Water White Paper

Alison Bennett Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds]

This will be an issue for the new regulator, rather than the ombudsman. As a result of the Water (Special Measures) Act, 10 water bosses last year were denied £4 million in bonuses, but there is still more to do. I urge companies to respect the spirit as well as the letter of the law. Ofwat is considering further action to hold these companies to account.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her statement, in which she talked about new reforms for regional planning supporting housing growth. Right across the south-east, we have both very high housing targets, but a totally unreliable fresh water system, as I know the Secretary of State experienced herself when she visited Tunbridge Wells recently. How can these two things be realised when fundamentally we are dealing with, as she puts it, whole-system failure?

[Emma Reynolds]

We do think these two objectives can be realised. Far too many people in their 20s and 30s are denied the dream of home ownership because of the failure of the previous Government to build the homes we need, but we have also seen a failure to build reservoirs and to maintain the infrastructure we had in the first place. We have not built a reservoir in this country for 30 years, so I am glad that there are now plans to build nine of them. The hon. Member is right that we need water supply to underpin the growth we need in our housing as well.

UK Wine Industry

Alison Bennett Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Tristan Osborne]

Absolutely, there are challenges in the industry and I will raise a number of them in a moment, but first I want to offer an overview of the success of the sector. There are a lot of hard-working wine growers and merchants. Despite some of the challenges, the industry is already showing real success and we need to support it.

British wine is gaining recognition not just in this country but across the world. Japan is now a key market and the United States, Hong Kong, South Korea and Denmark are all beginning to respect our wines and see them as a go-to product choice. The export market is expanding at pace and, with support, this could be a real positive multiplier in our rural communities, much maligned and struggling in many cases. This is a growth industry that could sustain our rural economy and grow it in a more promising way. Many practices that wine producers engage with are inherently sustainable and support the local community, both directly in terms of wine producing, but also in spin-offs such as restaurants and wine tourism.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

I know the hon. Member trained as a teacher. Plumpton college educates many students in Mid Sussex and last year, it pledged £500,000 of fully funded training in the wine sector. Does he agree that to grow the wine industry, the Government also need to support skill development in rural economies and communities?

[Tristan Osborne]

I agree 100% that we do need to support more agricultural colleges. Clearly, individual courses will need to have throughput with apprenticeships into wine producers. There are not many of those and they are, at present, quite contained. I absolutely agree that, as the industry grows, we need to encourage skills development in that space.

I have other queries similar to the hon. Lady’s, and some of these policy interventions would not be expensive for the Government. On support for wine tourism, apparently 19% of our domestic wine is sold directly to visitors and local customers at the cellar door. These are not just transactions; they are experiences that anchor vineyards in their communities, create hospitality jobs and bring people into rural areas. A carefully designed relief on duty for on-site sales would not distort the market and threaten revenues but empower producers to grow sustainably. If we can offer small-scale support to the sector at this stage of the industry’s growth, we can realise and return greater revenues later.

We also need to safeguard what British wine actually means. Consumers deserve clarity, and our producers deserve protection. Wine labelled as “English”, “British” or “UK-made” should genuinely be made from 100% British grapes, and labelling reforms should enhance transparency, rather than create loopholes. At the same time, we need to beware of regulatory changes that could undermine domestic sparkling producers, and we should instead allow domestic producers the opportunity to make a protected geographical indication category for English prosecco, for example. Adding to that, it is vital that we do not dilute internationally recognised standards.

As has been mentioned, we of course need to support education, research and development, and the promotion of skills. Much of the grant funding that once supported equipment, education and research has fallen away over the years. In my view, if we are serious about growing a high-value rural industry, which is already showing this growth, strategic investment in training, research and overseas marketing is not a luxury; it is a requirement to oversee growth. We know that we operate in a global market, and competing wine nations, such as France and others close to us in Europe, are already providing this backing to their industries. We need to be in this space to ensure that our producers are competitive on a level playing field.

On exports more broadly, no new wine region has succeeded internationally without some initial state backing. If we want English wine on shelves in Tokyo, New York and Copenhagen, the Government must be a partner, which is why supporting wine producers at expo conferences and trade fairs is absolutely critical. Small amounts of money to support advertising in those locations could generate significant throughput and expansion in exports.

My colleagues are right to mention taxation, and we need to be open to considering a level playing field. When it comes to small cider and beer production in this country, tax relief is offered at the cellar door, and I believe that the Government could also consider doing that for small wine producers. I understand that a statutory review of the system is due in August, and I urge the Minister to lobby her colleagues in the Treasury, as tricky as that might be, to look at both the level and methodology of wine duty to ensure that it supports, rather than constrains, this growing sector. I understand that the challenges with the Treasury might be significant, but it is nevertheless worth me articulating that.

On packaging policy, there are of course real challenges. Under extended producer responsibility, the fee for glass is around eight times higher than in other comparable European schemes. Although I am an advocate for our environment, as well as for the sustainability of many workplaces, we know that the wine industry relies on glass as a premium product and this problematic double-charging has an impact on communities. Can EPR fees be reviewed in the light of the size or turnover of a company, or the scale of its operation? Although I accept the premise of extended producer responsibility, perhaps there are some areas that could be looked at.

Land use planning must also recognise the unique nature of vineyards. As has been mentioned, they are not simply farms but rural assets—they are agricultural enterprises that not only produce high-value crops but act as tourist destinations, attracting visitors to local economies. Balfour, which is a Kent-based winery that I have had the pleasure of visiting, now offers a bespoke restaurant and hotel. That is now standard in many wineries, and some are aligned with pubs and other hospitality venues. Tasting rooms, restaurants and event venues are also linked to many of these producers as they diversify their businesses. They are not just environmental stewards, maintaining landscapes and biodiversity; they are indigenous parts of our communities. As we have seen in other European nations, we should be celebrating and talking about that.

As we look ahead, the UK wine industry will be a vibrant part of our national story, and it is one that we can absolutely sell to the world. I believe that this vision is aligned with our Government’s strategy to create a more dynamic rural economy and to support the economies of the future—as our climate changes, this space is only going to grow. I believe that we can build those jobs and pride, while delivering world-class British produce in our communities.

Lastly, outside of Government, supermarkets and distributors have a part to play. If we visit France and go down a wine aisle, we see that the French actively celebrate their product and market it with a logo, and they encourage their people to purchase it. I believe that our supermarkets should have that responsibility as well, and we can encourage them to market English wines in a similar way. Domestic demand would dramatically increase if there was consumer access to the wines that we produce—I say that to restaurants as well.

The industry is now going through a phase where there is movement and tumult as new wineries open and close, but in 20 years’ time the sector will be double or triple the size it is today. The Government should enable that as much as possible and ensure that our rural economies benefit, so we get the pleasure of tasting the best wine in the world.

Water (Special Measures) Act 2025: Enforcement

Alison Bennett Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron]

My right hon. Friend is neither nasty nor cynical; he knows Thames Water only too well. Well intentioned though the Act may be, it is clearly full of holes, and the water company chief executives and others are finding ways through them.

We contrast all of that with the fact that in 2024—the last time we had comprehensive figures—the water companies between them dumped sewage in our waterways for a duration of 3.6 million hours. My patch of Westmorland is now the third hardest-hit constituency in England for duration of sewage spills. In 2024 alone, there were over 5,000 sewage discharge incidents, amounting to more than 55,000 hours of raw sewage released into our rivers and lakes, from the Eden to the Eea and from the Kent to the Crake. In just the first 20—no, 19 and a half—days of 2026, there have already been 424 hours of sewage discharge into Westmorland’s precious waterways.

At the same time, water companies across the country are shamelessly slithering around the bonus ban. Their bonuses and dividends are being paid, for the most part, by bill payers. Indeed, water companies are wading in colossal debt, often incurred to pay those bonuses and dividends. In just 2024, £1.2 billion was paid out in dividends, mostly out of debt. In my communities in Westmorland, 11p out of every pound we pay on our water bills goes just to finance debt. Thames Water is even worse: customers are paying over 30p in the pound simply to service the company’s debts.

My message to industry leaders is this: bonuses are meant to be paid to folks who do a good job. If you are leading a company that actively pollutes our lakes, rivers and seas, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you are not doing a good job.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is right to discuss the problems of sewage in our waterways, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) and I, and the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies), have all experienced in recent weeks, it is not just about sewage in waterways; it is about freshwater supply. Does my hon. Friend agree that the chief executive of South East Water should also go for failing to deliver tap water to our taps?

[Tim Farron]

I imagine that that is item 1—indeed, probably items 1 to 6—on the job description. If they cannot fulfil that obligation, then go they should.

The Government brought in the Act to stop bonuses like this being paid, but they are clearly not effectively enforcing that ban in practice. Although I am critical of the Government, my main criticism is reserved for the water company bosses themselves, who have the nerve to go looking for ways to get around the bonus ban to enrich themselves, often out of bill payers’ money. I tell water industry bosses this: your customers see you, our constituents see you and your hard-working frontline employees see you. Your authority is diminished because your integrity is diminished. That proves the Liberal Democrats right: we need far more radical change in our water industry.

So we come to the White Paper released by the Government this week. Having rejected our 44 amendments to what is now the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, the Government soon conceded that they needed to do more and launched the independent commission into the water sector, chaired by Sir Jon Cunliffe. The commission reported last July, and this week’s White Paper draws from its report. It is meant to be a step towards a more far-reaching water Bill, perhaps in the coming parliamentary Session, and there are welcome elements in the Government’s trailing of it. For example, it is good that they want to borrow the Liberal Democrats’ plan for a single unified regulator to bring financial and environmental oversight together.

I want quickly to add to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and others that the Drinking Water Inspectorate is doing a good job. We should not level it down to the level of the rest of the regulatory sector, but level the sector up to the inspectorate’s level.

It is good that the Government want to make regulation more proactive through the work of a chief engineer. However, the disaster in Kent and Sussex over the water supply, the financial failure of Thames Water, the failure of all water companies to prevent sewage dumping and the decision of water industry leaders to stick two fingers up to bill payers and Parliament by dodging the bonus ban all tell us that we will never solve this crisis while we maintain the current ownership model. The Liberal Democrats demand that our water companies be transitioned to being mutually owned public benefit companies, so that money raised in the water industry is reinvested in our infrastructure, and the main motivation is not the profiteering of people who are often probably not even resident in this country, but the quality of our water supply and sewage removal systems and the benefit to the customer. We are therefore bitterly disappointed that the Government have no plans to change the ownership model at all. As a result, the White Paper looks like yet another missed opportunity.

Water UK has welcomed the White Paper, which ought to really worry the Government because it is the water companies’ trade body. Of course it is delighted that the Government continue to protect the water companies from the fullest scrutiny. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Liz Jarvis) pointed out, we are measuring the duration, not the volume, of sewage. I said that sewage was dumped for 3.6 million hours in 2024, and that is all I can say, because the duration of spills is all we are allowed to know, but the volume of sewage going into our waterways is surely even more significant. There can be long trickle or a swift deluge, yet the Government refuse to enforce the measurement of volume, despite Liberal Democrat amendments to the Bill that would have allowed them to do that.

It feels like the Government, in failing to enforce the 2025 Act and stand up to the water companies in their new water White Paper, are content merely to make tentative steps to be better than the dismal record of their Tory predecessors—which is not a high bar. The British people need this Government to be a lot more than just a bit better than the Conservatives. They need radical reform of this failed ownership model and of inadequate regulations and enforcement. The Liberal Democrats will offer that reform.

Water Supplies: East Grinstead

Alison Bennett Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I know she raised on the call her concern about livestock and the impact on animals. Water companies have a statutory duty to provide wholesome water—it is literally their job to provide that—and their requirements are set out in the security and emergency measures direction. They have a duty to provide water, so during a supply outage they have a duty to provide water to vulnerable customers and people who cannot otherwise access it. The Drinking Water Inspectorate will be looking at where we have seen failings.

Quite frankly, this is outrageous and it is unacceptable. I accept that the company cannot be held responsible for the freeze and thaw, but if there is a problem with the supply for whatever reason, it can be held responsible for the way it has responded to the crisis. There is no justification for its failure to get water to vulnerable customers or people who need it, and I will be picking that up directly with the company as soon as we are out of this latest crisis.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

I sincerely thank all the Ministers for all their work over the past four days, supporting me and my constituents. My constituency has by no means had the worst outages, but a secondary school has been closed, multiple villages are out of supply, a hospital was out of supply overnight and 1,200 homes last night were out of supply. There are multiple points of failure not just in Mid Sussex, but right across the south-east. Frankly, I have been shocked by the fragility of the water supply system in our region. Quite simply, our infrastructure is not adequate to cope with normal weather events that we should all expect in January. We are on the edge of the supply area in Mid Sussex and East Grinstead. Will the Minister look at a duty to co-operate with neighbouring water authorities to ensure that those of us at the end of the pipeline are not cut off in the first instance?

[Emma Hardy]

The hon. Lady is quite right: it is a fragile supply system. We have had years of under-investment in resilience and there are too many points in the system where it can fail. It is not resilient. Other parts of the country are able to move water more effectively around their system, which creates much greater resilience. This system simply does not have the resilience it should. That is partly because of the historic problems around maintenance—historically, all water companies fix on failure, rather than undertake proactive maintenance—and partly because the system, as it is set up at the moment, does not allow the easy transfer of water across an individual water company. These are fundamental things that we need to address through our water reforms and changes in regulation. We can only build a resilient system if we are able to move water around some of the network. On the hon. Lady’s other points, the impact on schools is obviously appalling, especially at the moment as I know many pupils are doing their mock exams—my daughter has been doing hers as well.

Water Scarcity

Alison Bennett Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I thank my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne), for securing this important and timely debate.

Over the past week, my constituents in Mid Sussex have watched the appalling situation in Tunbridge Wells—families left without water for days on end, businesses forced to close and vulnerable residents unable to wash or cook—with deep concern. South East Water’s handling of the crisis has been nothing short of shocking. My constituents are asking the very reasonable question, “Could we be next?”.

While we accept that climate change is affecting rainfall, and recognise that house building places additional pressure on supply, none of that excuses the simple truth: South East Water has failed to invest properly in its network, failed to maintain its pipes, and failed to plan to ensure resilience. We have also not seen a major new reservoir in England since 1991. In Mid Sussex, we are now seeing the consequences of that neglect. Ardingly reservoir is at 44% capacity—this time last year, it was full. We have had a hosepipe ban imposed since the summer, businesses have been restricted under a drought order and South East Water is now racing to design a 13-kilometre pipeline to move up to 30 million litres of water a day from Weir Wood reservoir, just to keep Haywards Heath and surrounding villages supplied next spring and summer. That is not resilience; they are chasing their tails. The pipeline proposal raises serious questions. Its route would cross private land, roads, railway lines and environmentally sensitive areas, including Ashdown Forest. Local people deserve clarity, they deserve transparency and they deserve independently verified information, not only on the feasibility of the pipeline, but on every contingency plan the company claims to be developing.

I call on the Minister to go further. We need a full assessment of South East Water’s long-term resilience and investment strategy. We need clear, published forecasts of supply risks for every community and we also need regulators to ensure that companies owned by far-off investment funds are delivering water security, not just profits. Most of all, we need to protect our residents. Households, care homes, schools and businesses cannot simply be left to hope for rainfall or trust in last-minute engineering projects.

My constituents expect—and deserve—reassurance that the disgraceful scenes in Tunbridge Wells will not be repeated in Haywards Heath, Burgess Hill, Lindfield, Cuckfield or anywhere else in Mid Sussex. It should be a given, especially with rising bills, that people can live safely in the knowledge that they have access to a clean, reliable water source. For a Government with massive housing targets, it is unreasonable to expect local people to support targets of more than 1,000 homes per annum that are being delivered when they know that the existing population’s water demands are, at best, precariously met. That breaks the social contract. I draw my comments to a close there, but I look forward to hearing how the Minister plans to ensure that the situation is better managed in the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emma Hardy]

Apologies, Mr Stuart; I should gaze upon you at all times.

Protecting customers, of course, must be one of the top priorities, so I have been chairing one of the multi-agency responses. Normally agencies talk to agencies and Government, but I felt the need to intervene personally in this matter—which I have done three times in the last week—to look at every step that has been taken to resolve the issue, and particularly the concern around communication and making sure that vulnerable people are getting the water that they need.

[Alison Bennett]

Does the Minister support Liberal Democrat calls, including those of my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin), for the chief executive of South East Water to resign over this issue?

[Emma Hardy]

At the moment, the chief executive needs to focus on getting the boil water notice removed and getting drinking water back into everybody’s house. Of course, the Drinking Water Inspectorate will be doing a full investigation into exactly what has caused the problem and why it has taken so long to resolve. South East Water is responsible for compensating customers. The changes that we introduced to the guaranteed standards scheme mean that for the first time compensation can be given to people who are under boil notices. Under the previous Government someone under a boil notice did not receive any compensation; we have introduced compensation. Customers will be compensated not only for not having water but for the duration of their boil water notice.

On water scarcity, I agree with many of the points that have been raised. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) talked about the over-abstraction of chalk streams and he is absolutely right that that is crucial. Over-abstraction and pollution are the main causes of problems for our chalk streams. One of the reasons that we have such a demand for future water is because we are committed to reducing abstraction, particularly from our chalk streams. He is right to say that we cannot think just about having the reservoirs; we need more actions, including strong and stringent targets to reduce leakage, and we need to look at all our water needs going forward. He was right to highlight—although there seemed to be some amnesia in the Chamber—the years of under-investment in water and in infrastructure more widely. We are getting on with doing many things that should have been done in the last 14 years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Bennett Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Under this Labour Government, there is nowhere to hide for polluting water companies. We have overseen record fines on water companies and are introducing automatic penalties—like speeding tickets—to ensure that those companies are held to account for every level of offence.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

My constituents are fed up. They are fed up of paying rising bills and adhering to hosepipe bans, and of being told to be mindful of how they use their water while leaks go unfixed and water shortages remain. This autumn, people in Mid Sussex came within three weeks of standpipes being needed, despite paying more and more on their bills. Against this torrent of failure, my constituents want to know how the Government plan to create a water industry that can provide for a growing population, rather than lurching from crisis to crisis.

[Emma Reynolds]

I share the public’s frustration with what has happened in recent years, but I reassure her that we will take decisive action. We have already passed the Water (Special Measures) Act, but we will also be issuing a White Paper later this year and will legislate to ensure that we have better regulation, a better regulator and a better water system for her constituents and those around the country.

Sewage

Alison Bennett Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a really good point about his own communities. That is what we are trying to address today by bringing practical solutions to prevent this outrage.

That 106% increase in the duration of sewage spills in just two years has been explained away on the record by water industry bosses as the consequence of climate change, because it rains more than it used to. Yes, that is absolutely true, but it did not rain 106% more in 2024 than it did in 2022—not even in the Lake district. The reality is that the failure of water companies to invest in their infrastructure and the failure of Ofwat to force them to do so mean that the scandal is set to continue despite the Government’s new legislation.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

There were 754 spills in my constituency last year alone. We do not want to see those numbers anywhere, but in a constituency that does not have a major waterway, that is absurdly high. Does my hon. Friend agree that if we want to start genuinely holding these water companies to account, a great place to start would be replacing Ofwat?

[Tim Farron]

My hon. Friend anticipates where I am going next, but yes, it takes some doing to have such figures in a constituency lacking in water—certainly lacking in it compared to my neck of the woods.

I confess that I am doing this job not just because my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) asked me; I would volunteer for all this stuff, because for me and my communities water is seriously personal. We are home to much of the English Lake district —Windermere, Ullswater, Coniston water, Grasmere, Rydal water and many more—and to a beautiful stretch of Morecambe bay and some of the most ecologically significant rivers in the UK, including the Kent, the Eden and the Leven. Yet the data for 2024 shows that we are the third hardest hit constituency in England when it comes to the duration of sewage spills, with 55,000-plus hours of spills and 5,500 individual incidents.

The catchment of the River Eden going through Appleby, Kirkby Stephen and many beautiful villages saw over 7,000 hours of spills on 705 occasions. The River Kent catchment saw 5,300 hours of spills on 455 occasions. Windermere alone had 38 spills over 123 hours.

Climate and Nature Bill

Alison Bennett Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 24th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith]

I hear the point the hon. Lady makes, but I fundamentally disagree. We already have the direction—it was the last Conservative Government who were the first in the western world to legislate for net zero by 2050 and who passed the Environment Act. The answers to the challenges we face in the development of synthetics do not sit in the Bill before us today. They sit in other legislation, which I admit I voted against in the last Parliament, but it is the ZEV mandate that gets in the way, because it fails to look at whole-system analysis. Who else wants to have a go?

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

Businesses and car manufacturers said that the previous Conservative Government’s chopping and changing on car manufacturing made it really hard for them to achieve those scientific and technological innovations.

[Greg Smith]

The hon. Lady makes a point about the change that happened in the last Parliament, but she is allowing the facts to get in the way of a good argument. The reality out there is that car manufacturers are finding that, aside from fleet sales, they cannot sell electric vehicles. Consumer demand for them is through the floor—nobody wants them. That is part of the fundamental problem. If we take the solution that this Bill wants to speed up and put on steroids, the innovators get blocked, and everybody simply jumps on the technology that is available today, which is sometimes not the best technology to achieve the climate and nature goals that we in this House all want to see.

The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) spoke of the value of nuclear, which is another great example. We should look at the damage that grand-scale solar and battery storage cause to nature. We need 2,000 acres of solar panels to produce enough electricity for about 50,000 homes on current usage, but we need only two football pitches for a small modular reactor that will serve 1 million homes, so why are we messing about with solar? That is the fundamental point we should all reflect on when we think about the Bill. We must think about the legislative framework we need to achieve these goals and then look at more practical solutions.

Budget: Implications for Farming Communities

Alison Bennett Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner]

I think it is time for people to take up the opportunities of the schemes that the previous Government introduced and that we are continuing, which allow them to farm in an environmentally and nature-friendly way. It will be good for the future and will produce food for this country. There is a very bright future for British farming.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

Given the varied estimates of how many farms will be impacted by these changes to agricultural property relief, will the Minister confirm how many farms he thinks will be impacted?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I refer the hon. Lady to my earlier answer. The figures are in the Treasury papers for all to see.