Water Companies: Sewage Discharge

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

This has been a good debate so far, and one that has reflected the strength of feeling in all our communities, no matter which party represents them. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for opening this debate in such a coherent and clear way. A lot of people feel strongly about this topic, including the 207 people from Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport who have signed the petition, and that is testament to the campaigners, who have raised this issue for quite some time. I am grateful to Ferry Harmer, who organised this petition, but also to campaigners from Surfers Against Sewage, to Feargal Sharkey, to wild swimmers the nation over and to people who just think that this is not right; there are many of them. We are living in a climate and ecological emergency, and that matters, because it challenges us to do things differently from how we have done them before. That is one of the reasons why the sense of outrage about river pollution—river sewage—has been so intense.

I agree with the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who said that facts are important. I agree with her in that respect, and I think the facts of river pollution are sobering. Not one English river is in a healthy condition, and not one meets good chemical standards. England has the worst river pollution in Europe. There were 400,000 discharges of raw sewage into our rivers and seas last year. These are scary facts, but—

[Mrs Miller]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

[Luke Pollard]

I am halfway through a sentence, but I am happy to give way.

[Mrs Miller]

Does the hon. Gentleman not regret some of the misinformation that drove so much fear and anxiety among our constituents, particularly the suggestion that the Environment Bill enabled raw sewage to be pumped, for the first time, into rivers and seas? That is factually not correct. Does he agree?

[Luke Pollard]

If the right hon. Member had waited for the rest of my sentence, she would have found that I agree with her about certain bits of that assessment, because on this issue we need a debate that is based on facts. It is important that we get to the facts. The fact is that our rivers are dirty. They have been dirty for too long; they have been dirty for the past 11 years. It is a fact that we need them to be cleaned up— [Interruption.] That is true, and it matters.

When the House passed the climate and ecological emergency motion, that should have changed our approach. I am very glad that it changed the approach of the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne), who has been an incredible champion of cleaner rivers. I have enjoyed our conversations about how we encourage the Government towards a better place, and I am glad that they have moved in that direction.

However, there is still more to do, and that is why we can no longer accept being the dirty man of Europe. It is fair to say that the Government have moved on this, although it is important to note that they really did not want to. That was partly because of the screeching public outrage when Conservative MPs were whipped to vote against a motion that called for the ending of raw sewage discharges. I am not a fan of abuse on social media. I am not a fan of the nasty side of our politics, and I recognise that Members from all parties in the House have been subject to some pretty horrendous stuff recently, including over the issue of sewage. We need a debate on the facts, but with more urgency than we have seen for quite some time.

Today’s debate has been a good one, with some fantastic contributions from both sides of the House. I will talk briefly about several of them before I return to my speech. We need to challenge disinformation wherever we see it, and one of the best ways to do so is to place more information in the public domain. I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) said about the need to put more power into the hands of consumers so they can understand what is happening in their communities. I have been promoting a brilliant interactive map on The Rivers Trust website to any parliamentary colleague who happens to talk to me about sewage—and to those who do not—which allows people to zoom in on where they live and see where raw sewage is being discharged. It is disturbing to see how close to many of our communities this discharge is taking place. It is not happening far, far away; it is happening in all our communities. The right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) made the point about rivers being locked away in concrete tubes, but that does not stop the sewage emerging at some point.

It is important to understand what is happening. We need consumers to understand it so that they support greater investment. The Minister has used a variety of figures over the past month about how much it would cost to address raw sewage discharges. I look forward to hearing where those figures came from, because I have still not had the workings-out. However, there will be a cost to this process, and I think there are a variety of options about where the money should come from.

I have a huge amount of sympathy for the argument that many of my Labour colleagues have made today about using shareholder dividends, and holding water in the public interest in the public sector with genuine common ownership. There is enormous potential in looking at that method. However, I look at the party that is in power now and say, “Where is the plan?” We need to have a plan for raw sewage discharges that considers not only “storm overflows” but a creaking sewage system.

In discussing the compromise amendment to the Environment Bill, the Secretary of State was careful in his use of words and talked about “storm overflows”. I commend the Bill writers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for using that term and enabling a focus on one part of a sewage system that is broken, while omitting the rest of it. There is routine discharge of raw sewage into rivers and seas, not in the event of extreme weather, from combined sewer outflows, but as a result of daily discharges. The fines levied against companies, including the £90 million for Southern Water, show that this system is not working. I agree with the comments on both sides of the Chamber about delays in prosecution. I encourage the Minister to look again at the budget that the Environment Agency has been given, and to ensure that there are no further cuts to that budget and that there is a real emphasis on it bringing further prosecutions.

I also want higher fines for water companies, because it is clear that the level of fines are not yet producing a change in behaviour in water companies and stopping raw sewage being routinely discharged. The word “routine” really matters, because it means every single day. While we have been debating, the water companies have been routinely discharging raw sewage—not because of extreme weather in the last hour, but because of a sewerage system that cannot cope with the level of demand being placed on it, and the lack of investment in it.

The Bill that we have passed in the past week—the Environment Act 2021—set out changes to the way raw sewage will be reported on, which are welcome; and it set out the need to produce plans, which I hope will be welcome, although I want to see what they look like. However, it did not set out a timetable for when the scandal of raw sewage discharges would be brought to an end. Nor did it set out any interim targets—a sense of direction. I think that, in a very meaningful way, every Member here today wants to see an end to raw sewage being discharged into our seas and rivers, but we need a clear timetable in order to hold any Government to account, to see how their performance is going.

We also need to delve into the workings of the water industry. The right hon. Member for Ludlow is right when he talks about the need to strengthen Ofwat and the SPS guidance that the Minister is preparing. That will influence the changes for water companies in the next pricing period, but what changes are happening in this pricing period? What changes are happening right now in water companies? They know that they do not have to invest in the same way until the next pricing period, because Ofwat has set the pricing controls and set the investment strategies. Although many water companies fell foul of the business plans in this period, I doubt that we will see a huge surge in action to close raw sewage outfalls and invest in treatment until the next price period. The challenge is what we do about it now, and that really matters. What we discharge into our rivers is not always easily seen. We need a clear plan to understand how much will be stopped, how much will be properly treated and how much will be carefully looked after in the future.

I hope that the Minister will be able to set out a clear timetable, because the people who signed the petition and the people in all our communities want action to be taken. They want it to be taken against a timetable. They want it to be measurable and demonstrable. They want to hold to account the people who are responsible for it, to see whether they are doing what they have been told to do and what they promised to do and, if not, what the consequences will be. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s remarks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Lady for clarifying. As I said, I share the passion of the people who signed the petition, so I am not arguing about that.

The petition calls for the complete elimination of storm overflows. We need to look at how possible that is and what the function of overflows is in emergency situations. We need to look at the whole issue in the round. The recently published storm overflows evidence project report shed some light on that and the costs that we are looking at. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport keeps asking about that, but he can read all about it in an independent survey published on gov.uk. It highlights that the cost of complete elimination would be between £350 billion and £600 billion.

When we are looking at all those things, we also need to consider all the other things that we have to deal with in terms of water, such as phosphates, nitrates and soil in the water. Several right hon. Friends rightly referred to that and how complicated the picture is. We are dealing with it, as we need to.

Work is under way on that timeframe to reduce and potentially eliminate overflows. The hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) made some interesting points about consumer involvement and bringing the public along so that they understand what we are doing. Water companies consult consumers but, of course, that does not change their obligation to meet their requirements and regulations in law.

That is where the Government’s direction to Ofwat, the regulator, is important. We have just produced our draft strategic policy, in which we flagged the issue of storm overflows and reducing the harm for the first time. We also put the environment at the top of the agenda. I am sure we all share the view that that is the right thing to do.

The issue of enforcement has been raised several times. Action is taken and must be taken, but I understand the frustration about how long it can take. The Southern Water enforcement took years, but the fine was £90 million, which sent a clear message. Thames Water has also had some significant fines, but it is now spending £4.4 billion on the Thames Tideway Tunnel. That will be a game changer, rightly treating sewage that goes into the Thames. We have seen progress, although that is not to say that we do not need to go a great deal further.

We have seen some action. The shadow Minister keeps asking, “What is happening now?” There is some action. Yes, we need more, but through the taskforce we instigated a call for action that is happening right now. Importantly, water companies are spending £144 million in additional investment on storm overflows in the period 2020 to 2025, on top of the £3 billion they are already spending on the environment.

[Luke Pollard]

Can the Minister square these two challenges? She has told us that it is going to cost us £660 billion, but also that if water companies spend £144 million now, that is sufficient to deal with it. Those are two very different extremes. Why is more not being spent now? How is such a paltry sum supposed to deal with a problem that just moments ago she said could cost £660 billion?

[Rebecca Pow]

I do not think the hon. Gentleman is really listening to what I am saying. What I said is that the water companies have taken some action now to start to invest in some of the facilities that they need. I did not say that they were doing everything that they needed to do, but my point was that they are not waiting until the next price review.

I mentioned the strategic policy statement to Ofwat, the regulator, which is crucial. Just last week, we set out on a legal footing in the Environment Act a statutory requirement for water companies to progressively reduce the harm from sewage from these overflows. The Act refers to harm not just to the environment, but to “public health.” That is something new that we added that was not even in the Duke of Wellington’s amendment, and that I think all hon. Members here will welcome, especially those who have bathing areas in their constituencies. All credit to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley, who mentioned the bathing area in Keighley being the first inland bathing area.

The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) talked about Warleigh Weir, which I know because lots of my school friends used to go swimming there when I was at school in Bath. I am horrified at the data she gave and I would be interested in hearing more about that. If she wants to apply for a bathing water quality safety test, it is clear how to do that. Indeed, we write to local authorities every year to ask if they have an area they would like to put forward. I am happy to help progress that, if it is at all possible.

In the Environment Act, of which I am very proud, there are so many things, including a whole page of duties, plans and monitoring. The hon. Member for Gower mentioned the important need for data, which she is absolutely right about. To really tackle these issues, we have to know what is going on. We do not need to wait for ages. We can start, but we still need the data. There are timelines for monitoring and reporting, and a system that holds water companies to account if they do not do the right thing. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) for all the work that he has done. He fully understands the data issue, which is so important. Crucially, every water company now has to produce a sewage management plan—they did not have to do so before—and that will help.

Water companies have been mentioned so much that last week I called them in—I mentioned this on the Floor of the House—before we thrashed out the final amendments. I read the Riot Act to them about the need, and the expectation, for them to do better. We need to work with them to make sure that that happens, and we have been very clear that if we do not see action, we will take enforcement action. There are clear enforcement powers through the EA, which issues the permits; through the regulator and through Government in the new power in the Environment Act; and ultimately through the Office for Environmental Protection, so the system is now in place.

I thank all right hon. and hon. Friends and hon. Members. We share a concern about water quality. Water is the stuff of life. It is precious. It is our lifeblood, as is soil—another of my favourite subjects. It is our duty to look after it. I will conclude by saying that it is a very complex issue, and my right hon. Friends the Members for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) and for Basingstoke have talked about the need to pull together other Departments and talk about the building requirements. We are indeed carrying out a review on the sustainable drainage systems, as set out in schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, which will include the right to connect. It is really important that we pull all those things together.

I do not often agree with the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), but he is absolutely right about semi-permeable driveways and membranes. I am a gardener, and I have talked about that issue forever.

The hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) should visit the living lab at Salford University, which is amazing. What it shows people about greywater harvesting, underwater tanks and green walls is brilliant. It is in her constituency, and I have visited it.

On that note, I hope I have made it clear that the Government are taking the issue very seriously. The measures are in place but there is, of course, more to do.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 582336, relating to the discharge of sewage by water companies.