Sewage Discharges

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), and the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) for their superb campaigning on this issue. This is a hidden scandal, and it is frankly deeply shocking.

In South West Surrey last year, we had nine sewer storm overflows in Godalming, nine in Grayswood, 12 in Bramley, 29 in Farnham and 76 in Chiddingfold. Taken together, they amount to 24 hours a day of sewage storm overflows for 65 days in a row—two whole months. It is morally indefensible to pollute our environment in that way.

We know the answers, which have been spoken about eloquently today. In particular, we need investment in more wastewater and rainwater capacity, the proper measuring of phosphate levels, the banning of plastic wet wipes, which I support absolutely, and changes to the planning rules. The Government have done a great deal on the issue, and it is a shame that we were not able to do more when we were in coalition with the Liberal Democrats a decade ago.

Two thousand people responded to my survey on the issue, and 94% of them signed a petition to the water companies. What all of us want is a timetable, so that we can see tangible progress on cleaning up our rivers, saving our fish and boosting biodiversity in our precious countryside.

Ofwat: Strategic Priorities

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Philip Dunne]

My right hon. Friend tempts me to rewrite my speech from scratch. First, I thank him for his comments about our report, which was a significant body of work and the first such report of consequence for a number of years. The Government response to our 55 recommendations was one of the most positive responses to any of the reports that our Committee has prepared in the time I have served on it. We made 55 recommendations and I believe only five were rejected by the Government; the others were either accepted in whole or in part. So I think the Government have moved quite a long way in addressing these concerns, but my right hon. Friend will recognise that solving this problem is going to take decades, not days. I know that the Minister will address that in her remarks.

I was just going to thank my colleagues on the EAC for embracing and sharing my passion for the issue of improving water quality as we conducted our inquiry. We published the report in January and it made specific recommendations for the strategic policy statement on Ofwat, which provides the context for today’s debate. I will discuss that shortly.

Having been tempted by my right hon. Friend to praise the Government, or potentially not to do so, I would like to take this moment, while I am in a generous mood, to thank the Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow). I am pleased to see her in her place, responding to this debate, and I thank her for her personal commitment to this vital issue of improving water quality over the past two years. In particular, I thank her for driving her officials to work with me to amend the Environment Act 2021 and put into law many of the core elements of my private Member’s Bill, which the pandemic prevented from being debated. I am very grateful to her and I would like the House to be aware, from me, that she has moved the Government a very considerable distance on this issue.

There is no doubt that over the past two years there has been a massive awakening of public interest in the state of our rivers. The introduction under this and the previous Conservative Government of event duration monitors at water treatment plants and storm overflows and the annual publication of their findings since March 2020, has brought to public attention the appalling degree of sewage routinely spilled into our waterways by all water companies involved in the treatment side of the business.

[Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend for his extraordinary campaigning on this issue, which has changed the entire debate. Although I recognise that the Government are spending £3 billion on schemes to prevent sewage overspills, does he know that in my constituency, in the River Wey, we have had nine overspills in one village and 12 in Godalming, that in Bramley we have had overspills and that we have had 76 in Chiddingfold? Does he agree that this is totally unacceptable and that much more needs to be done?

[Philip Dunne]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for introducing the next comment in my speech, which was to highlight precisely the volume of spillages that these monitors have revealed—not just in his local river, but right across the country, in all catchments. All water treatment plants are obliged now to have event duration monitors. They are obliged to have them but not all have installed them—or at least not on all the storm overflows. I believe there are about 22,000 overflows and about 20,000 have the monitors on them, so this number will continue to increase until they are all being monitored; I will come on to discuss that in a moment.

My right hon. Friend has described the particular challenge in his river system, but he will be aware that the aggregate number showed that there were 372,533 spill events, lasting 2,667,452 hours, during 2021. Every Member of this House will have access to those figures and can look them up. I commend to them The Rivers Trust website, as it has made this information very accessible. It is very easy to find where a facility is being monitored and what spillage events have occurred in the previous year.

COP26: Limiting Global Temperature Rises

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

Absolutely. Leading by example is crucial: we have to walk the talk.

[Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)]

No one questions the hon. Lady’s commitment on these issues, but is it not a bit unfair to criticise the Government for a lack of concrete action when, for example, the proportion of electricity generated by coal has fallen, since 2013, from 40% to less than 2%? That is a real change. When it comes to looking forward, a number of new technologies are still necessary if we are going to avoid the climate tipping point. Does she agree that investment in science and technology is going to be a crucial part of the mix?

[Caroline Lucas]

The right hon. Member is absolutely right. The power sector is the one sector that is going faster than the others, and that is an area where we can have a greater amount of confidence. My colleague, the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), did just whisper to me, “Thanks to the Lib Dems when they were in coalition Government”. It is also of course to do with some of the big changes made some time ago under Margaret Thatcher—we would not necessarily say that they were done for the right reasons and in the right way, but they certainly did get emissions down—and I do pay tribute for that particular part of the equation.

On science and technology, yes, of course they are going to have a massive role to play, but so too is Government changing the policy framework within which decisions are made. The difference between some of us on this side of the House and those on the right hon. Gentleman’s side is that, all too often, it sounds as though Conservative Members are imagining we can continue with business as usual but, with some technology, just changing the technologies we are using to deliver that business as usual. What we recognise is that we need not just behaviour change, but systems change. We need to change the kind of economic system we have, which is a far bigger change than what we have been talking about so far.