Sewage Pollution: Lakes and Rivers Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Baroness Hayman of Ullock
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Sewage Pollution: Lakes and Rivers
Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)
Yes. I point the noble Baroness to the plan for water, which lays out very clearly the 25-year strategy to reduce storm overflows to zero, and the investment plan that goes with that.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, for the last couple of years the Government have talked a lot about all the action they have been taking, but the situation seems to be getting worse. How is all the monitoring that is happening actually going to be used to drive forward change and reduction at last?
Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)
Regarding one of the issues the noble Baroness raises, we now have a lot more information available to us to look at. When we did not have storm overflow discharge information, we were ignorant of the amount of sewage that was going into our rivers, lakes and other waterways. If you look at the results for the bathing water test, for example, you can see a significant improvement over the last 15 years because of all the measures we put in.