Royal Assent Given To Energy, Flood And Water, And Digital Economy Bills
The Flood and Water Management Bill gained Royal Assent yesterday.
The Act will implement several key recommendations of Sir Michael Pitt’s Review of the Summer 2007 floods, protect water supplies to consumers and protect community groups from excessive charges for surface water drainage.
The Act’s provisions include:
· New statutory responsibilities for managing flood risk – There will be national strategies and guidance on managing flood risk in England and Wales. Unitary and county councils will bring together the relevant bodies, who will have a duty to cooperate, to develop local strategies for managing local flood risk.
· Protection of assets which help manage flood risk – The Environment Agency, local authorities and internal drainage boards will be able to ensure that private assets which help manage the risks of floods cannot be altered without consent. For example, putting a gate in a wall that is helping protect an area could increase the risk of flooding.
· Powers to carry out environmental works – the Environment Agency, local authorities and internal drainage boards will be able to manage water levels to deliver leisure, habitat and other environmental benefits.
· Sustainable drainage – drainage systems for all new developments will need to be in line with new National Standards to help manage and reduce the flow of surface water into the sewerage system.
· New sewer standards – all sewers will be built to agreed standards in future so that they are adopted and maintained by the relevant sewerage company.
· Reservoir safety – the public will be protected by a new risk-based regime for reservoir safety. It will reduce the burden on regulated reservoirs where people are not at risk, but introduce regulation for some potentially risky reservoirs currently outside of the system.
· Water company charges – there will be protection against unaffordable charges for surface water drainage for community groups such as churches, scouts and others. Future water company charges can include social tariffs for those who would otherwise face difficulty meeting their bills.
· Protection of water supplies – there will be wider powers for water companies to control non-essential domestic uses of water in times of drought.
· Other protection for water company customers – there will be new powers to reduce the level of bad debt, new arrangements for managing very risky infrastructure projects which could be a threat to the ability of the water company to provide its services, and updated arrangements for administration of water companies should they get into difficulties.
The Digital Economy Bill has now been published as the Digital Economy Act 2010, following Royal Assent.
The Act includes provisions relating to the UK’s communications infrastructure, public service broadcasting, copyright licensing and online infringement of copyright, and security and safety online and in video games.
Some of the measures in the Act will come into effect immediately with others coming into effect in two months’ time. Many of the Act’s provisions require further public consultation and in some cases approval by Parliament, before they can be implemented.
The Energy Bill received Royal Assent yesterday, becoming the Energy Act 2010.
The main elements of the new Act are:
- Carbon capture and storage (CCS) – delivering a new financial incentive to bring forward four commercial scale demonstration projects on coal-fired power stations and to support the retrofit of additional CCS capacity to those projects should it be required at a later date.
- Mandatory social price support – creating a framework to mandate energy companies to provide support to the fuel poor, including powers to give greater guidance and direction on the types of households eligible for future support and the type of support they should be given.
- Clarifying Ofgem’s remit – making it clear that Ofgem must:
- include the reduction of carbon emissions and the delivery of secure energy supplies in their assessment of the interests of consumers
- step in proactively to protect consumers as well as considering longer term actions to promote competition
- Tackling market power exploitation – giving Ofgem additional powers to tackle market exploitation where companies might take advantage of constraints in the electricity transmission grid.
Other measures are:
- Requiring the Government to prepare regular reports on the progress made on the decarbonisation of electricity generation in Britain and the development and use of CCS.
- Extending the time limit from 12 months to 5 years within which Ofgem can impose financial penalties on energy suppliers for breaches of licence conditions.
- Allowing the Government to set the period within which energy companies must inform customers of changes to their gas and electricity tariffs.
- Enabling action to be taken against unfair cross-subsidy between gas and electricity supply.
Topics: 2010, Britain, digital economy, Economy, energy, flood and water, Governance, government, Great Britain, moniter, monitor, news, U.K., UK, United Kingdom
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