David Burton-Sampson (Southend West and Leigh) (Lab)

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I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the marketing, advertising and offering for sale of wet wipes; to make provision about the labelling of wet wipes; and for connected purposes.

The city of Southend has 7 miles of beautiful beaches, and Leigh-on-Sea is well known as a picturesque fishing village that still has a vibrant cockling industry. My constituency is also home to many wild swimming groups such as the Bluetits, who find that the refreshing waters of the Thames estuary provide great exercise as well as benefits to their mental and physical wellbeing—although I have to say that when I took a dip in December for charity, I did not find it too relaxing.

All of this might help the House to understand why water quality is so important to my constituents and to me. Like so many, my constituents were rightfully outraged at the sewage dumps that sadly had become routine during the years of the former Conservative Government, so the people of Southend West and Leigh did what they so often do: they came together to make a difference on something they care about. They worked together to form quarterly water summits in 2024, giving residents the opportunity to hold water companies directly to account and to collaborate with the council, Ofwat, the Environment Agency and many more to find solutions to our water problems in Southend. It was the first summit of its kind in the country, and those summits continue to this day. I thank my constituent Daniella Boon, who is in the Gallery today, for her leadership on those summits and in this area.

It was through chairing those water summits as a newly elected MP that I came to learn just how complex the issues affecting water quality and sewage discharges are. Certainly, water companies play the most important role, and I welcome the work being done by this Government to hold them to account. However, sewage discharges happen when the water system fails on so many different levels. Councils, the community, planning decisions, green spaces, and even whether or not a person chooses to pave their driveway all come together to influence outcomes.

Last year, when spending time at our local sewage treatment plant, I learned that blockages are a leading cause of sewage discharges. When the sewers block, there are only two places for sewage to go—in Southend, it will be out into the estuary, or back up into people’s homes and toilets. We will all have seen in the media that those blockages are often caused by fatbergs. The pictures can be very shocking. The Guinness world record belongs to the fatberg found in Whitechapel in London in 2017, which was 250 metres long—longer than Tower bridge.

With blockages of that size, it is no wonder that our sewerage system sometimes struggles to cope, and alongside grease and fat, those bergs are mostly made up of wet wipes. In Anglian Water’s network alone, around 500,000 wet wipes are flushed every single day. Instead of breaking down, many wet wipes remain largely intact. They snag on roots, pumps and rough surfaces within sewers, and they combine with fats, oils and grease to create these large blockages. In my constituency alone, Anglian Water dealt with 610 blockages last year, all caused by unflushable items.

This Government have brought in legislation to ban plastic in wet wipes, a measure that my constituents and I welcome. It is an incredibly necessary step, as it reduces the harmful microplastics that poison wildlife and enter the food chain. However, biodegradable does not necessarily mean flushable, and even plastic-free wipes are made of tougher fibres that do not break down in the toilet in the same way that paper does.

At our water summits, Anglian Water will often remind us that there is no such thing as a flushable wipe. When I visited Anglian Water’s water treatment plant on Stock Road I got to see a whole skip—yes, an entire skip—filled with long stringy fibres from wet wipes that have been fished out of our water system. The House can only imagine how that smelled. People flush wipes because they are labelled as flushable. The packaging is often clearly marked with a flushable logo. The wet wipe may disappear when the handle is pressed, but its disappearing down the toilet is not the same thing as its passing safely through the sewerage network. Consumers cannot see and do not know what happens after that wipe has been flushed. If the package says it is flushable, why would someone think otherwise? We should not expect consumers to decipher competing claims from water companies and manufacturers. We cannot expect them to conduct their own experiments before deciding to flush their wipes down the toilet. We conducted some experiments in my office, and we could see that some of these flushable wipes do not dissolve in water. People should be able to trust what is on the packaging.

Every October, campaigns such as Unblocktober encourage people to think before they flush. These campaigns have helped to raise awareness, but awareness alone is not enough. We cannot spend one month of the year urging people not to flush wet wipes while allowing manufacturers to market those same products as flushable the whole year long. Education and labelling should not be pulling in opposite directions. The public need a clear and consistent message to just bin it.

I want to be clear that the ultimate responsibility for fixing our water systems does not lie with consumers or even wet wipe manufacturers; it lies with the water companies. They took on the serious responsibility of protecting our waterways, rivers and seas, and often they have failed. This Labour Government has successfully passed the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 to strengthen regulation of the water industry, to allow bonuses to be banned for company owners who pollute our waterways and even to make it possible to hold water company executives criminally responsible. The legislation will also enable independent monitoring of every sewer overflow outlet. We will go further, with plans for greater public control of water coming later this year.

No amount of responsible flushing will repair outdated infrastructure, prioritise investment or build new reservoirs, but it is part of the picture in keeping our waterways clean. I welcome the £90 million-plus investment by Anglian Water, working in partnership with Southend city council, to tackle flooding, improve water systems and improve public spaces.

This Bill proposes that there should be a clear indication on all wet wipes that they should be disposed of safely in the bin and that people are encouraged to flush only the three Ps: pee, poo and paper. Non-flushable wipes should be clearly labelled as such with a visible symbol on the front of the packaging. Wipes that pass rigorous testing could continue to be labelled as flushable, but the onus should be on the manufacturer to prove that they will break down and cause no damage to the water system or to the plumbing of people’s homes. Labelling should also clearly and prominently instruct consumers about restrictions, such as flushing only one wipe at a time.

The International Organisation for Standardisation published a technical specification on flushability in August this year. It is vital that the water industry works closely with manufacturers to establish clear and realistic specifications for what can be classed as flushable, moist toilet tissue. Consumers need confidence that flushable actually means flushable, and right now that is not the case.

This is a matter of consumer choice. I am not telling people to use alternatives to wet wipes, although alternatives exist. I know that people will want to use wet wipes, whether for medical reasons or just because it is what they prefer, but they should know that for the sake of our pipes, our plumbing bills and our wildlife, they should just bin it.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That David Burton-Sampson, Leigh Ingham, Cat Eccles, Chris Bloore, Chris Vince, Danny Beales, Mr Alex Barros-Curtis, Lee Barron, Mike Reader, James Naish, Lizzi Collinge and Mr Bayo Alaba present the Bill.

David Burton-Sampson accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 13 November, and to be printed (Bill 156).