Water Quality: Sewage Discharge

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I will start on a positive note by thanking those who have actively engaged in this public health, environmental and economic issue, which has been an absolute catastrophe for our country. I thank my friend Feargal Sharkey, the singer turned formidable environmental campaigner, for his tireless work in bringing to life the impact that sewage dumping is having on every part of our country. It is also important to recognise the work of the campaign group Top of the Poops, alongside Surfers Against Sewage, in collating constituency data to allow the public to see the extent of the Tory sewage scandal in the areas where they live, work and holiday.

Opposition Members have made some extremely powerful speeches illustrating the impact of the sewage scandal in their constituencies. My hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) made a good point about excessive corporate pay. My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) spoke about the effect on the biodiversity of our birds and fish. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) pointed out that bills have gone up by 40%.

[Bob Seely]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alex Sobel]

Unfortunately we have limited time, so I will make some progress.

My hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) rightly highlighted the importance of the unique habitats that chalk streams provide. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) pointed out that we need increased regulation that is good for people. My hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) and other north-west Members rightly pointed out that United Utilities has the highest number of discharges. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Samantha Dixon) pointed out that constituents have suffered heavily because of overflows in her constituency.

My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), who is a keen wild swimmer, has been an excellent campaigner for Plymouth sound to get clean bathing water status. I hope his campaign comes to fruition. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) pointed out that the Government have a 27-year plan. Who can wait that long for our rivers to be clean? My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) represents Whitstable beach, where I have swum. She pointed out that swimmers can no longer use it because of the sewage.

My hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) pointed out that United Utilities uses the courts to protect itself from private prosecution, which is exactly why our Bill is needed. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) pointed out the danger that sewage poses to the ambitious plans of our metro Mayors. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) told the House about the horrendous 17-hour spill just outside Reading. Our Bill would end such incidents. My hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) rightly mentioned sustainable drainage systems and grey-water storage as part of the solution. There have been so many excellent speeches today.

We have to ask ourselves some questions. Is the water industry operating in the public interest? No. Is it right for the Tories to allow water companies to dump raw sewage into our waters? No. Is it time for change? Yes. Of course, we cannot and will not just let water companies off the hook. We should not allow them to wash their hands of the issue and walk off the pitch with £72 billion in dividends, leaving behind a broken system.

[Bob Seely]

rose—

[Alex Sobel]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman, with whom I co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on Ukraine.

[Bob Seely]

Earlier today, the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) made a truly dire attempt at public speaking in which he avoided most of the questions put to him. One of the critical questions was why the last Labour Government allowed the utility firms to self-monitor. Does that not exemplify an uncomfortable, corrupting relationship between the last Labour Government and the public utilities?

[Alex Sobel]

When Labour left office in 2010, the Environment Agency said that our rivers were the cleanest at any time since before the industrial revolution. That is Labour’s record.

It should not be left to us or to the public to clean up the mess and pay the price of Tory failure, but we will have to do it. Conservative Members have made the argument that that will involve households picking up the tab. It will not. Our plan, unlike the Government’s, does not require increasing taxpayers’ bills.

As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), in the absence of a credible plan, Labour has done the Secretary of State’s job for her in presenting its own oven-ready plan: to deliver the mandatory monitoring of all sewage outlets and a standing-charge penalty for all water companies that do not have properly functioning monitors in place; to deliver automatic fines on polluters, which is not happening under this Government; to give regulators the necessary power and require them to enforce the rules properly; to set legally binding sewage-dumping reduction targets that will end the Tory sewage scandal by 2030 and not 2050; and crucially, to ensure that any failure to improve is paid for by water companies, which will not be able to pass the charge on to customers’ bills or slash investment.

What we have set out in my hon. Friend’s Bill is just the first phase of Labour’s plan to clear up the mess, but we are under no illusions: the system is fundamentally broken. That is why we need a phase 2 plan—which we will set out in due course—to reform the sector, placing delivery for the public good at the heart of the water industry. There needs to be a greater degree of public oversight in the running of the water industry to protect the public interest, because under the Tories, households are paying the price of a failing water industry, through first having to pay for sewage treatment in their water bills while the Tories allow corner-cutting and the dumping of raw sewage in our waters rather than its being treated properly. I recently discovered that only 37% of our sewage treatment plants even have storage tanks, while the others discharge straight into the local rivers, and even the simplest precautions are not being taken in the majority of our sewage plants—

[Duncan Baker]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alex Sobel]

I think that time is against us—yes, you are indicating that it is, Madam Deputy Speaker—so unfortunately I cannot take any more interventions.

Secondly, households are paying the price of the impact that this is having on the NHS, the economy and the environment. I am disappointed but not surprised at the conduct of Tory Members who, once again, stood up one after the other and merely read out the cobbled-together lines of the panicked Government Whips—[Interruption.] That is not true! I wrote this speech myself, thank you very much. The Government Whips are struggling to find any serious reasons for blocking Labour’s common-sense approach. Being forced to resort to that is a symptom of a Tory Government who have run out of road and of ideas.

It is unfortunate, and slightly embarrassing for them, that the Government Whips have misunderstood Labour’s plan, fed Tory Members inaccurate numbers and got their maths wrong, which is no surprise given the state of our economy. The Minister may wish to correct the record on their behalf, because if they had read the Bill they would have seen that there are safeguards that prevent anyone from gaming the system. In any case, the Government’s own economic regulator, Ofwat, already has the power to protect customers’ bills.

The Secretary of State’s own Department has undertaken a cost-benefit analysis of Labour’s plan, which shows that cleaning up this mess would cost water companies a fraction of the £72 billion that they have taken out in dividends. There is no reason for inaction—and how much is that inaction costing the NHS, and businesses that are forced to pull down the shutters because of sewage dumping? But with the Tories, there is always a reason not to act in the public interest, and nothing is ever their fault. Bluster, blame game and blocking measures to clean up their mass sewage dumping mess—you name it, they have blamed it, as I have heard throughout the afternoon, whether it is people who use their toilets, the Welsh Government or home drainage systems. The Secretary of State even blamed the Victorians for causing this mess, more than 100 years ago. In case they have forgotten, let me point out that it is the Tories in Westminster who are responsible for economic regulation of the water industry in England and Wales, with the levers of power that are key to improving industry performance and holding water companies to account.

Tory Members now have a second chance to do the right thing, having previously voted to continue sewage dumping. If they vote with Labour today, we can end the sewage scandal once and for all. Their alternative is simply to follow the lead by continuing to vote for sewage dumping for no good reason. If they do refuse to back our plan, it will be either because they have not bothered to read the Bill and are blindly following the direction of the Secretary of State, or because they do not understand the Bill and, as their contributions today suggest, are inadvertently misleading the House about the reasons for continuing to vote for sewage dumping.

Let me be clear: the public are watching and listening. The choice this evening is simple. Members can either vote for our plan to end the Tory sewage scandal by 2030, with water companies finally being made to do the job that households are already paying them to do, or they can, for a second time, vote to allow the dumping of raw sewage in the constituencies that we all represent.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I now call the Minister, and remind the House that the Front Benchers can speak for equal amounts of time when winding up the debate.