Bathing Water Regulations

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Westminster Hall

16:30

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered bathing water regulations.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir John. It is a privilege to open this debate, and fantastic to see so many hon. Friends and Members. I am grateful to all of them, as well as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), and the Minister, for their time this afternoon.

We are fortunate in this country to have beautiful natural landscapes. We are blessed with an abundance of beautiful beaches, inland lakes and rivers, pre-eminent among them the River Tone, which runs through Taunton and Wellington. We are lucky to have French Weir and Longrun Meadow as one of the 27 new bathing water sites. I sincerely thank the incredible volunteers, the Friends of French Weir Park, who worked with me to apply for and achieve designated bathing water status there last year.

That means that for the first time we know the river’s water quality. It is variable and now proven to be poor, generally speaking. We now have that information because it is publicly available, and we can work towards getting the investment we need to improve the water. I am sure there are similar groups across the country in the constituencies of other hon. Members.

[Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing forward this important debate. I know how much he enjoys a dip in the River Tone. The River Parrett in Langport is a well known and loved body of water for swimming and water sports, which I hope will soon become a designated bathing water site. Sadly, polluters discharged sewage into it 54 times in 2023, amounting to 453 hours of pollution. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is crucial to support such sites to obtain bathing water status, so that they are safe for all who wish to use them?

[Gideon Amos]

My hon. Friend and neighbour is absolutely right. We need to see more bathing waters not fewer. That is one of the concerns I have in this debate. Bathing waters are not just places where people swim; they are part of the identity and lifeblood of our communities across the country. As in my constituency, they are places where people come together for swimming clubs, rowing clubs, kayaking, paddleboarding, or just to enjoy the natural beauty of the river.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman. He has invited contributions from those of us who are interested in bathing waters. My constituency has Strangford lough and the Irish sea on the other side. Back home, the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs designates water quality. I am concerned that, if anyone wants to check water quality on the Ards peninsula, Strangford lough or the Irish sea, they must go online, which does not suit everybody. Does he agree with my suggestion to DAERA that there should be signs at designated bathing waters indicating the water quality? That would be much simpler. People who go for wild-water swimming and other pursuits, would be able to see right away if the water quality is at the level it should be.

[Gideon Amos]

Seeing the quality of the river water is key, and that is one thing that bathing water status allows us to do. In tackling the need for improvement, many local groups face an uphill battle. Sewage pollution is a national disgrace. Time and again we see reports of raw sewage being discharged into our rivers, lakes and seas, turning what should be places of recreation into sites of contamination.

In my constituency, further downstream on the Tone, examples of recent discharges of untreated effluent are commonplace. At Hook stream, which could otherwise be a charming stretch of the River Tone, there have been over 188 hours of discharge in the first eight weeks of 2025 alone. Residents are rightly appalled by the sewage releases; no one should have to fear that going too close to their local river could make them ill, especially as, all the while, water companies have paid out millions of pounds in dividends and bonuses. We need flow-rate monitoring, extra stormwater storage and resources for the Environment Agency to increase enforcement, but bathing water regulations are a key tool in reducing pollution.

That brings me to the main topic of the debate. There are elements of the consultation that I welcome. Removing the automatic five-year de-designation rule for bathing waters is a positive suggestion. It would simply be unfair for communities to lose the protections that come with designation just because a site has remained polluted for five years. The reality is that people will continue to swim in those waters, as they have done at French Weir for hundreds of years, regardless of whether they are officially designated. Having a high number of bathers is what allows sites to be designated, and that should continue to be the main criterion. Removing monitoring, which is what happens with de-designation, would just put rivers and their users at further risk. It would not stop people using the rivers. Water companies and regulators frequently take longer than five years to clean up sites, and people should not be punished by losing their designation because that has not happened fast enough.

Let us not forget that improving water quality in bathing areas has wider benefits throughout the whole of the river’s catchment area. Improving infrastructure in bathing areas that are susceptible to flooding benefits communities along the whole length of the watercourse. Part of the problem is misalignment between the four-year rolling cycle of bathing designations and Ofwat’s five-year price review for water companies, which sets out its investment plans for the period. A newly designated bathing water often has to wait years for the price review to receive the investment required. Designation of a bathing water should be aligned with those improvements in investment. Has the Minister taken any steps to resolve that discrepancy?

The health and wellbeing of those who use the water should also be a primary concern of regulation, which is why I am concerned about core reform 2 in the consultation, which proposes the introduction of feasibility tests for bathing sites. That would mean that if it is deemed too difficult or expensive to improve water quality, a site could be denied designation altogether. Who would really benefit from that approach? Certainly not the swimmers, rowers, kayakers or residents. The only people who stand to gain would be the very polluters responsible for the problem in the first place. We must not give water companies a loophole to argue that it is too costly to clean up a bathing site that people are regularly using for swimming and other recreation. Designation should be based on where people actually use the water, so will the Minister please reconsider that aspect of a perhaps well-intentioned but ultimately damaging proposal?

Core reform 3 of the consultation proposes the removal of fixed bathing season dates and moving them into guidance. I welcome greater flexibility, but the now well accepted 15 May to 30 September bathing season should remain the irreducible minimum that everybody understands and knows about. This should not be a cover for reducing bathing seasons to such a short window that they become meaningless. We should be going further: year-round testing should be standard, in my opinion.

We also need better quality testing, and for better integration with other monitoring systems we should be monitoring sewage volume from spills, not just hours. We should also consider testing for a wider range of bacteria than just E. coli and enterococci, especially considering other harmful pathogens such as salmonella and leptospirosis have, since 2010, contributed to a 60% rise in hospital admissions for waterborne diseases. There should be greater funding for the EA to monitor run-off into rivers as well. Only by understanding the scale of the problem will we be able to start to tackle it.

This will not be prohibitively expensive. Research by Surfers Against Sewage, which I thank for all its great work on this issue, suggests the additional cost of year-round monitoring per site would be roughly £775. Across the UK, that amounts to £350,000—less than 4% of the bonuses paid to water company execs last year. That is surely an investment worth making. Will the Minister publish a review into the potential cost of year-round water testing?

The reality is that our inland bathing waters are already in a dire state. While 92% of the 450 bathing waters in England meet minimum standards, that figure drops to only 53% of inland bathing waters. In contrast, Germany has almost 2,300 bathing sites, the vast majority inland. The fact that 98% of them meet minimum standards shows us what is possible. Instead of looking for ways to limit new designations, we should expand them so that more communities benefit from cleaner, safer waters. Had a feasibility requirement existed previously, we would never have seen so many bathing waters granted in the first place; perhaps there would be no more inland water bathing designations in the country.

We also need urgent action to hold polluters accountable. Water companies operate on five-year investment cycles, meaning that improvements to polluted waters often get kicked down the road for years. We cannot afford to wait. We need a tougher regulator than Ofwat, one with proper powers to hold these companies to account. We also need more immediate funding to improve water quality at newly designated sites, rather than forcing them to wait for the next investment cycle, as I said.

Ultimately, this debate is about a simple principle: everyone should have the right to access sites with unpolluted water. The Government must not allow water companies to dictate which sites are worthy of protection and which are not. Let us take this opportunity to strengthen, not weaken, our protection of bathing waters. It is time to expand, not limit, the sites that benefit from designation. Above all, it is time to ensure that polluters are held accountable so that future generations can enjoy bathing waters like those at French Weir, as well as our rivers, lakes and seas, without fear of pollution.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)]

Order. If Members want to contribute they should bob. I want to call the Front Benchers at about 5.10 pm, so Back Benchers can work out how long they should speak for so that everyone can get in.

16:41

[Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I thank my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) for securing this critical debate.

While covid-19 undoubtably brought on many challenges, one positive outcome was the surge in open-water swimming. More people than ever before enjoyed blue spaces for recreational activities, reaping significant benefits for both their physical and mental wellbeing. However, many were more cautious about diving into freezing cold lakes, rivers and streams when they were aware of the level of bacteria and pollution present in our waters. As Liberal Democrats, we have long and passionately campaigned on this issue. Last year, the Lib Dems discovered that water companies had discharged sewage over 100,000 times in areas designated as current bathing waters, putting public health and local ecosystems at risk.

[Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)]

My constituency of Tiverton and Minehead neighbours the patch of my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos). Very recently, one of my constituents shared a harrowing story with me, in which his children fell seriously ill after swimming in a local river last summer. These public health risks are further exacerbated by bad flooding in our areas, as we have seen in recent episodes, which sweeps contaminants and overwhelms sewage systems into our waterways, degrading water quality. Does my hon. Friend agree that stricter regulations must be introduced in the interest of public health and to ensure that our bathing waters are safe for everybody to enjoy?

[Pippa Heylings]

I completely agree. I emphasise what my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington said: that is why we need tougher action on the water companies. We also need to take action on combined sewers and make improvements to the small sewage treatment works on many chalk streams, like in my constituency. However, today’s debate is about bathing site designation, which is one of the effective levers that can be used.

We are talking about the proposed reforms by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to bathing site designations. I would like to talk about the second core reform being proposed, which I am concerned would lead to a real reduction in the number of bathing sites being designated, rather than the increase that we should see, particularly for inland waters. The second core reform says that we should

“Include the feasibility of improving a site’s water quality to at least ‘sufficient’ as a criterion for final designation. This would avoid poor value for money, by limiting expenditure where water quality improvement is not feasible or proportionate.”

To best demonstrate why that reform would not only fail but could also damage water quality in our rivers, it is worth sharing the story of Sheep’s Green in my constituency. For centuries, people have been enjoying Sheep’s Green—a popular spot on the River Cam. It was at Sheep’s Green that we worked to bring in a bathing site designation, because of the poor quality of the water.

In October 2023, the Cam Valley Forum, a local voluntary organisation, submitted an application to DEFRA to grant Sheep’s Green designated bathing water status. That came after three years of hard work by local volunteers, which is truly commendable, and was based on the success of the River Wharfe. Sheep’s Green had been used for decades without official recognition, and the idea of getting it designated bathing status had widespread public support. Over the course of a 10-week consultation, the Cam Valley Forum received more than 500 responses, with an overwhelming 93% in favour of the designation. South Cambridgeshire district council and Cambridge city council also formally backed the proposal. Anglian Water, with whom I worked, also fully supported the designation application.

Once designated, as predicted by local volunteers and citizen scientists, Sheep’s Green was classified as having poor water quality. That triggered a statutory obligation for improvements to clean up the source of the pollution—the Haslingfield sewage works in my constituency. For years, local citizen scientists had suspected it was the culprit. Now, finally, Anglian Water was legally required to act.

Bathing water status also unlocked funding from Ofwat under the water industry national environment programme. Tens of millions of pounds vital for the infrastructure improvements needed to reduce the sewage discharges were made available for Haslingfield, with work expected to begin in the next two years. These improvements will not just benefit swimmers at Sheep’s Green, but have a wider impact on the ecological health of the River Cam.

However, had core reform 2 been in place when the Cam Valley Forum began its journey in 2020, there would have been no bathing water designation for Sheep’s Green. Without that designation, there would have been no investigation by the Environment Agency, no identification of Haslingfield sewage works as the source of the pollution and no legal requirement for Anglian Water to take action. The WINEP funding would not have been available and we would have lost the opportunity for water improvements and nature restoration in South Cambridgeshire.

In short, core reform 2 would have inadvertently blocked the clean-up of hundreds of rivers. Local organisations like the Cam Valley Forum are not just highlighting a problem with their concerns around core reform 2—they are demanding action. They are rightly pushing for bathing water status because it is a vital tool for driving cleaner, healthier rivers. We should be supporting these efforts, not hindering them.

16:48

[Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) for securing this important debate.

As a former cabinet member for climate change and nature recovery on South Oxfordshire district council, I have been involved in two bathing water status applications. One was successful, one was not. We often learn more from failure than success, so while I am delighted by the bathing water status achieved at Wallingford Beach, I will speak mostly to the desire to establish bathing water status in Henley.

What I learned is that the current system is perverse. It requires swimmers to brave potentially dirty water before a site is cleaned up. This topsy-turvy thinking is all wrong. That is why I very much welcome the Government’s review of the status and have contributed to it. My contribution focused on the bonkers criteria that stopped Henley from being successful.

Despite widespread use of the river for canoeing, paddleboarding, pleasure boating and, of course, rowing, only spontaneous, immersed swimmers count as river users, but if someone has my balance, or indeed that of the leader of the Liberal Democrats when paddleboarding, they know that being a paddleboarder does not mean they will not end up in the water. Equally, rowers are constantly exposed to spray and contact with the water during their sport—a fact that leads every year to reports of domestic and international athletes falling ill at the Henley Royal Regatta after being exposed to our effluent. It is embarrassing to know that during the regatta, if I flush the toilet, it may well end up on the sides of one of the boats.

It is bonkers that organised swimming events have also been excluded from the criteria. While I understand that we do not want to see the system gamed with events organised solely for the purpose of meeting the criteria, Henley has enjoyed a vibrant, organised swimming culture for many years, with four annual swims organised by the brilliant Henley Swim. I urge the Government to replace the current bathing water state designation with a recreational water designation with teeth, taking into account the full range of river users.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. We have talked a lot about the ecological and health benefits, but there is also an important economic impact, as shown by all the events in Henley that he outlined. For example, tourism contributes more than £700 million every year to the local economy in West Dorset. We have the Jurassic coast and the River Lim church cliff beach at Lyme Regis, which has just been designated as bathing water. It is important to recognise that clean water benefits our local communities not just in terms of health and nature, but in terms of our tourism industry.

[Freddie van Mierlo]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Every year, we welcome to Henley thousands of visitors who contribute to our local economy.

I urge the Government to row back—no pun intended—from the idea that cost and deliverability should be determining factors for investment in a site. When Henley welcomes the world to our wonderful section of the Thames each year, it would be simply unacceptable to say, “Sorry, we must expose you to our sewage, because the Government think it is too hard to treat.” I would therefore be grateful if the Minister commented on the intended change to the criteria for bathing water status and met me to discuss the situation in Henley.

16:51

[Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) for securing this timely and urgent debate.

A healthy natural environment is essential for both public health and our economy, yet our rivers and bathing waters are being polluted at an alarming rate. In my constituency of Stratford-on-Avon, the River Avon, meandering along its valley, is a treasured natural asset that is used by many residents for kayaking, swimming, boating and rowing, but sewage discharges and pollution threaten its water quality.

Under the previous Government, water companies were allowed to pollute our rivers while consumers paid the price. We need stronger regulations, legally binding water quality targets, and more transparent, year-long testing to tackle this crisis. Local authorities must also be given greater powers to hold polluters accountable.

I thank the many citizen science projects in my constituency, such as Safe Avon, that have highlighted the scale of the issue and the impact of poor water quality on the Avon, its tributaries, and our many precious brooks and streams. Our local residents and groups have come together to create River Hope, which is a new participatory process taking place in Stratford-on-Avon. It fosters a positive narrative for the River Avon ecosystem, and involves individuals, community groups and others implementing activities and events in, on, around and about our local water catchments and their biodiverse ecosystems. Residents not only engage in practical actions to restore and protect the wildlife and flora that the river sustains, but create a positive narrative of gratitude, good stewardship and love for the water as an essential element of thriving biodiversity.

The river has rights. Our rivers and waterways should be safe for swimming and for thriving wildlife, and should be protected for future generations to cherish and enjoy.

[Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)]

I am calling the Front Bench spokespeople early. That is not an invitation to speak—[Interruption.] Sorry, do we have Cameron Thomas? I did not think you were bobbing.

[Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)]

I was not bobbing; I was just going to intervene.

[Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)]

Then I am going to call the Front-Bench spokespeople. That is not an invitation to speak at inordinate length. We are delighted to hear from Tim Farron.

11:13

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I will not take that personally, Sir John, although I am sure it is intended. It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance this afternoon and to speak in a long line of Liberal Democrats, as you might expect when water is mentioned.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) for securing the debate and for the eloquence with which he spoke on behalf of his communities. I know how active he is, not just as a bather but as a campaigner for clean water swimming in his constituency, recognising and amplifying the importance of bathing water status for the people who use the rivers in his communities and in all our communities. He also recognises that it is an important way of upping the ante and improving the standards that all those responsible for the quality of our waterways are held to.

I welcome the point that my hon. Friend made about de-designation and how that will not help people or keep them safe; we will simply be in a situation where people will carry on swimming in those places and will no longer have the protections they had beforehand. He rightly talked about an issue I am deeply concerned about, which is the potential for flexibility over fixed season dates. The minimum must be the May to September window, but many people who are enthusiastic about open water swimming do so at other times of the year. I have swum in Windermere in February, but I know people who have swum in Grasmere and Rydal in January and December and marvel at their hardiness. They tell me it is good for their mental health, and I believe them. That falls without that window, and it seems a nonsense to not have year-round testing.

I want to pick up on the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington made about what it is we are testing. There is much good in the Government’s new Water (Special Measures) Act 2025. Nevertheless, the insistence on only testing for the duration of spills in our waterways, lakes, rivers, streams and coastal areas means that we do not get the full picture. There could easily be a brief deluge or a lengthy trickle. The reality is that not testing for volume and content does not give a full picture of what is happening in our lakes, rivers and coastal areas.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) talked about the public health and ecological aspects of maintaining bathing water designations and how important it is to extend those designations in her constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Henley and Thame (Freddie van Mierlo) talked about bathing water status in his communities and his active campaign to extend access in his constituency. He also talked about the topsy-turvy nature of the bathing water status, which can create all sorts of perverse outcomes.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello), who is no longer in his place, made a really important point about the economic value. There is a clear case in my communities in the lakes and the dales, because people do not visit the Lake district not to see the lakes. The value to our communities is something like £4 billion every year in tourism revenue. Any threat to the cleanliness of our bathing water sites or the rest of our waterways could be catastrophic for our economy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Manuela Perteghella) made incredibly important points about the biodiversity of our waterways and how it is important to protect them and stand by the wonderful citizen scientists who underpin the work of trying to maintain them and their cleanliness. It is also about recognising that, as with all aspects of nature, our job is to preserve our waterways for those who come after us. Caring for our neighbour means caring for the environment for those we will never meet. That is vastly important.

In my communities in the lakes and the dales, there are seven designated bathing water areas, on Windermere and Coniston. One of the sites on Coniston was recently designated as poor, which is deeply concerning. However, it has been pleasing to see the local parish council work very successfully with the national park, Councillor Suzanne Pender, the business forum and others, and United Utilities has agreed a significant package of investment to help deal with that problem.

The current bathing water regulations have not been sufficient to protect our waterways from egregious offences. For example, in the north-west alone in 2023, United Utilities spilled 10,467 times for 76,259 hours into bathing waters alone. That does not include all the other times that it has spilled in other parts of our region. Indeed, United Utilities is the worst offender of all the water companies, despite the fact that there are other serious offenders across the country.

The Liberal Democrats take the view that water is precious. It is important to our economy, our ecology, our heritage, leisure and human health, as well as biodiversity. It is of such significance that we have made it one of the key issues that we continue to campaign on, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley and Thame. The leader of my party, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), is so dedicated to our waterways that he spent much of the election in them.

Much of what the Government have done in the first part of this Parliament, including the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, has been commendable. We wait now for the Cunliffe review to see whether there will be the advances that have been promised or hinted at. There are three things that we need to make sure we do better. First, monitoring must be much more comprehensive. We welcome the fact that the Government are engaging citizen scientists in the process, including the Clean River Kent campaign, Save Windermere in my own constituency, and the Rivers Trusts up and down the country. But we are not helping them if we do not ask for them to be given a place on water company boards. Nor are we helping them, although they are very useful to a degree, if the monitoring sites available for those people to look at do not have historical data. We depend on our brave water campaigners around the country committing their time to never, ever go to bed or go to work or look after their children. They cannot look backwards. If they blink, they may well miss egregious offences in our bathing waters and in other parts of our waterways. Monitoring is important.

Secondly, regulation is all important. I always try to be careful not to castigate the individuals working for Ofwat or the Environment Agency, or any of the water companies for that matter, but I recognise the system is broken and we have a diluted regulatory framework in this country. That is why the Liberal Democrats think that Ofwat, the Environment Agency and other water regulators should be merged into a much stronger regulator that the water companies would actually fear, rather than running rings around them all the time.

Finally, there is ownership. We could have an organisation called the clean water authority. It would replace and advance on Ofwat and create real powers. It would have real teeth that the current regulatory system does not have. Ownership matters. It is an outrage that between 11% and 40% of the water bills of every person in this country are going to pay off the debt of the water companies. That is a disgrace. And it is time that we moved those water companies into a not-for-profit status. We do not want to call for nationalisation, but we do call for public-benefit companies to be incorporated to make sure that those who look after our waterways do so in the interests of our water quality, and of meeting the needs of the consumer, not racking up huge profits.

Finally, because bathing water status does give communities more power over the cleanliness and the standards of the waterways that they care about so much, particularly in my part of the world in the lakes, it is clear that very often DEFRA does not grant clean bathing water status when it really should. So I want to say on behalf of my own communities—communities up the River Kent, north of Kendal through Burneside and Staveley—that the river desperately needs to be given bathing water status in several places. That would allow the communities who campaigned so vigorously for the cleanliness of that river to be able to hold United Utilities and other polluters fully to account.

[Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)]

My remarks about brevity were neither targeted at nor limited to Mr Farron. I call the shadow Minister, Robbie Moore.

17:03

[Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship., Sir John. I congratulate the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) on securing this really important debate, and I thank all Members who have contributed and made incredibly valid points, which I will pick up on in my summing up of this debate. I am glad to hear that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents are pleased that the River Tone in French Weir has been awarded its bathing water designation. I was the Minister who signed that off when I was in the Department, so I am pleased that that has been welcomed. I also want to thank his predecessor Rebecca Pow for the work that she did in campaigning vociferously to get that bathing water designation in place.

In 2010, 76% of bathing sites were considered good or excellent and by 2024 that figure had reached 90%, which I am sure all of us would welcome. That is despite the criteria changing and becoming much stricter in 2015. And I was proud, as I have indicated, when I was the Water Minister for a brief period in DEFRA to sign off an additional 27 bathing water designations last year, bringing more areas under the spotlight with additional monitoring and ensuring more water companies were then able to be held to account for the pollution that they were causing. It brought the total number of bathing water designations up to 451 sites for the 2024 bathing season. I was proud to see that the River Nidd in Harrogate was one of the rivers awarded bathing water designation and that there was an additional such designation on the River Wharfe. In my constituency of Keighley and Ilkley, the Wharfe was the first to have a bathing water designation on a river. I must congratulate a very active campaign group in my constituency, the Ilkley Clean River group. It was founded by Karen Shackleton, who is an incredible campaigner. She and many others have tirelessly campaigned for improving water quality, not only in the River Wharfe but across the country. I am sure many Members have received emails from this campaign group.

When we announced those 27 bathing water sites to be added to the list, I was also proud to announce the review of such designations. From my experience with having the River Wharfe designated, I felt the bathing water designation regulations at the time were not fit for purpose. I am pleased the Government carried on with that review, which has now taken place. I have seen many contributions to it, not least from the Office for Environmental Protection which in their feedback of November 2024 was supportive of many of the changes that needed to take place.

I shall go through some of those. On dates, for example, I do not feel that it is just to have bathing water designation sites ringfenced only between May and September. As has been mentioned by all Members in their contributions, many of us who are lucky to use a bathing water site are not just doing so between those specific dates but actually throughout the year. Why should we be constrained by having the bathing water designation sites between May and September? It seems right and just that those sites have all-year monitoring, to be able to hold to account those who pollute our rivers but also to make sure the level of resource, whether financial or community, is able to improve the water quality in those areas.

That brings me on to the name “bathing water regulations”. Is it fit for purpose? From my experience in my constituency, once a bathing water designation is approved the assumption is that it is safe to bathe in that area. When bathing water sites are being allocated to rivers, or indeed on our coastal environments, it can be unsafe to swim in those environments given the undercurrents that exist, particularly in river networks. The water quality does not need to be good or excellent. In fact, many of those sites are unfortunately designated as poor. I urge the Government to think about whether it should be changed to something like “clean water status”, so as not to give the impression that it is necessarily safe to bathe.

I would also like to pick up the point on automatic de-designation. This is something I have experienced in my own constituency. We were lucky enough to have the River Wharfe bathing water designated but unfortunately, as probably expected, it has consistently been designated as poor as a river—year on and year on. Fortunately, Yorkshire Water has responded very positively in realising that an additional level of investment needs to go in there. We have seen £15 million spent on improving water capacity and retention, to help with the sewage treatment works in Ilkley. We have now seen an additional allocation of about £45 million being spent in Ilkley to deal with the wider sewage treatment works.

However if one knows the designation is consistently going to be poor, and then after year five drops off and there is no bathing water designation, I fear there is a real risk it reduces the onus on the polluter to do something about this. The polluter may not just be a water company. It may be agri-runoff through phosphorous or nitrate. I know that the civil servants sitting behind the Minister will have listened to many of the conversations that we have been having, and, on that point, I congratulate the civil service on the work that it has done on the regulations and in bringing forward this review.

However, I do feel that, when we are relying on evidence coming forward to secure enough resource or finance to improve things, we sometimes need to rely on longer datasets than just one or two years to see those improvement measures. That relates not only to water companies but the agri-environmental benefit from many of the stewardship schemes that farmers enter into as well. I therefore urge the Government to remove the automatic de-designation.

Then I come on to users, because, at the moment, the regulations specifically relate to those who wish to bathe, but, as has also been indicated by those who have contributed today, we are all using our river networks, our coastal environments, or indeed our lakes for many purposes other than swimming. I do not want to comment on the Lib Dem leader, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), but I am not the only one who goes paddleboarding and ends up underwater. The point is that, under the current regulations, if someone wants to kayak, canoe or paddleboard, that is not sufficient to get a bathing water designation. I therefore urge the Government to look at the users of these sites so that we can ensure that more rivers, coasts and lakes achieve more bathing water status.

On the issue of multiple measuring points, from my own experience from the River Wharfe in Ilkley, a bathing water designation relates to a specific point where that monitoring takes place. In my constituency, that specific point is actually upstream of the outfall from the water treatment works—which Yorkshire Water is rightly putting a huge amount of investment into. That monitoring is pointless if it is upstream. That may be at the point where most bathers bathe, but it is less likely to put pressure on ensuring that polluters are held to account.

I therefore urge the Government to look at having multiple measuring points associated with a bathing water designation. Indeed, as we see more rivers getting allocated bathing water sites—and I was proud to sign off more rivers when I was lucky enough to be the water Minister—I do wish the Government would explore having multiple measuring points, particularly in river environments, because, as the river flows through, bathers are more likely to bathe over a wider stretch, rather than at a single point, as with coastal environments.

I am grateful to Surfers Against Sewage for specifically raising the issue of prior testing with me in advance of today’s debate—indeed, as they have before—because proposals under consideration, including those of sites to be designated going forward, could be tested before the designation is granted. Should those prior tests come back as poor, my worry—indeed, the point has also been raised by the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings)—is that that could allow a Minister not to grant, or to be less inclined to grant, that bathing water designation. I would not want prior testing to result in a bathing water designation not being given approval, because actually, as I have demonstrated in my own constituency and others, having a bathing water site, in itself, puts that pressure on the polluter, whoever, or whichever organisation, that is.

Forecasting has also been picked up by other Members in this debate. Forecasting is important, because it provides much more onus on future programming to do with finance that may be going into cleaning up the rivers, and enables more comfort for the community in understanding what is happening to improve the water quality at those bathing water sites.

However, as we all know, even when a site is designated as excellent water quality, it could experience a huge amount of rainfall, or potentially a serious pollution incident, but, because the monitoring is taken over a wider period of time—and the designation is therefore taken over a wider period of time—a single issue to do with pollution or a heavy downpour will not necessarily impact the designation itself. Therefore, I think it would be helpful if more awareness was raised. That is about not only additional rainfall events, or additional water entering into the system, but forecasting to better prepare those who do want to bathe, or use that water, to make the right decision at the appropriate time.

I would like to sum up by thanking the Ilkley Clean River Group in my constituency, because it certainly helped me to get a much better understanding, not only when I was first elected to the House in 2019 but in the role that I ended up in, which was as a Water Minister in DEFRA. I also thank all hon. Members who have contributed to this debate, because water quality is a major challenge.

The infrastructure responsible for much of this issue is literally Victorian. It cannot be fixed overnight, but it can be fixed with a dedicated and serious plan. The previous Administration delivered the start of that plan with the “Plan for Water”, and in opposition we will very much welcome working with the Government and, indeed, other parties from across this House to improve water quality. I hope that the Minister will reiterate my thanks to her team, who I know have worked incredibly hard behind the scenes on this issue. I would like to say to the Minister that we would be more than happy to provide support in the right places to make sure that we are all focused on improving water quality.

17:15

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

It is always a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John.

I feel that we are having a little bit of a love-in this afternoon, which is always a nice way to start. Of course I will be more than happy to pass on the thanks from the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), to the team who have worked on this issue. I thank the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) for securing this really important debate. There is so much agreement in the room that I almost wonder whether we are still in the House of Commons. I will certainly try to cover most of the points that have been made.

Just to set the issue in context, we completely accept and believe that the water system at the moment is broken. That is why, when we first came into office, we changed the articles of association to put customers and their opinions into the water boards. It is why we are doubling the compensation for people who face water outages. It is why we have ringfenced money so that it cannot be diverted from infrastructure improvements and into bonuses. It is why we have the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, which just came into force and got Royal Assent last week—because we know that the system as a whole is broken. It is also why, just last Thursday, I was in Manchester with Sir Jon Cunliffe, launching the call for evidence on water. I strongly urge every Member here to respond to that call for evidence. There is a huge, 200-page consultation document that goes with it but, just because we are kind, there is a 20-page executive summary as well, so please have a look at that, respond to the consultation and make some of these points there.

Bathing waters in and of themselves are not under the water commission. The reason for that is that I wanted to do something on bathing waters really quickly; I did not want it to get delayed by the water commission when we already knew some of the things that we wanted to look at. I will quickly go over some of the things that we are looking at changing. At the moment, the regulations are one size fits all. I would like to reassure people talking about the dates around bathing waters. Obviously, we will officially respond to the consultation; there will be an official Government response, but so far I have yet to see put forward any evidence that seems to indicate that there is a wish to shorten the bathing water window. In fact, most people are advocating to keep it the same or extend it, recognising that some people go swimming all year round.

This is the perfect point at which to mention my mum, who has decided to do open water swimming and swims all year round, and now has her own wetsuit. I think it is amazing that she has discovered open water swimming in her retirement—slightly crazy, but definitely amazing. As I said, we will obviously have a formal response to the consultation, but so far I have not seen anybody advocating shortening the bathing season. I wanted to make a point of mentioning that.

On the de-designation points, I wholeheartedly accept the points made by the spokesman for the official Opposition and by the Liberal Democrats that it would be an incentive for companies not to invest in improving the water if they knew that after a certain number of years it would be de-designated—although of course I must add the proviso that we have not officially responded to the consultation. However, from looking at what we have had so far, that is certainly what I am feeling.

I also want to address this point. I am sure that it was not intended, but I wondered whether it was coming through that bathing water status is the golden ticket to improve the water in an area. I do not accept that, because if we are saying that bathing water status is the golden ticket to improve the water, that means that we are also almost accepting, on the flip side of that, that if people do not have bathing water status, we are okay with their water being completely polluted.

We are not okay with that. We want to clean up all our rivers, lakes and seas, and we have a plan to do so. We have £104 billion of investment going into the next five years. We are looking at what is happening in bathing waters, and looking at iconic sites around the country. The argument that somewhere needs to have bathing water status or its waters will remain polluted, is one that I challenge head on. That argument almost accepts that we are okay with things remaining polluted. No—we should focus on something much bigger than that, which is how we clean up all of our rivers, lakes and seas, especially looking at bathing waters.

There is a major public health aspect here. It is an important point, and it is why I am delighted that Sir Chris Whitty is one of the expert advisers on the Cunliffe review looking at this. An argument is being made that asks why we are setting a standard, as if to say, “If they are really poor, we don’t want to allocate them as bathing sites.” We should pause and think about that for a moment because, as was illustrated by the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), if we are saying something is a bathing site and we give it bathing water status, it implies that it is safe to bathe there. If we designate a site that we know will not be safe for many years to come, and would take a huge amount of investment to become safe, is it right to call that a bathing water site and imply that people are safe to bathe there?

So, I think the sensible and correct decision is to improve all our water everywhere through reforms, which is why we are doing the water review and why we passed the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025. Let us look at the areas that are likely to improve more quickly, and say to people, “You can bathe here, because it will improve more quickly and we can see rapid progress, but these other sites that you want to bathe in—if we think seriously—are not going to improve for a long time.” As a Government, we think that it would be irresponsible to call those sites bathing water sites when we know full well that there could be serious damage to public health.

[Pippa Heylings]

I wanted to clarify that there are two bodies of argument here. Given that there has been a complete lack of regulations and ways to enforce the “polluter pays” principle with water companies until now, status has been seen as one of the only mechanisms to do it. However, I would like the Minister to recognise that these are already bathing sites because the criteria is that they have to show that they are already being used as bathing sites—that they are recognised as culturally and ecologically important. Given that, even though they are poor we should be investing in them to ensure that they continue. We know that if they are declared poor, people are warned of that and therefore do not swim. So we are not subjecting people to unsafe water; we are recognising that these are key bathing areas and have historical, cultural and ecological importance—now and in the future.

[Emma Hardy]

I do not disagree in the slightest. To be completely clear, sites that are already designated as bathing sites of course need enhanced investment and support to improve them, even if they are poor at the moment. I was addressing the point about when we are looking to designate new sites, and answering the question why we are looking at core reform 2.

Again, I stress that we have not officially responded to the consultation. If we are looking at a site that we wish to designate in the future, which is of a really low quality, is it irresponsible to designate that site knowing that it will not reach for five to 10 years the standard it needs to reach? Like everything, that is a question for debate. But for sites that are designated at the moment, I agree that we should be putting extra investment into them even if they are poor.

I do not want to rehearse the many debates and discussions we have already had. There were 36 amendments, I think, to the Water (Special Measures) Act on Report.

[Tim Farron]

Forty-four.

[Emma Hardy]

Forty-four amendments! We had many debates and discussions during the passage of that Act. To rehearse an argument we have had many times before, the reason why we are not focusing on the volume of water coming out is simply because volume can be very diluted, and therefore not a great threat. There can be a small amount of incredibly toxic waste causing a huge amount of damage. I would like to see the investment going into water quality monitors. That is part of the next price review—how can we put water quality monitors in? They would measure whether it is a huge amount and it is dilute, or a small amount and it is toxic. We just want to know what damage is being done to the river. My focus is, and remains, on water quality.

There were some genuinely helpful suggestions from the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) about where to place those monitors for measuring water quality. That was a really helpful contribution. While I am paying credit to him, the way we describe it—how we say it is safe to bathe—was also a helpful suggestion.

[Joe Morris]

Will the Minister give way?

[Emma Hardy]

I will; I am praising the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale—let us get back to normal.

[Joe Morris]

The Government have moved quickly on this issue. Does the Minister recognise that it is important that we maintain an engaged and concerned public? I have met with the Wylam clean river group and with other concerned groups throughout my constituency along the length of the Tyne. One thing that continues to resonate with me is that these groups understand that this is a consistent piece of work, and that we need to be constantly iterating on making sure that our rivers do not just get clean, but remain clean into the future. The Government and the public need to consistently work in partnership.

[Emma Hardy]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. I know that he cares deeply about this issue and has spoken to me many times about the importance of cleaning up rivers, lakes and seas. I would like to think it is something that we are united on.

Many stakeholders, many people and many Members have called for bathing water regulations to be updated to reflect the new ways in which we are using our waters or falling into our waters, whatever it might be, and to continue to support public health outcomes. It would be irresponsible for us not to consider public health when we are thinking about designation.

We are a Government who listen. We are a Government who believe in co-production. We are a Government who actively engage. I encourage all Members to contribute to the water review. It is out there now; the consultation is only open for the next seven weeks, so please do not lose the opportunity to have your say.

I put on the record my thanks to all the environmental campaigners, Surfers Against Sewage and all those organisations involved in supporting our clean rivers, lakes and seas.

[Freddie van Mierlo]

The Minister made some points on the length of time it would take to get some popular sites up to standard. Would she consider a pre-designation status, so that those sites are not left on the shelf with no support whatsoever—so that we are recognising, as my hon. Friends have said, the importance of certain sites for sporting, cultural and historical reasons?

[Emma Hardy]

That is a really interesting consideration. I hope the hon. Member fed that into the consultation. I will not commit either way, but it is an interesting point and one I will reflect on—as I said, this is a Government who listen. On that note, I think it is time for me to finish talking. I thank everyone who has contributed to this debate.

[Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)]

Well done for getting your mum in Hansard. I call Gideon Amos to say a few words to sum up.

17:28

[Gideon Amos]

I am really grateful to everyone who has taken part in the debate. I thank them very much. I am delighted that when I was filling in the form for bathing water status in French Weir, it was such a successful initiative that it attracted not only the support of the Opposition spokesperson but also my predecessor as Member of Parliament at the time.

We were delighted to get that designation, but it would not have happened if core reform 2 was in place. Even though that bathing site has been there for hundreds of years, dating back to at least the 18th century—we have records and pictures from the 19th century of changing rooms beside the river—the designation would not have happened and people would continue using the river and they would not have the benefit of bathing water status.

I urge the Minister to think carefully about introducing this very different criterion and moving away from places where people actually swim towards places where the industry think that they can afford to make the water quality better. That is the wrong criterion. The right criterion is where people are already using the river. I was in the river every Saturday in February—I did not quite make January—and people will be there throughout the year, whether or not the signs are up and it has bathing water status. I urge the Minister to think a little more on that.

I reiterate my thanks to everyone for taking part. I hope the Minister will ensure a debate on the regulations when they go through this House, because they are really important for our water quality.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered bathing water regulations.

17:29

Sitting adjourned.