Sewage Pollution: Lakes and Rivers

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

My noble friend raises a very good point; the water companies are consulted on these issues on a regular basis.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I think the Minister just said that there is 100% monitoring of storm overflows, but my understanding is that, whereas the quality of water coming into the rivers from sewage plants is indeed monitored, outflows from the combined sewage overflows are not completely monitored and should be. That still needs further monitoring. Will the Minister meet with the Environment Agency and suggest that it accelerates the programme of installing monitoring of the combined sewage overflows?

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

The noble Duke has a profound knowledge of this issue, so I will bow to that on this occasion. I commit to speaking to the Environment Agency on this issue and will take that point forward.

Environment Agency

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

I am not entirely sure what the key question was. If it was about linking up across government, I assure the noble Lord that it takes place across all departments.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests relevant to this matter. In the past, the Environment Agency did not give sufficient priority to the discharge of sewage into our rivers. The Minister just explained how its budget has been increased, but the most important thing is to make the discharge of sewage and cleaning up our rivers a sufficient priority within the management of the Environment Agency. Is the Minister convinced that that is now the case and that what happened in the past will not recur, and we will have more effort from the Environment Agency in cleaning up rivers?

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

The noble Duke is absolutely right. Just in the last year, the Government published the Plan for Water, which marks a step change in how we manage our water. We plan to deliver clean and plentiful water for people, businesses and nature. We are delivering this with tighter regulation, tougher enforcement and more investment. The Government are committed in the 25-year environment plan to restoring three-quarters of our water bodies to be close to their natural state, and this plan will help us achieve that.

Pollution in Rivers and Regulation of Private Water Companies

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Thursday 29th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my agricultural interests, which may be relevant to this debate. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, on securing this debate. I am slightly saddened to hear, from various sides, party-political views on this matter. In my opinion, this is not a party political issue. I think that all parties in this House, and those with no party affiliation, share a determination to try to do something about this serious situation.

There is no doubt that pollution in our rivers affects the whole population, and there is wide public support for legislation to clean up our rivers and beaches. Unfortunately, despite many improvements made by this House to the Environment Act 2021, and despite various plans and intentions published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Environment Agency and Ofwat, the situation does not appear to be improving.

The Office for Environmental Protection—a new agency created by the Environment Act—stated in its recent annual report:

“The current state of the water environment is not satisfactory. Despite historic improvements, the pace of change has now stalled.”


It is well known, and a number of noble Lords have mentioned it, that only a small proportion of our rivers are in a good ecological state. In a report by the Rivers Trust, published earlier this week and referred to by several noble Lords, this country’s rivers are described as being in a

“desperate state … plagued by sewage, chemical, nutrient and plastic pollution”.

What can be done to encourage an improvement in our rivers? As the Office for Environmental Protection clearly states in its report, the Government’s ambitions can be achieved only with

“effective management of the farmed landscape and engagement with the nation’s farmers and landowners”.

Unfortunately, the rollout of the environmental land management schemes has been slow, and this will have impeded the reduction in the pollution in our rivers coming from agricultural activities. We have been slow in dealing with the slurry from intensive farming systems located in certain river catchment areas.

However, the inexcusable cause of river pollution is the continuing discharge of raw and untreated sewage. This has been happening for decades, and planning authorities throughout the country have been insufficiently insistent on improvements to sewage treatment plants to cope with new housing developments and so many house improvements. The various parts of central and local government have been insensitive to the scale of sewage pollution entering rivers and lakes. With hindsight, I think it is now clear that the regulatory structure created when the water companies were privatised over 30 years ago has been shown to be inadequate.

In the short term, it will be necessary to enforce to a greater extent compliance with new regulations for slurry management and the control of other farm waste. For the water companies, it will probably be necessary for Ofwat to insist on an even greater level of investment in sewage treatments—including, where possible, nature-based systems. I know that many ambitious investment plans have been announced, but I fear they are not adequate for the dire situation in which we find ourselves. I also fear—and it is uncomfortable to say this—that all this may involve increases in water charges greater than the rate of inflation. This must be coupled with a reduction or elimination of dividends until the discharges have been reduced to a minimum.

In the medium term, we must review the structure of regulation. I realise that this would be complex and that the transition could be disruptive. As the Minister and all the party spokesmen are here participating in this debate, I ask them to discuss with their respective colleagues whether all parties should include in their manifestos at the next election a commitment to an independent review of the structure of the regulation of the water industry. Such a review might well conclude, as I have, that it is necessary to have a single regulator, rather than the continuing splitting of responsibilities between the Water Services Regulation Authority—Ofwat—and the Environment Agency. The water companies are, of course, monopolies in their own geographic areas, and must therefore be regulated. I cannot think of other monopolies where the regulation is divided between two different agencies.

I do not suggest that it would not be complicated, and have other consequences, to change the manner in which water companies are regulated and held to account, and any change would not have an immediate effect. But the present system of regulation has meant that it has taken us decades to realise the full extent of the pollution damage, while the industry has become increasingly indebted and yet has paid out regularly dividends to shareholders, who in many cases are not the public shareholders who originally bought shares from the Government but private equity firms that may not share the same environmental objectives as the Government or the public. Some noble Lords have mentioned bonuses. I agree that it is rather shocking how much has been paid out in bonuses to companies which have been polluting regularly our rivers.

I realise that there is no quick fix for the current state of our rivers, lakes and beaches. But we must continue to keep pressure on the Government, local authorities and the regulators to reduce the discharges of sewage and the agricultural waste entering our river systems. A greater sense of urgency is now required.

Water and Sewage Regulation (Industry and Regulators Committee Report)

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my registered interests that are relevant to this debate. I welcome the Industry and Regulators Committee’s report and congratulate its members, particularly the chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Hollick.

When the water companies were privatised in 1989, I cannot imagine that Ministers then thought that so many of them would pass into the hands of private equity groups, many of them based outside the United Kingdom. As the water companies are monopoly suppliers of essential water services to households and businesses, it is clear that they must be regulated. Regulation is divided between the Water Services Regulation Authority, known as Ofwat, and the Environment Agency. In paragraphs 2 and 3 of its recommendations, the committee suggests that there should be much closer co-operation between the two agencies. I ask the Minister whether it might not be more effective to merge into Ofwat the parts of the Environment Agency that currently regulate the water companies.

There have clearly been failings over the past 34 years in how the water companies have been regulated. The Environment Agency, for its part, pleads lack of resources. I am not convinced by that, although the committee appears to accept the argument. The problem has been that addressing the discharge of sewage into rivers and on to beaches has not been a high enough priority for the Environment Agency and, therefore, not enough of its extensive resources have been directed to oversight and monitoring of these monopolies. If all along there had been a department within Ofwat responsible for environmental regulation, in addition to financial regulation, for which it is responsible, the growing problem of sewage discharges would have been detected and understood much earlier and corrective action could therefore have been taken some decades ago. Will the Minister and his colleagues give serious consideration to whether the structure of the regulation of water companies is correct, and whether there should not in future be a single regulator?

There are several other recommendations in the report which I completely support. Paragraph 24 recommends banning the sale of non-biodegradable wet wipes. I was pleased to see that, finally, the Government on Saturday launched their latest consultation on this, but I am not sure why they think that further consultation is necessary, as the overwhelming majority of this House and the other place, and of members of the public, are in favour of banning those products.

I also welcome paragraph 35, in which the committee questions whether the 2050 targets in the storm overflows discharge reduction plan are sufficiently ambitious. I hope that, when that plan is reviewed in 2027, the then Ministers will be more ambitious.

I support paragraph 47, in which the committee recommends that it should be part of water company licences that bonuses and performance-related pay of executives be linked to environmental performance. I also support paragraph 49, requiring that water companies, even though they may now be owned by private equity groups, should still be subject to the same level of transparency as they were originally, when they were publicly listed companies. This must surely be right for monopolies formerly owned by the state.

There are two final recommendations of the committee that I strongly support. Water metering should be compulsory for all households and businesses where possible. For households, the cost of meter installation must be borne by the water company. This will clearly help many consumers to reduce their water consumption.

The last recommendation of the committee is that there should be more stretching targets for reduction of water leaks. A few months ago, I asked the Minister why the Government’s target was to reduce leaks only by 50% by 2050. That does not seem sufficiently ambitious. Ofwat currently estimates that leaks amount to 51 litres per person every day. The idea that in 27 years’ time, the companies will still be leaking 25 litres per person per day does not seem in any way justifiable.

I very much hope that this excellently titled, excellently written report will cause Ministers seriously to review how the water companies are regulated.

Water Companies: Customer Bills

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is right to a point. The Government give direction to Ofwat and have given it very clear direction in terms of resolving issues in relation to sewage overflows into rivers. We have a system where, like all utilities, it is extremely attractive, not least to pension companies—which are the recipients of dividend payments—that invest in our water industry. Having that balance between making sure we are being fair to bill payers, and how much they pay, and getting that investment is absolutely crucial. That is why we work regularly with Ofwat to achieve it.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, none of us underestimates the complexity and magnitude of this problem. We have had years of underinvestment in our sewage disposal and treatment systems. Such is the size of the problem today that I think we must all accept that the strain will have to be taken by a combination of higher bills for the consumer, shareholders receiving smaller dividends and—I know that it is difficult for politicians to even contemplate—general taxation, with the Treasury sharing part of this burden.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank the noble Duke for his continued interest in this issue. Undoubtedly, we could resolve the situation by spending somewhere between £120 billion and £600 billion separating clean water from dirty water, retrofitting an entirely new sewerage system and creating additional storage equivalent to 40,000 Olympic swimming pools, but that would add between £271 and £817 per annum to bills. It is important that we are honest with customers—with the people who get water into, and have sewage taken out of, their homes every day—that this comes at a price. Some of the promises being made that this is a simple solution are entirely fallacious. We have to be honest with the people who pay these bills.

Water Companies: Licences

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, that is just part of a great many things that the Government are doing. The new power that the Environment Agency has to link the companies’ licences to ring-fence provision on infrastructure spending is important. This comes as part of a plan that includes the Environment Act, as I said earlier; the Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan; a strategic policy statement for Ofwat, in which the Government required very stringent new standards; and our recently published plan for water. No Government are doing more to tackle this issue.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I also commend Ofwat on its recent announcement that it will seek to take some powers over dividends, but what it actually says is that the company boards will be required to take account of their performance towards the environment. What worries me—I wonder whether it worries the Minister—is that it is up to the company to assess its own performance. Is that really a strong enough power?

Direct Payments to Farmers (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2023

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

I ought perhaps to draw the attention of the House to my interests as in the register. I am also president of the Institute of Agricultural Management and I have the good fortune to be involved in a horticultural and farming business. I consider it good fortune because that business has grown. As my noble friend Lord Caithness would say, we are in some of the most fertile parts of England, and we have flexibility available to us that is not available to everybody involved in farming.

It is inevitable that we will talk about farming in general as we talk about this SI. The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, spoke particularly about the strains that face farmers—the difficulties that they have in marketing their produce—but we can all agree that we want to take the industry forward. We want to see the agricultural and horticultural industries going forward.

There may be a certain amount of frustration in the criticism of this SI. Change is, of course, difficult. Nobody likes change, least of all farmers, but we are blessed in this House in that I always feel that we generally have a consensus on this issue. I am slightly distressed to suddenly find that we are talking about a “fatal Motion” and a “regret Motion”. We have in my noble friend the Minister someone who was a colleague of mine in Defra some 11 years ago and whom we can rely on to make sure that the interests that we express here this evening are expressed within government.

I know that change is a difficult matter, but what are we trying to achieve? We are trying to achieve a diversity in farming that has not existed before. We are trying to induce a situation where farmers realise that what is environmentally beneficial to this country is also part and parcel of the way that the state, the Government, funds farming and gives farmers a chance. This SI is a step on the way. It is only the beginning of a continuing process, but we should support it at this stage. This change will be to the benefit of the country and to the benefit of the industry of which I consider myself through my family connections to be a part, and I consider it to be to the benefit of the world in which the majority of our fellow citizens want to live.

I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, has proposed this amendment. I cannot agree with her. I think it is looking backwards when we need to be looking forwards. I know that we and the Labour Party are both anxious to make sure that we have a policy for agriculture and horticulture which builds on where we are and what we want to achieve; it is something that I think we share.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my farming interest as detailed in the register.

Last week, the environment committee of your Lordships’ House—of which I am a member, as are some other Peers present—heard a very interesting presentation from one of our witnesses. She was a lady farming in the Yorkshire Dales, I think. It was a small family farm, and she was farming with her son. She explained that, in the past, they had received £12,000 per annum in farming support under the basic payment scheme. However, they were now due to receive £5,000, under the new schemes. I tell this story only because it is a very realistic assessment of what is happening to small family farms in the uplands, which are trying to farm in an environmentally sensitive way but not really being supported by the support system to which we are moving.

Like others, of course I support the idea that there should in future be payments that help the environment. In fact, I believe that most farmers already want to farm in a way that is friendly to the environment. Nevertheless, I understand that public money should be directed towards environmentally friendly systems of farming.

We all know that our Minister, who is so widely respected in this House, is not the author of the details of this transition. I do not think he was the Minister when we were debating two or three years ago the then Agriculture Bill. Many Members of this House at the time warned about the effect of phasing out the basic payments before the development of the ELM schemes and how it would affect particularly family farms in the uplands. That is indeed what is happening.

It is an uncomfortable truth for a Member of the United Kingdom Government that the Scottish Government are treating their farmers rather better than the English farmers are being treated by the centrally directed schemes here. In Scotland, they have decided to retain the basic payments until such time as the new environmental schemes properly kick in. We have been told many times in this House and in Grand Committee that there will be alternative ways in which farmers can apply for public money. We all accept that and nobody is disputing the principle. What worries me, and should be of concern to the Minister, is that there is a serious funding gap between the diminution of the basic payments and the access to and development of the new environmental schemes.

Although I of course support the direction in which the Government are taking farming, I do not rate the announcement by the Minister in January of £1,000 for helping all farms to receive advice. I am sure the Minister is aware, even though I have heard him suggest otherwise, that the complexity of the various schemes on offer quite often requires rather expensive advice. I have even been told that the expense of the advice is likely to be as great as the payments that people might possibly receive under some new schemes. It is complex—I think the Minister probably realises that—but I do not think the offer of £1,000 is really very significant or indeed very generous.

Water Companies: Pollution Penalties

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

Tabled by

[The Duke of Wellington]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to reconsider their proposal to increase to £250 million the maximum penalty for serious pollution incidents by water companies; and what assessment they have made of the reported remarks by the chair of the Environment Agency describing the proposal as “crazy”.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, apologises for being absent today as he is on a parliamentary delegation to Madrid. On his behalf, and at his request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

Environmental Improvement Plan 2023

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

As the noble Baroness will know, the Government—whether Ministers or civil servants—do not save soil; farmers do. We want, first, to incentivise them to do the right thing where possible. Secondly, we want to mandate doing the right thing. In our 300-page document on improving and protecting soil—it is not possible to mention everything in it in a Statement—we say that we will

“monitor soil health as part of the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment”

and

“on top of this Defra will … Establish a soil health indicator under the 25 Year Environment Plan Outcome Indicator Framework … Publish a baseline map of soil health for England by 2028 … Support farmers and land managers to establish their own soil health baseline, so they can best manage the health of their soil … Provide a methodology and tools to collect consistent information about the health of the soil under all land uses … Share current guidance and best practice with farmers and land managers to improve their knowledge and work with them on how to improve soil health.”

We will also prevent

“valuable soil resources from being sent to landfill”

and secure

“the integrity of future soil carbon codes”

so that we can unlock the trillions of dollars of ESG money sloshing about in investment in the City and other investment centres to make sure that we are focusing it on our natural environment. Soil health will be fundamental to that. We want to increase organic matter to make soil function as an ecosystem, so that it does not leach what we do not want to see going into our rivers, along with soil itself. Soil is finite natural capital and, after a heavy rain storm, you can often see plumes of soil going into our seas. We want to stop that happening.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister will be pleased that I am not going to ask a question about sewage. One of the targets in this lengthy document—which strikes me as remarkably unambitious—is for water companies to cut leaks by 50% by 2050. Surely we can do better than that.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I refute the idea from the noble Duke that this is not ambitious. I urge him to read all 250 to 300 pages of the document and see the lengths that it goes to to put our natural environment first in a way that we have not done for decades. This really is a moment when we can do this. The noble Duke will remember from the debate on the Environment Act that a crucial part of it says that the targets we have must be achievable. The Secretary of State of the day must believe that they are possible. To an extent, we cannot do more than what the scientists say is achievable and we have set out how we can do this.

On the data on leakage, I assure the noble Duke that it is not just this target that is pushing that goal. We are giving direction and encouragement to Ofwat and our water companies to invest more in preventing leakage. Of course, it is not a single line going to 2050; there will be a dramatic increase in improvements from the investment we are putting in—in the easier-to-target areas first. We will then see that target of 2050 being met, we hope, before that date.

Pollution: Rivers and Beaches

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Yes, we have announced that we will be consulting this year with a view to making an announcement about implementation of the Flood and Water Management Act.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is shameful and indeed embarrassing that a British windsurfer, Sarah Jackson, has had to leave Britain because she cannot train in British waters due to the amount of sewage pollution in so many of our coastal areas? She has had to go to Spain in order to train.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

That is highly regrettable. I am not aware of that case but no doubt the noble Duke will make me aware of it. One of our targets is about bathing waters, and the classification figures for 2022 were that 72.1% of them were in excellent condition, 20.8% good, 4.3% insufficient and 2.9% poor. Either there is a discrepancy in the information individuals hold on where they can swim, or a discrepancy in the statistics the Government are receiving from very eminent sources. However, I am happy to discuss this further with the noble Duke.