Sustainable Drainage Systems

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Hardy)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Barker. I thank the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for securing this important debate. I have enjoyed sitting through a debate in which there has been so much love for previous Labour policy, because, of course, it was the Labour party that introduced the 2010 Act that both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives seemed so very keen to enact. I gently say that they had a mere 14 years—well, the Liberal Democrats had five—in which it could have been enacted. It falls to this Labour Government to tackle the issue of SuDS.

Putting that to one side, as I said to the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) earlier, my full sympathy and support go to everybody who has been impacted by flooding. It has been horrific, especially for the families, homes and businesses that are facing repeated flooding episodes. After today’s oral questions in the Chamber, I am considering how quickly I can come down and see the flooding for myself. I will pick that up with the hon. Lady, because it is really important.

Lots of incredibly important points were raised in the debate. A point was made about why water companies would not be interested, but in fact they are. The reason why many of them are is because of what we call, when it comes to water, the pre-pipe solutions. To explain that more simply, if an awful lot of surface water ends up in the sewerage system, we end up with more storm overflow incidents, because the system becomes overloaded, water spills out into the rivers, lakes and seas, and then there are pollution incidents.

There is, then, an incentive for water companies to be interested, because holding the surface water away prevents some of the pollution. There are some really good examples—admittedly in more urban areas—of that happening. A project in Mansfield involved Living with Water, the local authority, the Environment Agency and the council all working together. I am interested in looking at regional planning—this is in the White Paper—and how to bring together different interested parties in the same region to look at stopping the system becoming overloaded, which is one way of tackling pollution.

[Martin Wrigley]

I am delighted that the Minister is talking about water companies splitting surface water from foul water. That is exactly what they are doing in the middle of Dawlish: creating massive new tanks for that purpose. The programme has been going on for about two years; most of Dawlish has been dug up and its town centre has been in disarray because of it.

Throughout the last 10 years, South West Water has been talking about the separation of surface water and foul sewage, and insisting that it happens higher upstream. That is fine and proper—and, yes, it is agreed on that. However, South West Water is not interested in what happens to the surface water off estates that are already separating it out. That is not a problem that the company is addressing; it already has big enough issues elsewhere, where it is fixing past problems. That is where the SuDS come in, and that is why South West Water is not interested in those.

[Emma Hardy]

I am happy to go on to talk about SuDS, but I wanted to address why there is a collective self-interest in everybody getting involved in this, because it will help to reduce pollution. That is why it was a key part of the White Paper. Speaking personally, as someone who loves nature, this is also an opportunity to increase nature in different areas. These pre-pipe solutions do not have to be concrete tanks; they can be somewhere that is quite beautiful.

We want to maximise the opportunities offered by better managing rain and looking at where it lands. It is estimated that the average household roof collects 85,000 litres of rainwater every year—obviously a little more in your constituency, Mrs Barker, and a fair bit in Hull as well, but a little less elsewhere—which is equivalent to an estimated 4 trillion litres annually across the UK, or 1.6 million Olympic-sized swimming pools. We are therefore thinking about not just SuDS or pre-pipe solutions, but rainwater management. There are many different things we can do. That is why we want to work together with other stakeholders including water companies, environmental groups, local authorities and developers to come up with how we can collectively achieve this ambition.

On sustainable drainage, it is quite right to point out that the 2010 Act was never fully enacted by the coalition or the Conservative Government. SuDS are vitally important for sustainable development. They help to reduce additional pressure on the sewage system by up to 87%. I am a huge fan, and have spoken quite often about my love for sustainable urban drainage. They can also enable growth: a SuDS retrofit programme in London created the additional headroom for 116,000 new homes.

Since we came into Government, our record on SuDS is that in December 2024, we made changes to the national planning policy framework to support increased delivery of SuDS, so that it now requires all developments to utilise SuDS where they could have drainage impacts, and requires those systems to be appropriate to the nature and scale of the development. In June 2025, the Government introduced new national standards, making it clear that SuDS should be designed to cope with changing climate conditions, because whenever we do anything now in this country, we need to have our minds on how our climate is changing, and make sure that we are resilient for the future. SuDS should also deliver wider water infrastructure benefits in the form of flood prevention, storm overflow reduction and reuse opportunities—but of course there is more that we need to do.

As I say, some time has passed since the 2010 Act was enacted, and it is important that we consider the most efficient and effective way of securing its objectives. We currently think that that could be through changes to planning policy and adoption and maintenance, which I will come on to, rather than commencing schedule 3. With that in mind, we have been tightening national planning policy on this important issue. We are consulting on a new national planning policy framework at present, which adds the requirement that sustainable drainage systems are designed in accordance with the new national standards, to provide a consistent basis for their design and implementation.

Additionally, we are consulting on legislative and policy options to reduce the prevalence of unadopted estates and the injustices associated with them, including for SuDS. On 18 December last year the Government published two consultations, one on enhanced consumer protections for homeowners on privately managed estates and another on reducing the prevalence of estate management arrangements. We continue to collaborate with industry leaders and, since data has been mentioned, I note that we are supporting the development of a new rainwater management platform, which will provide digital tools to support the delivery of high-quality SuDS.

We are working with the industry body CIRIA—the Construction Industry Research and Information Association—to better understand the challenges around property-level SuDS and rainwater harvesting. Subsequent guidance will support industry to deliver in line with our recently published national standards for SuDS and will be publicly available. To ensure the longevity and proper maintenance of SuDS, we are scoping options for maintenance funding mechanisms and the methodology for calculating maintenance costs. We will publish guidance later this year, which will support the delivery of SuDS in line with the new national standards.

I will answer some of the questions on maintenance. We recognise the challenges relating to the adoption and maintenance of SuDS and how that can impact communities, so we are committed to ensuring they are well maintained. As I mentioned, we issued standards in June ’25, and in support of those we are currently conducting research into the funding of SuDS maintenance. We are looking with industry and experts at different funding mechanisms as well as the methodology for calculating maintenance costs.

To ensure that SuDS are provided and maintained as part of a new development, section 106 agreements can be used to provide for the maintenance of SuDS over their lifetime, where the statutory test is met. We are consulting on a new national planning policy framework to require SuDS to be designed in accordance with the new national standards, and a consultation that sets out that SuDS should have maintenance arrangements in place to ensure an acceptable standard of operation for the anticipated lifetime of the development—that is really important; it is not just about when it is built, but the lifetime of the development—building on the current requirement for those to be in place for major development proposals. The consultation is open until 10 March. I encourage Members and anyone interested to respond to that consultation.

There has been mention of specialists and making sure that we have the people we need. We need skilled planners, including specialists in areas such as ecology and infrastructure—they are essential to making sure we have proactive planning services. We know that local planning authorities continue to face challenges in recruiting and retaining staff. Ultimately, it is up to local authorities who they employ and how they do so. Nevertheless, given how widespread those pressures are, the Government are significantly expanding support through the planning capacity and capability programme, including growing the graduate and mid-career pipeline, strengthening specialist training through the Planning Advisory Service and launching a new planning careers hub to open additional routes into the profession. We are trying to grow our own planners for the future, and looking at whether an increase to local authority funding for SuDS could be required.

I hope all that helps to illustrate that this Government have not waited 14 years to deliver what the previous Government were attempting; we are getting on and delivering it now—from changes to the planning framework to ensuring that we have the talent we need, innovation, and working with others to find new ways to deliver the protection that our country needs. We are strongly committed to improving the implementation of SuDS; the actions I have outlined today are just the beginning and I look forward to working with all hon. Members in this room towards that goal.