Rivers, Lakes and Seas: Water Quality

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Catherine Fookes]

I salute some of the work that the right hon. Gentleman has tried to do locally on the Wye in Herefordshire, even though he is an Opposition Member, but with all due respect, the River Wye action plan was roundly discounted and felt to be not worth the paper it was written on by the non-governmental organisations in the area at the time. The Government failed to consult Wales, and the plan seemed to be rushed out before the general election. When the Minister looked at it, she found that that money was not allocated and available to push out and support the Wye. I am sure she will say later that we have had a meeting with the Wye Catchment Partnership, and that we are working in partnership with the Welsh Government to push forward a plan that has been developed by the Wye Catchment Partnership. I will give some more detail about that in a moment.

Unfortunately, after 14 years of Conservative failure, we have record levels of illegal sewage dumping in our rivers, lakes and seas. I will talk much more about rivers today, because that is what I have in my constituency, but our lakes, seas and coastal towns are also deeply affected.

Chronic ongoing diffuse pollution from agriculture also affects our water quality. In England, only 16% of all assessed surface waters achieved good ecological status, and less than 1% achieved high status. The decline in our water health is staggering, and we desperately need to take action to repair it. As I know hon. Members will agree, there are amazing NGOs, campaigning groups and citizen scientists in every one of our constituencies who have brought this matter to our attention and to the fore nationally. I pay tribute to all of them, especially those in Monmouthshire.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. She is talking about those who are contributing to the debate and trying to do their best, but does she agree that it should not be left to people such as one-time musical celebrity Feargal Sharkey, from my city of Londonderry, and many others to campaign on these issues? We need Government action rather than pressure groups and people trying to campaign for change.

[Catherine Fookes]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I thank him for his intervention. That is exactly why the Government are taking action. I will come on to what the Labour Government are doing shortly. I was fortunate to meet Feargal Sharkey on the campaign trail. He endorsed my campaign, which means that I will be held to account. That is one of the reasons why this issue is so important to me and why I am pleased to have secured this debate.

I believe that the campaigning groups in Monmouthshire are some of the best in the UK. We have Save the River Usk, led by the inspiring Angela Jones, Friends of the River Wye, Save the Wye, the South East Wales Rivers Trust, the Wye & Usk Foundation and many more, and they continue to do excellent work to hold us to account.

We also have the Wye Catchment Partnership, which is a cross-border partnership of more than 70 members, including Natural Resources Wales and the Environment Agency and representatives of all the local authorities, the National Farmers Union and the environmental charities I have mentioned. It is a great partnership. As I have mentioned, the Minister recently had a meeting with the Wye Catchment Partnership to hear about the need for an action plan. I sincerely thank her for her engagement to get the Wye catchment plan phase 2 off the ground. That could be a brilliant pilot project, supported by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and consistent with the unfulfilled policy commitments of the previous Government’s plan for water. It shows how working with stakeholders across all counties and countries, and the regulators, could be a model for changing the face of our rivers. I hope the Government will support it.

Rivers know no boundaries. The Wye crosses four counties and two countries, so we need an integrated and coherent Wye catchment management plan that uses the best available evidence and a well-targeted programme of remedial measures to get our river cleaned up.

I said that Feargal Sharkey endorsed my election campaign, a key promise of which was to work in this place to clean up our rivers. That is why I am pleased that the Labour Government have done more on water in six months than the Tories and their coalition partners, the Lib Dems, did in 14 years. I am proud of the two main measures that the Government have already announced: the Water (Special Measures) Bill—I am proud to be a member of the Public Bill Committee—and the water commission. The Bill will enable the Government and regulators to block the payment of bonuses to water company executives, bring criminal charges against those who break the law, issue automatic and severe fines, and monitor every sewage outlet.

It is right that the Government have started work on cleaning up our water by tackling our water companies, which the Conservatives failed to do for 14 years, but the next big issue that we must tackle is the pollution in our waterways arising from diffuse agricultural sources. As the water commission’s remit is to look at how to tackle inherited systemic issues in the water sector to restore our rivers, lakes and seas to good health, I am sure the chair, the former deputy governor of the Bank of England Sir Jon Cunliffe, will include diffuse pollution from agriculture in his commission’s investigations.