Queen’s Speech

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I speak on the environment—one of the themes of today’s debate—and, in particular, the urgent need to improve the quality of water in our river systems. The gracious Speech includes a commitment to “set binding environmental targets”. I imagine that this mainly refers to carbon emissions, but I suggest that Ministers should be more concerned about the shocking amounts of raw sewage, plastic and other domestic products that are daily allowed to enter our rivers.

I wonder whether the Minister watched “Panorama” on BBC1, five weeks ago. The programme was entitled “The River Pollution Scandal”. I think it is required viewing for Ministers and officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The programme is not easy to watch, as it shows, in a most revolting way, the amount of untreated, raw sewage discharged into rivers and the used domestic products that now cover the beds of the Thames and other rivers.

In the previous Session, there was a Private Member’s Bill in the other place tabled by the right honourable Member for Ludlow, Philip Dunne, which sought to limit these discharges and prohibit certain plastic products entering the sewage system. Unfortunately, the Government were not prepared to accept or take over Philip Dunne’s Bill. I have therefore tabled a similar Private Member’s Bill in this House and have been allotted 12th position in the ballot, but I would much prefer to persuade the Minister and his colleagues to amend the Environment Bill so that it has the same intent and rigour as Philip Dunne’s Bill.

On the day after the Queen’s Speech, Defra announced that it would table amendments in this House to place three additional legal duties on the Secretary of State: to publish a plan by September 2022 to reduce sewage discharges, to report to Parliament progress on implementing the plan and to require water companies to publish annual data on these discharges. I say to Ministers as politely as I can that this is far too little and shows no sense of urgency. We have two Ministers—the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, in this House, and Rebecca Pow, in the other place—both of whom care passionately about the environment.

If a farmer allows a cupful of silage effluent or other farm waste to drip into a ditch, he will find himself in trouble with the Environment Agency, but water companies are allowed to release millions of gallons of raw sewage into rivers every year. There was a piece on Radio 4 on Saturday about Ilkley in West Yorkshire. The locals have calculated that on more than 100 days a year, raw sewage is discharged into the River Wharfe. The water company’s response is that it plans to reduce the discharges by 20% over five years. I cannot believe that any Member of your Lordships’ House thinks that this is good enough. Will the Minister state whether he thinks that the situation in Ilkley is acceptable?

On my way here this morning, I read with great interest a press release from Ofwat, the water regulator, entitled:

“Water sector to plunge £2.8 billion into the green recovery”


I thought that it might have pre-empted my speech but, sadly, when I read further, I found that only just over 5% of this sum is to be devoted

“to help eliminate harm caused by storm overflows”.

Surely this is an insufficient reaction to the seriousness of the situation.

I conclude by asking Her Majesty’s Government to think again. Should cleaning up our rivers not be a higher and more urgent priority? I ask my fellow Members of this House to support appropriate amendments that we intend to table when the Environment Bill reaches us.