Pollution in Rivers and Regulation of Private Water Companies

Earl Russell Excerpts

Thursday 29th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I thank my noble friend Lady Bakewell and all those who are speaking. I will talk about the scale of the pollution problem in our rivers and the causes, and will suggest some possible solutions.

The scale of the Government’s overall environmental ambitions is to be commended. This is the first Government to have set a target to leave nature in a better place than they found it, but there is much to do and time is short. My overall message is that more must be urgently done at scale and at pace to meet the targets that the Government have set themselves. Clear plans, clear policy direction, clear timescales for action, monitoring regimes, and a clear and consistent direction of travel and political messaging are all vital to secure the planning, investment and action needed to achieve these objectives at scale and on time.

Water quality was awful but, thanks mainly to EU measures and their enforcement and monitoring, it improved in the past. Progress is either slipping back or stagnant at best. Nowhere is the scale of the challenge clearer than the daily scandal of raw sewage being discharged into our waterways unabated while water company bosses continue to pay themselves millions in bonuses with seeming impunity from the harm their companies do. Our rivers and inland waterways are in a desperately sorry state. The combined impacts of sewage discharges and pollution from farming and agriculture, chemicals, road networks and urban spaces are taking their toll.

The recently published Rivers Trust State of Our Rivers Report found that, of our rivers:

“0% are in good overall status … 0% are in high overall status … 23% are classed as in poor or bad overall status … 85% of river stretches fall below good ecological standards; only 15% achieve good or above ecological health status”.


The report found that very little had changed or improved since the last full report in 2019. Worryingly, river sampling has also decreased, with nearly 6% fewer river stretches receiving health clarifications compared with 2019.

What a sorry situation this is. From Pooh-sticks to the simple pleasures in life of sitting by a cooling river on a warm day, and for the 7.5 million people who regularly wild swim, our rivers and lakes are precious and life affirming. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, people care passionately about our rivers, which occupy a deep and sacred place in our natural soul and well-being. Their health is an election-defining issue that this Government need to invest more commitment and energy into.

The Government should be aware that there is a reason for the Liberal Democrats going on—and, at times, on—about sewage in our rivers. It is not just because my party cares about these issues but because we know that the Government’s voters care just as much. My party is committed to protecting our natural environment. That protection will be at the heart of our overall policy approach. Everyone should be able to enjoy access to nature, free of this mess and its risk to their health.

The water companies have failed to invest in water infrastructure, especially at a time when interest rates were historically low. In 2011, for example, Defra’s Water for Life paper found that only 1% of public sewers were replaced between 2000 and 2008. At that continued rate, it would take 800 years, or 10 times longer than a life cycle, to replace them all. This lack of investment has continued until today, with Ofwat finding a £587 million water company underspend for the years 2020 to 2023. At the same time, the shareholders continue to receive record bonuses. Poor regulation and enforcement across several sectors are making things worse. The Environment Agency saw its environmental budget more than halve in 10 years, from £170 million to £76 million in 2019-20.

As a result, it is struggling to monitor and enforce the rules. Ofwat has similarly failed to hold water companies to account. It has prioritised low bills for customers over the need for investment in networks and environmental protections. We have seen a revolving door between Ofwat and the water companies. The question remains: who regulates the regulators? We need clear and enforceable statutory regulations for long-term improvements in overall water health to be added to the Environment Act 2021.

Sewage may be in the public consciousness—and, in too many cases, people’s nostrils—but it is only a small part of the overall pollution problem. Land management practices must change. This is an issue that the Government have failed to tackle. ELMS has been rushed. Too much money is given to big agricultural businesses. Our small farmers are excluded and are suffering. Many more small-scale farmers must be brought into the scheme, and more help must be provided for them to make applications. The programme must adequately compensate farmers for the nature-friendly practices that we all need and depend on. There is far too little monitoring of our waterways and far too little understanding of the dangerous cocktail of chemicals, and for ever chemicals, that are still present. When do the Government plan to bring forward their chemicals strategy, a key call of the recent OEP report?

The impacts of climate change are real and are happening now. The average UK winter has become around 1 degree warmer and 15% wetter over the past century. We are seeing more rain and it must go somewhere. We must work to separate rainwater from our sewerage systems. Climate change puts increased pressure on the systems and overwhelms them. Heat will increase pressure for water abstraction, and floods bring increased risks of pollution events. I warmly welcome the £25 million of government money that was announced last week to work with nature, not against it, to help with flood management. It is a welcome sign of a change of direction, but we could have had £250 million and that still would not have been enough.

We need more whole-catchment-area, nature-based approaches to slow water, hold and release it slowly to protect soils, and to filter rainwater prior to it entering our waterways. We must do more to work with nature, not against it, in an age of extreme weather. We need long-term plans and greater ambitions from this Government. Ambition must be accompanied by consistent political will, determined action, adequate investment and regulatory regimes that are statutory, well-funded, enforced and fit for purpose.

My party is clear: we are determined and committed to real change in these areas. We will transform the private water companies into public benefit companies. Our view is that Ofwat has failed to get to grips with the problems and define solutions, so our policy is to abolish Ofwat and replace it with a more effective regulator with more powers to directly intervene with speed and much-needed enforcement teeth. We will ensure that there is more adequate funding for regular monitoring of all our waterways. The Liberal Democrats are also committed to introducing a sewage tax on water company profits to fund the clean-up of the most polluted inland waterways and our coastline. We will also introduce compensation for swimmers, and others, who fall sick after exercising in water. These are our policies for change. I kindly ask the Minister: what plans do the Government have to offer?