achieved with a clear focus on having the new arrangements in place for the 2014 review.

In response to the Committee's comment that "it is extremely disappointing that a White Paper that places such an emphasis on valuing water says so little about metering", the Government said that "A centrally dictated Government objective on metering uptake would be a blunt instrument and risk driving solutions that were inappropriate to the circumstances of particular areas."

On the matter of market reform, the EFRA Committee recommended that Defra opens the retail market three years from Royal Assent to a Water Act. However, the Government is still sticking with its target of April 2017, which is likely to be a “realistic” target date if the Water Bill achieves Royal Assent by the end of the Third Session.  The Government has said that it wants to “work with key players in the market to develop a detailed roadmap before confirming this target date.”

The EFRA Committee has welcomed the proposed joint Anglo-Scottish water market but is concerned about duplication or conflict between regulators, and is pressing the Government to assess whether a single regulator for the joint market may be appropriate.

The Government has dismissed the notion of a single regulator: “We do not think that a single regulator is necessary to make the cross-border market work properly,” the response reads. It did however, say that any new entrants to the water market would only need to make an application to one regulator, and that Ofwat and WICS will put in place a memorandum of understanding to avoid “duplicated effort.”

In its response the Government also said that it sees no case for opening up the household market to competition in the foreseeable future.

Click here to read the Response in full.