Sewage Pollution

Debate between Fleur Anderson and George Eustice

Tuesday 6th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

As I said earlier, we have chosen to prioritise the most harmful sites and to prioritise them quickly, with £3 billion of investment until 2025 and £56 billion of investment across the programme. My hon. Friend is right: to eliminate all storm overflows in their entirety would be a huge undertaking, costing £600 billion, with a major impact on the bills of water bill payers.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

Our sewage pollution is packed with wet wipes, and wet wipes that are made of plastic just never break down. Last week, I was on the banks of the River Thames visiting a wet wipe island, which was the size of two tennis courts and a metre deep. In February, the Government consulted on eliminating plastic from wet wipe production. It can be done, but the results have not been revealed. Can the Secretary of State say when the consultation results will be revealed and when the Government will ban plastic in wet wipes?

[George Eustice]

This Government have taken relentless action to remove plastics from the ocean, banning plastic stirrers and cotton buds and, as the hon. Lady says, consulting on the next steps to deal with non-biodegradable wet wipes. The consultation has now closed and it is the convention that they are typically replied to within nine to 12 months.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Fleur Anderson and George Eustice

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

The UK Government work very closely with ICES. Indeed, our chief fisheries scientist at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science is the deputy president of ICES. ICES regularly receives submissions from CEFAS, and where we believe its methodology is incorrect, wrong or missing certain things, it is often our scientists in CEFAS who help to update that information. Of course, when we set quotas annually and set our position on that, we take into account a range of factors—principally the ICES advice, but other factors as well.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

Almost 60% of people in England are living in areas where levels of toxic air pollution exceeded legal limits last year. Putney High Street and other local main streets are some of the most polluted streets in the UK, so my constituents know the dangers of air pollution only too well. Why has the Secretary of State rejected every attempt to include World Health Organisation air quality targets in the Environment Bill, and will he commit to doing this when the Bill returns to the House later this year?

[George Eustice]

We are doing a very detailed piece of work on all the targets we intend to set under the Environment Bill, including on air quality, but also on water, biodiversity, and waste and resource management. We are looking very closely at two particular approaches to air quality. One is a concentration target for PM_2.5— and I know there have been representations from people that it should be 10 micrograms—and the other is population exposure.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Fleur Anderson and George Eustice

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

What assessment his Department has made of the extent to which poor air quality may disproportionately affect BAME communities.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

Air pollution can be harmful to everyone; however, some people are more affected than others. My Department has commissioned research into inequalities of exposure to air pollution, and monitors emerging evidence investigating air-quality impacts on BAME communities. That research has shown that those BAME groups are disproportionately affected by poor air quality, partly because larger numbers of BAME people live in urban areas where air pollution tends to be worse.

[Fleur Anderson]

I am the MP for one of those urban areas where black and ethnic minority constituents are disproportionately affected by both covid-19 and air quality. Has the Secretary of State held recent discussions with his colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care? Will he make a statement about specific actions that will be taken on this issue?

[George Eustice]

Of course we talk with our colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on all matters relating to air quality in some urban areas. We intend to take action through the Environment Bill by setting new targets on air quality. One of the targets that we are investigating relates to the impact on particular populations in particular areas.