4. The Sustainable Drainage (Enforcement) (Wales) (Amendment) Order 2019

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:47 pm on 26 November 2019.

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Photo of Mark Reckless Mark Reckless Conservative 3:47, 26 November 2019

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. We talk about how we're keen to increase house building and construction in Wales, both to provide housing and to generate economic growth, yet the reality is we put more and more restrictions and conditions on what developers have to do before they are allowed to develop. One of these has been the sustainable urban drainage requirements.

When I served on the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee, we were looking into the small and medium house builders and received evidence emphasising the drainage requirements as a particular problem, in many cases requiring drainage arrangements that were ongoing and required estate management and very significant regulatory work that added a lot of cost to the developments. There were also very substantial complaints about Dŵr Cymru—Dŵr Cymru resisted those. But I'm nervous about having more and more requirements, and more and larger fines, that have regulators reducing the ease with which people are able to build the houses and the developments that we need.

I'm pleased that the change is going to be made to the explanatory note that was identified by CLAC, and I thank CLAC for their work in noting that requirement for the change in the explanatory note, but I would just question the unlimited fine. If there is a series of well-known issues where developers have just seen £20,000 as a cost of doing business and have done truly egregious things, and there's a problem that we need to address, fine, but it's just suggested, 'Oh well, we need to be consistent with these other things—there's this need to do this', and I'm not convinced whether that need is there.

But I am willing to listen to the Minister's response and would specifically ask her to clarify the authorities that can put the initial stop notices—the 22 local authorities—. Can she clarify—national parks authorities, Dŵr Cymru—? Is Natural Resources Wales also allowed to do this? What is the scope? Will any fine be a requirement of the magistrates' courts and independently assessed there before the developer would have to pay? I look forward to a hearing a response before we consider our voting position. Thank you.