Rivers, Lakes and Seas: Water Quality Debate
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Alison Hume
Main Page: Alison Hume (Labour - Scarborough and Whitby)Department Debates - View all Alison Hume's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Rivers, Lakes and Seas: Water Quality
Alison Hume Excerpts(3 days, 10 hours ago)
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Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes) for securing this important debate.
The title is exactly right: if we are to properly tackle water pollution, it must be from the source to the sea. I rise to talk about River Esk, the beautiful 20-mile long river that flows through my constituency to reach the North sea at Whitby. It is widely used for bathing and recreation, and the species found in it are important, ecologically and commercially. Its coastal waters are home to the European lobster and brown crab, while the tidal river is home to the freshwater pearl mussel, Atlantic salmon, sea trout and European eel.
The pearl mussel is critically endangered, and the last population in Yorkshire is to be found in the River Esk. It is dependent on the salmon and trout populations in the river during its lifecycle. The Esk once teemed with Atlantic salmon, whose numbers were a key indicator for clean water—but no longer, sadly.
The pearl mussel breeding project receives funding from Yorkshire Water, yet one of the key threats to it and to the salmon in the Esk comes from sewage discharges. Eighteen storm overflows discharge into the Esk. In 2023, there were 637 sewage spills from those overflows, with a combined duration of 2,757 hours.
However, the infrastructure—both material and regulatory—to keep the River Esk clean is crumbling and unfit for purpose. I recently visited the Yorkshire Water treatment plant at Egton Bridge, where the bank it is on is clearly subsiding into the river, and nearby manhole covers explode due to the water pressure when there is heavy rainfall. The company responsible for all this—Yorkshire Water—has paid out dividends worth £525 million since 2018.
I therefore warmly welcome the Government’s Water (Special Measures) Bill, which will require independent monitoring and hit polluters such as Yorkshire Water where it hurts—in their bank balance. Water company profits come at the expense of communities such as mine.