Combined Sewer Overflows

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I may have misunderstood the noble Baroness, but I have certainly had it put to me in this Chamber that, when this system of private ownership was put in place, it was somehow an ideological Conservative Government that was doing it. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was done because we were the dirty man of Europe: our rivers were stinking, and a very small percentage of our beaches were compliant. Now, we have nearly 93% of our bathing waters in good or improving conditions. I am not naive; I know that there are serious problems. But if the noble Baroness is really suggesting that the way of dealing with this is to completely change it and require the taxpayer to pay billions of pounds to purchase these companies back, which would see investment in this country into the regulated utility sector fall off a cliff, that is very dangerous not just for our water industry but our energy companies and every other regulated utility.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, while entirely accepting the thrust of what my noble friend just said, there is continuing concern, as he well knows, not just about sewage but, as I have raised many times before, the terrible state of one of the loveliest rivers in the kingdom, the Wye. When can we expect to see proper improvement in those ghastly situations?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. The Secretary of State held a meeting in the Wye Valley with all partners concerned. Out of that have come a number of actions. What is frustrating is when local authorities, for example, do not allow planning permission for measures such as biodigesters, which would deal with the chicken manure that is causing the nutrients to flow into the river, which results in large parts of the River Wye effectively becoming ecologically dead at certain times of the year. We need joined-up thinking not just between government and regulators but between local planners and farmers, and an understanding that, when a producer company vertically integrates its supply chain and we do not understand its impact in planning, it takes years to get right—but we are absolutely determined to do it.