Independent Water Commission Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Claire Young
Main Page: Claire Young (Liberal Democrat - Thornbury and Yate)Department Debates - View all Claire Young's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Independent Water Commission
Claire Young Excerpts(1 day, 18 hours ago)
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Steve Reed
A Trent tan is a very alarming and graphic image, but it captures what has gone wrong with our water sector for so long. The changes that we are announcing today will clean up our waterways across the country so that wild swimmers, as well as many other people who like to enjoy our precious rivers, lakes and seas, can get on and enjoy them without the kind of concern she alludes to.
Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
In my constituency last year there were 2,036 sewage spills, lasting for a total of 28,360 hours. However, contrary to the Secretary of State’s earlier assertion, we do not know the volume of that dumping because it is not monitored. What steps are the Government taking to impose targets to reduce both the duration and the volume of individual spills?
Steve Reed
We are increasing monitoring to 100% of all outlets. I note that representatives from the Conservative party will often try to take the credit for increasing monitoring. That is a good thing to have done, but what is not so good is to use it just to wave hello to the sewage as it floats on by and do nothing about reducing it.