Sewage

Angus MacDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

I respect the fact that this is the Liberal Democrats’ Opposition day debate, so I have been cutting parts out of my speech. I therefore hope the House will forgive me if I do not take every intervention that is offered to me.

I thank the Liberal Democrats for choosing to debate this important issue. We all know and agree that there are fundamental problems facing the water and sewerage industry. A drainage and sewerage system that was first built in the Victorian era does not meet the needs of the population it must now serve, or the pressures of more frequent and severe weather events. To fix the problem, we must first diagnose it and measure it. That is why the previous Government took the essential step of radically overhauling the monitoring of storm overflows.

On previous occasions, the Secretary of State has dismissed the significance of that data collection and monitoring. That is unfair, because when we came into government in 2010, the Labour Government had left us and the Liberal Democrats in the coalition Government with a water system that was out of control; just 7% of storm overflows were monitored. In other words, people across the country were swimming and playing in water without knowing that it had been contaminated with raw sewage. I had the pleasure of going to school in Blackpool, and there were certain times of the summer season when locals would not venture into the sea, because we knew the consequences of daring to do so.

The point I would make to everyone in this Chamber is that this is a long-standing set of problems. To pretend otherwise—I know some people get a little carried away with their advocacy—does not do the public, our constituents or, indeed, our waterways the justice that they deserve. We are proud of the fact that by the time we left government we had met our ambitious target to ensure that 100% of storm overflows were monitored. The importance of that is emphasised—

[Mr Angus MacDonald (Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Victoria Atkins]

I will just finish this point, and then I will take the intervention.

The importance of that is emphasised by the interventions we have already had, because Members across this House have been citing the very stark and shocking statistics on storm overflows, sewage overflows and so on in their constituencies. They have rightly relied on those figures already in this debate, and I have no doubt that they will rely on them in their speeches as well. In the dark days before 2010, their predecessors would not have had that information. [Laughter.] I see a Labour Member—the hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Claire Hazelgrove)—laughing about that. I do not know why she is laughing at knowing more through data collection so that we can correct the situation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Savage]

I completely agree. Although I commend those grassroots efforts, that is not their job. I was delighted to hear from the Secretary of State that we will soon have real-time reporting on water pollution, and I look forward to seeing the visible—and smellable—results of that. It is also the Earthwatch WaterBlitz this weekend, so hon. Members may still have time to get their water testing kits do their own bit of citizen science.

Secondly, again, I applaud local efforts, and especially the Malmesbury River Valleys Trust and the Cotswold Lakes Trust, for doing such exemplary work in taking care of our waterways and our wetlands in the South Cotswolds. I recommend to hon. Members across the House that we use our power to convene to bring together people around these issues. In the South Cotswolds, we recently held two fruitful summits—one on the Gloucestershire side and one on the Wiltshire side—bringing people together on the issue of flooding. They yielded a lot of enthusiasm, expertise and actionable solutions. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Frome and East Somerset (Anna Sabine) mentioned, we cannot leave it all to the grassroots. We have a deeply dysfunctional water industry in this country, and we need to get upstream of these problems to the source.

[Mr Angus MacDonald]

We have been hearing all about monitoring in one hour and the huge amounts of discharges. We do not have any of that information in Scotland as it is not a requirement for Scottish Water to release that and the SNP Government are not taking any steps to do so. We have no idea about the extent of the problem, but we know that it is substantial. Will my hon. Friend back me in supporting the cause for the Scottish Government to release the same information as there is England?

[Dr Savage]

I would be more than happy to back my hon. Friend’s calls for an equivalent system in Scotland.

Finally, I thank the Government for everything they are already doing to reform the water industry and look forward to seeing real results in our waterways. I will add that, while I welcome the Cunliffe review, I was disappointed to find out that the ownership of water companies is outside its scope.