Jerome Mayhew MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  To save everyone’s time, I will not make a speech on this, but I am concerned about new clause 12 because it confers an absolute duty regarding chalk streams. I represent a constituency with several chalk streams, including the Stiffkey, which goes through Walsingham. The new clause says: “Where a relevant undertaker operates, or has any effect on chalk streams, that undertaker must—” so it is a direction— “secure and maintain high ecological status of such chalk streams”. We all want that outcome, but the problem is that water undertakers are not the only ones with negative impacts on chalk streams, yet the new clause gives them the requirement, which is absolute in its terms. We know that farming, and increasingly road detritus, also affects chalk streams, so how does the hon. Member square that circle?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am afraid I have to make the same point about new clause 27. Proposed new section 4A(1)(a) contains an absolute duty on the undertaker, which “must”—so this is a direction—secure and maintain high ecological status, and that has to be achieved within three years. I question the practicality of that. I am also keen to highlight the fact that proposed new section 4A(7) includes the broads, which I am lucky enough to represent. The broads are affected by all sorts of factors: we have a high degree of recreational use, with boating as well as angling, and it is a farming environment, with grazing in the marshes, particularly down in the Halvergate marshes. Yes, Anglian Water has affected water quality negatively—as well as in some positive ways, to give it credit—but it would be a travesty to place an absolute duty on Anglian Water when it has only partial control of the answer, and over a three- year timeframe. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is unrealistic?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member says that privatisation has demonstrably failed. I challenge him on that. There are elements of privatisation that have failed: the refinancing, the imposition of debt and the removal of money through dividends in the noughties and, I am sorry to say, between 2010 and 2015. That is a failure, but I hope that the hon. Member accepts that privatisation as a whole has delivered more than £160 billion of capex investment into the industry, which simply would not have happened if it had been up against schools, hospitals and the other calls on the public purse. I know that I am straying too far, but subsection (1)(b) of the new clause refers to “whether a public benefit company could better perform the role of current undertakers.” As I am sure the hon. Member will know, we have an example of that: Welsh Water. Is he able to point to a single metric by which Welsh Water has outperformed its private sector comparators?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  This is a genuinely interesting point. I know it is late, but I would be grateful if the hon. Member could expand in further detail. While he is referencing regulated capital value and the difference between what is on the sheet and what is reality, could he explain in a bit more detail, for the benefit of the Committee, what that means in reality? If there were to be a rebase of regulated capital value, what would be the practical impact of that?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I would like the Minister’s comments on the issue that we have, and I am focusing primarily on the Norfolk broads, of which I represent a good chunk. There is the requirement to make a mandatory obligation on the water undertaker to ensure “high ecological status”, which is above “good ecological status”—that is the point the Minister is making. Does she agree that, while they are a primary input into the quality of the water in the Norfolk broads, they are not the only influencer? While the intention to create and encourage high ecological status in the broads is a very good one, and it is one that I share, does the Minister agree that the drafting of this new clause is not appropriate?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is conflating the term creditor with debt provision, but actually there is a plethora of suppliers to any large organisation such as a water undertaker. They are creditors—that is just how they are defined. His clause would cover small and medium enterprises that are providers of services, and in fact any provider of a service who would be a creditor of such an organisation. How does he propose that his clause only affects debt provision, which I understand is the direction he is trying to focus the clause on, and does not cover all creditors as it is currently drafted?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  The shadow Minister is right that a lot of the supposed solutions were uncosted and had an impractical timeframe. One that springs to mind was the Liberal Democrat amendment that was costed: there was a tax that was supposed to pay for the improvements to water quality. Does he agree that, on a basic calculation, it would have taken more than 300 years to pay it back?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman will perhaps know that under current insolvency law, there are secured creditors. There is a hierarchy of debt, and the least protected—not the most protected—are suppliers. Does he envisage changing the rules to give additional protection in this process to unsecured creditors and essentially reverse the security of credit? That would be an odd thing to do, but I understand why he might need to do it to make this process effective.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  They will be right at the bottom.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I have a slightly cheeky intervention. Is the shadow Minister aware that there is a debate in Westminster Hall at 4 o’clock tomorrow led by yours truly on nature-based solutions for farmland flooding? The fund is central to improving the situation.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman says it is the creditors who put the undertakers in the position that they are in, but surely that cannot be right. Creditors are the people who provide services for a fee to the undertaker—they will not be the organisations that put the undertaker into that position. Surely the hon. Gentleman agrees that if he were to replace the consumer or any other body with recovery from creditors, that would be meaningless unless Government debt was placed above those of other creditors. How would that be fair to the providers of services to water undertakers?

• 9 Jan 2025 · Road Maintenance · Hansard source

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  I do not know about you, Mr Speaker, but I am not sure whether that was a commitment to match the £8 billion, or whether the Secretary of State considered it to be a fantasy commitment. However, it is not just the £8 billion investment that seems to have gone missing. As soon as they were in power, the Labour Government cancelled the A27 bypass, the Stonehenge tunnel, improvements to the A47 in Great Yarmouth, the A1 from Morpeth to Ellingham, junction 8 of the M27 at Southampton, and other projects. That is £3.3 billion axed from works to help motorists. What have they done with the money? Has Labour prioritised pay rises for unions over improving roads and helping motorists?

• 9 Jan 2025 · Road Maintenance · Hansard source

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  I, too, welcome the Secretary of State to her post, and look forward to helping her to do an excellent job. As we can see following the last few days of flooding, changing weather patterns are damaging our roads and increasing potholes. The last Government allocated an additional £8 billion for road improvements, paid for by the cancellation of the northern leg of HS2, yet all we have seen from Labour is a commitment of £1.8 billion for this financial year. Will the Secretary of State commit to matching the additional £8 billion for road maintenance?

• 9 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady says that it was the last Government who allowed the water companies—the undertakers—to mark their own homework. Does she not recall that it was actually the Labour Government in 2008 who specifically changed the rules to allow water companies to do just that in relation to their environmental performance?

• 9 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  I will speak primarily in support of amendment 6. I pay tribute to the former Member for Ludlow, the right hon. Philip Dunne, who throughout the previous Parliament was the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I sat. The EAC’s work on water quality and the seminal report that we produced started this huge public interest in water quality and led to the legislative changes in the Environment Act 2021, among other things. One of the key lessons we learned from the work that we did on the EAC was the need for transparency of data and information, which can unlock the power of citizen science. We visited the citizen scientists working on the River Windrush, who had difficulty analysing the data that was then publicly available but very hard to find to work out whether storm overflows were being used in the way the water companies were describing. Their very detailed, hard-to-do work exposed the shocking misuse of storm overflows. As those citizen scientists understood, an event duration monitor is a very simple piece of equipment: it is either on or off. It is set on the outflow of the storm overflow tank. When it detects flow on that channel, it turns on, and when that flow ceases, it turns off. What it does not do, as the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale rightly pointed out, is measure volume. It also does not measure what is passing. It says that something is passing or not passing, but it does not measure volume or quality. That leads me to support amendment 6, tabled by the loyal Opposition, and to question not the intention behind the Liberal Democrat amendments—amendments 24 and 25 and those to clause 3, which I suspect we will talk a bit more about—but the effectiveness of having new machines that measure volume, in addition to whether it is on and off, but not quality. A better solution may be the one that the Environmental Audit Committee recommended all those years ago—I stand to be corrected, but I think we wrote that report in 2021. It called for the upstream and downstream monitoring of water quality, typically in the outflow river, so that in addition to a signal that there has been an event, there is close to real-time reporting of the comparative water quality upstream and downstream of a discharge outlet. That would simplify the technical requirements of having to install a whole load of new equipment, which other amendments from the Liberal Democrats anticipate, at an unknown cost and implementation speed. Instead, it would look at the actual real-time impact on a particular water body. Amendment 6 would require the publishing of the information on the undertaker’s website. I am surprised that that was not part of the Bill in the first place and, given that it was not, that the Government have not adopted the amendment. All it does is to apply consistency to the legislative programme. Section 81(2) and (3) of the Environment Act 2021—I know the Minister is familiar with it, but just in case she is not—require the publishing of event duration monitor data within an hour and in a format that is readily accessible by the general public. The loyal Opposition’s amendment is simply trying to ensure consistency between what we already require for EDMs on undertakers’ websites and this area. Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.— (Jeff Smith.)

• 9 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am not against the principle of this—in fact, I am strongly in favour of it—but I have some practical questions. I wonder whether this would bump up against individuals’ human rights and restraint of trade arguments in the courts. I must confess that I was previously a barrister. That was a long time ago, so I have dangerously little knowledge now, but it was certainly the case that the courts would habitually not enforce a restraint of trade clause on a contractual basis that was in excess of 12 months. I know that this would be legislation, but to have such a wide-ranging blanket prohibition for such a long period against all employees, irrespective of the role they undertook and the role that they might in future undertake with a water company, might be challenged successfully under human rights legislation. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has considered that in his drafting.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am pleased to see you in your place, Mr Vickers. I am not going to speak to the Government amendments; I merely repeat the very good arguments put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest. At this stage, however, I will just express a couple of concerns that I have about amendment 18, tabled by the Liberal Democrats. I understand the rationale or the intention behind amendment 18; we all want the water companies to pay closer attention to the interests of their consumers. I note in passing that they already have a statutory duty—a consumer-focused statutory duty—but the actions taken by the Conservative Government over the past 14 years to ask questions about the state of sewage discharges and to get information about them, so as to take effective action to bring them to an end, bring with them an additional need. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale highlighted a loss of trust in the water undertakers, and I agree with him on that. There has been a significant loss of trust as their poor behaviour, which was uncovered by the Conservative Administration, has been met with considerable outrage—justifiable outrage—by the Government and by members of the public. However, I fear that there will be some significant unintended consequences associated with the drafting of amendment 18, relating to the legal obligations of a board member. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale referred to those new positions being on the boards of companies. There are legal obligations that apply to all board members and I question whether the representatives of consumers and of the voluntary organisations that have been so active in this area over the past few years would really want to be exposed to the legal obligations of being a member of the board of a plc, because those obligations are significant and onerous.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 9 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  I have expressed my concerns. It would be perfectly possible to achieve the object, which I share, of improving the voice of the customer in water companies, or of improving the implementation of the existing obligation on water companies to take account of the consumer interest. I do not think that the current drafting is the best that we can do. I raise these concerns so that they may be properly considered.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for that intervention. However, it seems an odd way to proceed if it is recognised that there is a risk to voluntary members who join boards, exposing them to personal obligations, such as a fiduciary duty of care. There is also a legal duty of loyalty to the organisation, which such volunteers might find quite difficult to stomach. There is a duty of obedience to the organisation as well. It seems odd at this drafting stage to say, “We recognise that there is a risk, but don’t worry: you can take out insurance and you’ll probably be okay.” It seems odd to introduce an amendment in an imperfect form, rather than perfecting it.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  With respect, that is a separate point, because we are talking about amendments to clause 3, which is about emergency overflows. I accept the point. As with so many of our discussions this morning and this afternoon, we are all trying to get the right outcome, but this is line-by-line consideration of the Bill, which is rather boring and technical, but it is where we try to tease out some of the drafting issues and what can be improved. I am not sure that the problem that the hon. Gentleman is seeking to resolve sits naturally in this clause. Moving on to amendment 15, again I highlight my fear that, given that the clause relates to emergency overflows, the amendment leads to a legal duplication of section 81 of the Environment Act. I do not want to do the Minister’s job for her, but from my perspective, that is a reason why we should look carefully at amendment 15 before we accept it. Of course, when I say that I do not want to do the Minister’s job for her, that is only pro tem—in the future, I definitely want to do this job for her. The Liberal Democrats have not yet spoken in favour of amendment 16, so I will leave that until such time as they decide to. The hon. Member for Witney can come back to it. Finally, on amendment 17, which the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale—

• 9 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way and for the conversation that we had over the lunch recess. One challenge with the measuring of volume is what we are measuring the volume of. The industry estimates that 97%-plus of volume from a storm event is water—it is just rainwater. How do these amendments address the measurement of what is being passed, and is this something on which we could co-operate?

• 9 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Minister may be right, but it is important that we get to the bottom of this. From my perspective, the important data is the upstream and downstream of a discharge pipe water quality monitor being installed and activated. I would be very grateful if the Minister could set out during the course of the next hour and a quarter, either because she knows it off the top of her head or because her officials can give her the answer, the timeframe for those installations and the reasons why it is not happening faster.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  I now rise to talk about amendment 16. My primary objection here is the overarching one: I am not convinced that this is the right technical approach, for the reasons set out in the report of the Environmental Audit Committee, and also in the Environment Act 2021. However, if I am wrong on that, I am happy to support this amendment as a probing amendment and look forward to the answer that the Minister gives; but if it were to be taken to a vote, without further information about the practicality of being able to obtain the required tens of thousands of these machines, install them and have them operational and reporting in a 12-month period, I am not sure that I, as a responsible legislator, could support amendment 16. I would need further information on whether that was a practical option.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; she is being generous with her time. The problem with the position she is taking now is that it is at variance with the Government’s position and with section 81 of the Environment Act 2021. If she is right about the efficacy of leaving it to the Environment Agency to publish such information, buried in its website or its regulations, should she not also amend section 81 of the Environment Act so as to have consistency?