Sewage

Freddie van Mierlo Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron]

My hon. Friend makes an important point on behalf of his coastal and island communities in the far south-west. They are also very lucky to have him speaking up for them.

The Windrush Against Sewage Pollution and Save Windermere campaigns worked together on a recent report showing that the use of funds for capital projects by water companies around the country was at best wasteful and negligent and at worst, dare I say it, deeply suspect. They focused on the proposal by, again, United Utilities to spend almost £13 million of local bill payers’ money on an extension to a sewage outfall pipe into Windermere. WASP found this to be “excessive” and said it seemed unreasonable that 43 three-bedroom houses could be built for the price of putting a mere 150-metre sewage pipe into a lake. The report shines a light on what WASP considers to be inflated capital spending costs at water companies around the country, and it rightly asks what Ofwat is doing by signing this stuff off—signing off huge bill increases when water companies are not spending that money wisely.

[Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)]

My hon. Friend has outlined the outrage and the scandal of sewage leaking into our rivers, lakes and seas. It is also the case that sewage is spilling out on to our streets, and groundwater infiltration causes much of the problem. Thames Water in my area has so far refused to do anything about “Poo Corner” in the parish of Berrick Salome. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is another issue we need to address?

[Tim Farron]

Until now, I always thought “The House at Pooh Corner” was a good thing; obviously that would not be so in this case. I have seen the same thing in my own patch. In the village of Burneside we are finally, after 20 years of campaigning, getting some additional new sewage infrastructure, which will hopefully prevent poop literally coming up on to the pavements in light rainfall where the local kids catch the bus to go into Kendal to school, which is an absolute outrage. My hon. Friend is right to campaign, as he does very well, for his communities on this issue.

We should already know not to take water companies at their word, I am afraid, given their shoddy record on data transparency. For example, the chief executive of United Utilities, Louise Beardmore, among others admitted at the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee not very long ago that they had refused to release spill data until WASP appealed to the Information Commissioner. Furthermore, in 2022 United Utilities was listed as the best performing water company in England, for which it was allowed to raise its bills as a reward. However, the BBC reported whistleblowers at the Environment Agency claiming that United Utilities had been wrongly downgrading dozens of pollution incidents. So we can surely be forgiven for being a little cynical when those water companies propose huge sums for projects like the one I have just mentioned.

That is why our key criticism of the Government’s new water Act is not of anything that is in that legislation, but of what is missing from it. The situation whereby water companies can be responsible for record levels of sewage pollution and be shown to make bad use of bill payers’ money, with inflated capital costs and inflated dividends, could not happen if they were regulated properly, but they are not.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Steve Reed)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to end and insert

“recognises that the Government inherited a broken water system, with record levels of sewage being pumped into waterways; welcomes the Government’s rapid delivery of its promise to put water companies under tough special measures through the landmark Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, which has introduced new powers to ban the payment of unfair bonuses to water bosses who fail to protect the environment and to bring tough criminal charges against them if they break the law; supports the Government’s work to secure over £100 billion of private sector investment to upgrade the crumbling sewage infrastructure; and backs the largest review of the water sector since privatisation, aimed at tackling inherited systemic issues in order to clean up UK rivers, lakes and seas for good.”

I welcome the chance to set out the action that the Government are taking to end the sewage scandal in our waterways once and for all. The staggeringly high level of sewage pouring into our rivers, lakes and seas is a national disgrace. The beach in Deal that I visited just a couple of weeks ago was forced to cancel its Boxing day swim because of toxic levels of sewage in the water. The world-famous boat race between the Oxford and Cambridge University boat clubs earlier this month was, yet again, overshadowed by concerns about water quality in the Thames, so much so that rowers were told not to throw their teammates into the river.

[Freddie van Mierlo]

The Secretary of State mentions the boat race, but in 10 weeks we will be welcoming the world’s rowers to the Henley Royal Regatta. Does he share my concern about the amount of sewage being dumped in that part of the Thames, which is blighting the event?

[Steve Reed]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I share his concerns. Wherever it is happening and damaging people’s ability to enjoy our rivers, it is a disgrace and a scandal, and we want to work across the House to put that right.

Parents across the country should not have to worry about letting their children splash about in the river or paddle in the sea on a sunny bank holiday weekend. I recently met campaigners at Windermere, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), who told me that they are sick and tired of the sewage flowing into the iconic and beautiful lake on their doorstep and that, a few years ago, that sewage caused algal blooms that turned it bright green.

Up and down the country, the public are furious about water pollution. So am I and so is this House, so how did we get into this situation? I am afraid to say it is the toxic result of years of failure by the previous Conservative Government. Instead of fixing our sewage system before a problem turned into a crisis, the Conservatives stood back and let water companies divert millions of pounds of their customers’ money into the pockets of their bosses and shareholders. Over £25 million was paid in bonuses to water company chief executives during the last Parliament alone. The Tories left our water infrastructure to crumble into ruin.