Fly-tipping: West Midlands

Manuela Perteghella Excerpts

Tuesday 8th April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I thank the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) for introducing this important debate. Fly-tipping is a crime against the environment. It is damaging to our local communities, and creates danger for children and pets, particularly when drugs and drug-taking equipment are discarded.

The consequences of fly-tipping extend beyond visible pollution. It affects soil, water, wildlife and human health when hazardous material such as asbestos and oil contaminates groundwater and soil. Fly-tipped waste, including household appliances, can clog drainage systems and streams, preventing water flow and leading to flooding and overflows upstream. It has a devastating impact on wildlife. Fly-tipping blights the roads and fields in my constituency of Stratford-on-Avon, harming nature and putting a mental and financial toll on my constituents. Unfortunately, across the west midlands, we are no stranger to litter on the side of the roads, or broken and abandoned furniture and car tyres dumped in verges, fields and lay-bys.

Our struggling local authorities cannot keep up with the scale of fly-tipping, with incidents increasing nationally by 6% in the last year, up from 1.08 million to 1.15 million. Last year, fly-tipping cost local authorities an average of more than £13 million, and as the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner) noted, the burden on councils has increased to such an extent that they are forced to make impossible choices in their funding and vital local authority-funded services are suffering. That includes local authorities’ ability to keep household waste centres open, which is deepening the fly-tipping crisis.

When fly-tipping occurs on private land, the situation is even worse. There is no obligation on the local authority to clear up, so landowners have to take it on themselves to clear up other people’s waste. In my constituency of Stratford-on-Avon, as well as in other rural areas of the west midlands, it is often our farmers who are paying the price for illegal fly-tipping. Farmers are forced to pay extortionate fees to clear other people’s rubbish off their land. We want local authorities and the Environment Agency to have the resources to prosecute all instances of fly-tipping. We also want the police to have the appropriate resources, including mobile ANPR cameras and rural drone kits, to help and support any investigation. According to the National Farmers Union, the total cost of rural crime rose to a staggering £52.8 million in 2023, up nearly 22% since 2020. The Liberal Democrats are therefore calling for the Government to commit to proper community policing—and to a rural crime strategy including fly-tipping—to ensure that officers are visible, trusted and able to tackle local and rural crime.

In my constituency I have some fantastic groups that generously give up their time to help clear our streets, verges, fields and streams. These include Rubbish Friends in Stratford and Clifford Chambers and Litter Free Alcester, as well as many litter picking initiatives in villages. We saw many of these during the Great British spring clean. I pay tribute to all of our community groups that volunteer to pick up rubbish thrown carelessly by others. However, their actions alone will not keep our streets and fields clean and clear and limit pollution in our streams and brooks and in groundwater. We need effective legislation and enforcement to get rid of illegal fly-tipping. I propose education as well. We must teach our children and young people in schools the value of the natural environment and the importance of protecting it. I hope the next generations, in my constituency and beyond, will grow up understanding the value of taking care of their communities and have civic pride in the villages, towns and cities in which they live.

Bathing Water Regulations

Manuela Perteghella Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) for securing this timely and urgent debate.

A healthy natural environment is essential for both public health and our economy, yet our rivers and bathing waters are being polluted at an alarming rate. In my constituency of Stratford-on-Avon, the River Avon, meandering along its valley, is a treasured natural asset that is used by many residents for kayaking, swimming, boating and rowing, but sewage discharges and pollution threaten its water quality.

Under the previous Government, water companies were allowed to pollute our rivers while consumers paid the price. We need stronger regulations, legally binding water quality targets, and more transparent, year-long testing to tackle this crisis. Local authorities must also be given greater powers to hold polluters accountable.

I thank the many citizen science projects in my constituency, such as Safe Avon, that have highlighted the scale of the issue and the impact of poor water quality on the Avon, its tributaries, and our many precious brooks and streams. Our local residents and groups have come together to create River Hope, which is a new participatory process taking place in Stratford-on-Avon. It fosters a positive narrative for the River Avon ecosystem, and involves individuals, community groups and others implementing activities and events in, on, around and about our local water catchments and their biodiverse ecosystems. Residents not only engage in practical actions to restore and protect the wildlife and flora that the river sustains, but create a positive narrative of gratitude, good stewardship and love for the water as an essential element of thriving biodiversity.

The river has rights. Our rivers and waterways should be safe for swimming and for thriving wildlife, and should be protected for future generations to cherish and enjoy.

[Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)]

I am calling the Front Bench spokespeople early. That is not an invitation to speak—[Interruption.] Sorry, do we have Cameron Thomas? I did not think you were bobbing.

Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords]

Manuela Perteghella Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)]

I declare an interest: my spouse is a water economist.

As we have heard from many hon. Members this evening, urgent action is needed to clean up our rivers and waterways, including the Avon, Alne, Arrow and Stour in my constituency of Stratford-on-Avon. Those rivers and brooks are central to our communities, our local environment and wildlife, and our sporting and recreational activities, yet they are being poisoned. Water is a common good, and the water companies, including Severn Trent Water, have shown utter disregard for our most precious natural resource. This Bill is a welcome step, but much more needs to be done.

Across the UK, untreated sewage was discharged more than 600,000 times last year. It is a national disgrace. In my constituency, spills happened for a total duration of nearly 16,700 hours in 2023. I thank the citizen science champions in my constituency and the many campaign groups, from Shipstone and Stratford to Bidford and Alcester, for shining a light on this crisis. Without their tireless work, much of the devastation would remain hidden. I also pay tribute to our many rural communities, who have experienced repeated sewage flooding and are literally left to clean up the mess.

Although residents stepped up, the previous Conservative Government failed to hold the water companies to account. Shareholder profits should not be prioritised over public health and environmental protection. I urge the Government to consider the Liberal Democrats’ proposal to abolish Ofwat and replace it with a clean water authority that has real teeth—a regulator that focuses on environmental performance, demands real-time sewage pollution data, and enforces legally binding targets to eliminate sewage spills by 2030. The Bill must also mandate investment in sewage and drainage infrastructure.

This Bill is a chance to take real, systemic action to clean up our waterways. However, the Government must strengthen the proposed legislation in more radical ways so that we can give our constituents the clean and thriving waterways they all deserve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Manuela Perteghella Excerpts

Thursday 14th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy]

The hon. Lady and I have met many times to discuss the issue of flooding. I can reassure her that we will be investing £2.4 billion over the next two years to improve flood resilience by maintaining, repairing and building flood defences.

[Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)]

5. What steps he is taking to help tackle unlawful discharges of sewage into waterways by water companies.

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

16. What steps his Department is taking to help prevent water pollution by utility companies.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Steve Reed)]

I welcome the new shadow Ministers to their place—as well, of course, the returning one. Under the previous Government, water companies got away with discharging record levels of sewage into our rivers, lakes and seas, leaving them in an appalling polluted state. That is why we are taking immediate action to place the water companies under special measures, with legislation going through Parliament right now that will ban the payment of unfair bonuses to water company executives. We have also launched a commission that will lead a root and branch review of the entire sector, so that we can clean up our waterways for good.

[Manuela Perteghella]

In my constituency of Stratford-on-Avon, the River Avon and its tributaries have been heavily polluted by untreated sewage discharges. We know this because of a citizen science project, which sees residents testing for pollutants regularly along the rivers and brooks. Their efforts are supported by community initiatives such as SafeAvon and groups like Stratford Climate Action. Will the Government commit to and resource a national environmental monitoring strategy to better understand the overall health of water bodies, and will they commit to requiring water companies to monitor volumes as well as duration of storm overflows?

[Steve Reed]

The hon. Lady is quite right to be concerned about the state of the River Avon. We want to move towards a catchment-based approach to water, so we can look at all the inputs and be clear about how we can clean them up. Her point about monitoring will be considered by the commission led by Sir Jon Cunliffe. I hope that she and other colleagues will make their submissions to Sir Jon for his review, which is due to conclude in 2025.

Budget: Implications for Farming Communities

Manuela Perteghella Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner]

“Could be at risk” has a very broad definition. The figures are absolutely clear, and I suggest that the hon. Gentleman looks at them.

[Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)]

Unlike in many countries that are dominated by vast corporate agribusinesses, the British rural landscape, including that of my Stratford-on-Avon constituency, is defined by small, family-run farms. They are our local food producers, and they are part of our communities. How do the Government plan to protect this heritage against the pressure to sell to multinational agribusinesses in the face of a significant inheritance tax burden?

[Daniel Zeichner]

We treasure our wide range of farms, which are very different in different parts of the country. The agricultural budget is at its highest level ever and it will provide support, particularly to small farms. The previous Government ended the five-hectare minimum level. I strongly support that and it will continue to be the case.