Chalk Streams: Sewage Discharge

Lee Dillon Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Victoria Collins]

Absolutely. Many of my constituents are horrified at the local state of rivers and frustrated by the lack of progress, and feel compelled to attend the march for clean water on Sunday 3 November. Sewage pumping in our rivers is hugely damaging for the local environment, contaminating the water with unacceptably high levels of phosphates and nitrates, and poses a major health risk.

[Mr Lee Dillon (Newbury) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. Does she agree with me, and with Action for the River Kennet, that the requirement for sewage treatment works should be based not only on the population size they support, but the importance of the waterways they protect, such as the Lambourn and Kennet chalk streams that flow through my constituency of Newbury?

[Victoria Collins]

Absolutely. We have to do all we can.

After the thousands of hours of pollution into the River Ver, the Ver Valley Society found worrying levels of E. coli in the water. This has been blamed on high groundwater levels, but it still contains sewage and the fine sediment can lay in the river bed. That incident has been raised with Thames Water and their planned scheme to resolve the issue by upgrading the overflow will not be complete until 2026. We need action sooner. In the meantime, the rapid polluting of this waterway and the threat to public health and the local environment continues. That is, of course, by no means an isolated incident.

[Victoria Collins]

I will be calling for a lot in holding water companies to account.

Analysis completed by the Liberal Democrats found that almost 50,000 hours of sewage was discharged into chalk streams in 2023. That is more than double the previous year. The dire situation speaks to the 2022 report, which found that only 14% of England’s rivers had “good” ecological status. Compared with several other countries such as Austria, Greece and Malta, where 95% of bathing sites are classified as excellent, it is clear that we are letting down our rivers and streams. That must change. Despite the situation, the Conservatives stood by and let us down again and again, failing to regulate water companies properly.

[Mr Dillon]

Where are they?

[Victoria Collins]

Exactly.

I call on the Minister to provide proper protection, regulation and enforcement. Although Ofwat has finally taken action, ordering water companies to return £158 million to customers via lower bills, that is just a drop in the ocean—or, should I say, a drop in the chalk stream. We must go further. I call on the Minister for a blue flag status to protect our precious waterways, such as chalk streams, to replace Ofwat with a stronger regulator—a clean water authority—and to enforce tougher restrictions on water companies. A blue flag status for rivers and lakes would enshrine their protection, and our precious chalk streams would be ripe contenders to get such a status. Indeed, given their rarity in this world, it is worrying to know that only a dozen have sites of special scientific interest status that currently protects them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emma Hardy]

I am very pleased that one of the hon. Member’s first debates is on such an important issue. I do not want to get into a competition over who has the best chalk stream, but I must mention that the one near to where I live featured in “Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing” the other day. They were at Driffield beck. We get not only to share stories here about who has the most beautiful chalk streams, but to see them on national television. I share the hon. Member’s love of them: they are England’s equivalent of the Great Barrier Reef. They are amazing things to have and to be able to say are held within our own country. They are so precious to us. They are the rarest freshwater habitat on earth, and in England we are home to 85% of them. That is a remarkable achievement.

The hon. Member is absolutely right to feel outraged and upset about the levels of river pollution. I am sure there are more enjoyable things that she would like to do on a Friday night than go and examine a sewage discharge into the water, but it is good that she was there and able to document it, because where we have evidence of illegal sewage discharges, of course we wish to prosecute.

[Mr Dillon]

The Minister mentioned in her opening remarks the fishing programme. I wonder whether she would support an 8-metre buffer zone around rivers to stop the run-off of topsoil into chalk streams, which stops wild brown trout, for example, from being able to spawn.

[Emma Hardy]

I will move on to talk a little bit about run-off and other issues involved. I join the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted in praising her local community groups and organisations. One of the pleasures I have had since taking on this brief is meeting many committed environmentalists, environmental non-governmental organisations and people who care so much about the area. I liked the tale of people going picnicking by the edge of her chalk stream; I am tempted now to go and visit it when I am next on holiday. However, she is also right to point out that England’s chalk streams face pressure on their water quality, with pollution coming from different point sources—especially from sewage treatment works, as she discovered on that Friday evening—and diffuse sources such as phosphorus and road run-off mean that chalk streams suffer from higher levels of nutrients, sediment and toxic chemicals such as pesticides.

I will go on to explain some of the actions that the Government are taking with regard to addressing those concerns. However, as has been mentioned by the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr Dillon), it is not water quality alone that affects the chalk streams flowing in the constituency of the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted, as they face pressures affecting the quantity and physical habitat quality too. On the quantity, we have seen excessive removal of water from its original source, which can lower the natural river flow of these streams.