Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

In London, there is a real need for improvement to the sewerage system. The present network of major sewers was designed for a 19th century city. London’s population is now 7.6 million, but it is projected to rise to 8.3 million by 2021 and to 8.8 million by 2031. It will then have doubled since the major sewers were built. It is remarkable that the system has managed so well for so long, and is a tribute to Bazalgette and the others who designed and built it. It is, however, clearly inadequate, and has been so for some time.

The present system consists of combined sewers, which convey foul sewage and rainwater run-off to the sewage treatment works before they are discharged. When the combined sewers reach capacity, the combined sewer overflows—CSOs—are designed to discharge excess untreated waste water into the River Thames. This avoids overflows and back-ups through manholes and into individual properties, but it means that as soon as the hydraulic capacity of the sewage treatment works is exceeded, sewage is pumped directly into the Thames. In fact, some parts of London, including my constituency, also have a problem with sewage back-up, and the Counters Creek relief scheme that Thames Water is seeking to implement will bring an end to that appalling problem, which has affected thousands of my constituents over the past few years. It happened three times in four years during the latter part of the last decade. I welcome the implementation of the Counters Creek relief scheme—a major scheme across west London—but the result will be even more sewage going into the Thames. The river will continue to bear the brunt.

Discharges can occur following as little as 2 mm of rain; they happen approximately 60 times a year. The Thames is tidal between Hammersmith and Beckton, and when CSOs discharge, the resulting sewage and litter flows up and down the river with the tide. In winter, it takes about a month for non-biodegradable waste to get from the head of the estuary at Teddington to the sea. In summer, when water levels are lower, it can take up to three months. It is in summer that we get the worst response and the worst smells.

In future, sewage might flow into the Thames even on dry days unless the situation is managed. In any typical year, 39 million cubic metres of untreated waste water—a mixture of sewage and rainwater—are discharged. The frequency and volume of untreated waste water entering the tidal reaches of the Thames have increased, and will only increase further. This level of waste entering the environment is not tolerated anywhere else in the UK, and it should not be flowing into the main river of our capital city. Something clearly needs to be done.

The discharges affect the river in several ways. First, polluted water increases health risks to recreational users of the Thames, whose numbers I am pleased to say are increasing year on year. Secondly, the aesthetic impact of CSO discharges is offensive. Materials such as faeces, toilet paper, wipes, sanitary products and other “flushable” items, including hypodermic needles, regularly end up in the Thames at Hammersmith. All of this causes slicks of pollution to float on the river before being washed up on the foreshore. Thirdly, sewage discharges harm the ecology of the river by reducing dissolved oxygen levels in the water. In extreme events, this can result in the death of fish and other wildlife, often in large numbers. There are therefore strong environmental, health and economic cases for the Thames tunnel.

The Thames tunnel will work with the existing system of sewers, with improved sewage treatment works and with the Lee tunnel to reduce the frequency of CSO discharges. This Government and the previous one have conducted serious studies of the issues behind the tunnel. Investigations have been carried out by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and by independent bodies, resulting in the 2007 regulatory impact assessment, the Thames tunnel needs report, and DEFRA’s 2011 strategic and economic case for the Thames tunnel. They all conclude that the tunnel is the most comprehensive solution available at the most proportionate cost.

A number of alternatives have been suggested. The first is that we have a system to mitigate and reduce the dissolved oxygen levels in the Thames. This involves using the so-called Thames Bubbler oxygenation craft, as well as hydrogen peroxide dosing. This has helped with fish mortality in some places, but it is not sustainable; neither is it a complete solution and neither will it work in a tidal river.

[Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an eloquent speech. Does he agree that the Bubbler and the sustainable drainage system will not remove things like heavy metals, pesticides and all the other contaminants that go into the river through the CSO system he describes?

[Mr Slaughter]

That is absolutely right; it is a sticking plaster approach. I have reservations about the tunnel, which I shall come on to, but I am making the case that the tunnel is the only sensible solution thought of so far because many alternatives have been put forward but they are simply not sustainable.

SUDS—sustainable drainage systems—are one alternative. There is nothing wrong with them. They reduce the amount of surface run-off blowing into the sewerage system and complement other measures. However, the Government policy statement makes it clear that to prevent rain water and run-off entering sewerage systems completely will require either a new system designed to meet the principles of SUDS and source control or a completely new conventional separate water system, which would be disproportionately expensive. Although it can be installed effectively in new developments, trying to retrofit all London’s properties to the required level is simply impractical. It is impractical, too, to create extra capacity in the existing sewerage system. Existing sewers cannot be enlarged or duplicated because the system is so large and complex and has so many cross-connections that most of the network would need to be enlarged to prevent CSOs from discharging.

The Government’s report says that substantial duplication and enlargement to most of the sewers would entail massive construction work throughout inner London, enormous disruption and extremely high costs. Converting a combined drainage system into a separate drainage system would involve the provision of a completely new network of sewers approximately 12,000 km in length. Every existing property would require connecting to the new system and the cost and disruption would be high and might lead to a large number of misconnections, which could create a legacy of problems.

Any of those alternatives, if they were sustainable, would cost many times the cost of the tunnel—whether it be a SUD system or a separate rain water and sewerage system. What the opponents of the tunnel have been left with—I am sorry to see that the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) appears to have joined them—is the idea of a shorter tunnel. This is a tunnel that would cover just west London—the so-called Selborne tunnel, named after the author of the report sponsored by Hammersmith and Fulham council.

The shorter tunnel has none of the advantages of the longer tunnel and brings many more problems. It would effectively mean sewage stuck in the shorter tunnel for up to two weeks at a time while it became septic and could go nowhere—clearly it can flow only through the existing network of sewers in east London as capacity becomes available there. It would also require far more storage on land in west London. Thames Water’s response to the Selborne report—I have no brief for Thames Water—was quite devastating, pointing out its follies and fallacies. Indeed, if we read the Selborne report, we find that it does not talk about the shorter tunnel because it was realised that it was not a workable proposition. It would cover only half of the CSOs in London—that is, it would do only half the job. East of Battersea, sewage would continue to go into the Thames; west of Battersea, including in my constituency, the tunnel would regularly be full of sewage, with all the attendant problems of smell and disease that that can cause.

[Mr Offord]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that our aim is to address some of the environmental problems of the river apart from the death of the fish on which so many people seem to focus, and that because the shorter tunnel would not comply with the urban waste water directive, the whole exercise would be pointless?

[Mr Slaughter]

The whole exercise has been a PR exercise, a sham and a spoiler. Those who have supported, or are supporting, the shorter tunnel have no credibility when it comes to resolving environmental and other problems. By all means let people criticise the Thames tunnel on its merits, but let them not propose this chimera as an alternative.

As a Hammersmith Member of Parliament, I have had to deal with all the propaganda and misleading statements that have appeared over the past five years under the auspices of Hammersmith and Fulham council. In fact, there is a huge amount of consensus about what needs to be done, and, to a large extent, about the solution, at least in principle. It is agreed that we must resolve the problems of sewers flooding the Thames, and that a tunnel is the best way to do that. We can argue about the route and about the cost, but both this and the last Government, mayoral candidates, most local authorities and most London Members of Parliament of all parties are of one mind, and it is not helpful to suggest otherwise.

Let me summarise the recent history of the campaign against the tunnel in Hammersmith. It began because this was an EU scheme: it began as an anti-EU campaign. Then it was claimed that it would despoil all the local parks—such as Ravenscourt park, which is about half a mile from the Thames—or that Furnival gardens would be dug up, which was never the intention. There were also false claims that housing estates would be demolished to make way for the tunnel portals. None of that has helped to identify the reasons for what is being done.

I sympathise with individual residents’ groups who are concerned about what is happening in their immediate areas. My constituency contains at least two of the sites involved. The Acton sewage tanks are on the very border of my constituency, and I hope that the fact that the tunnel will begin at that point will mean an improvement, because tanks that often cause problems of smell and are unsightly will no longer be needed. The other site is the Hammersmith pumping station. I have had the pleasure of going down into it—as have the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr Offord) and many others—to see the appalling conditions that exist when raw sewage is pumped into the Thames. At that site, the necessary building work will be contained within the parameters of Thames Water’s own development area. Of course we should be concerned about the disruption caused by building work, and should encourage Thames Water to use the river wherever possible to take spoil away, but, as far as I can see, Thames Water is working quite closely with local authorities and others, when that is allowed, to ensure that that disruption is minimised. It will clearly be necessary to keep an eye on the situation.

The one issue that is of concern in Hammersmith and Fulham is what is going to be the main drive shaft of the tunnel, which was to have been at Barn Elms in the constituency of the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) but will now be in south Fulham, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands). I feel for the residents of Fulham if disruptive work is to take place there, but much of the blame for that must lie with the local authority, which, by running an extraordinarily outrageous campaign against the tunnel on principle and on entirely false premises, has failed to engage with Thames Water other than to try to take it to court to prevent it from proceeding with the project at all. By contrast, the hon. Member for Richmond Park and other London local authorities have played a blinder in negotiating with Thames Water, pointing out the problems involved in development in one area or another. It seems that the people in Hammersmith and Fulham will have to put up with the main drive shaft because of the incompetence of their own local authority.

I find it strange that the main defence put up by Hammersmith is that 95% of what is going into the river at present is water, and only 5% is sewage. Raw sewage is, by definition, a mixture of water and other products. I am not sure that that quite answers the question of how we are to have a sustainable River Thames in the future. I was fascinated by the following statement by the hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham in his explanation of why he is opposed to the tunnel:

“Anglers, rowers and sailors will experience personal benefits from the tunnel”.

Never before have I heard not having to swallow human excrement proposed as a personal benefit. There is a complete lack of reality about what is actually happening. At present, people who walk along the Thames towpath see raw sewage floating in the river on a regular, weekly basis. That is a disgrace to London, our capital city, and something must be done about it.

We must keep a careful eye on both where Thames Water is intending to build and the cost of this project. It is true that costs have escalated over time. Both Front-Bench teams have made the point that Thames Water’s bills are the lowest in the country, and even after the anticipated additional cost of the tunnel, its bills will be near or below the national average water bill. Although that is true, it is no great comfort to those of my constituents on low incomes who will have to pay the additional cost. Because there is a clear and overwhelming need for the alleviation of sewer flooding, the attitude to this issue of both Thames Water and the Government has been somewhat blasé.

Ironically, the Bill contains provisions for both the construction of the tunnel and subsidies in respect of excessive water bills. I am not suggesting that that may be required in the London area at present, but we must be aware that there are many very poor people in my constituency and across London who find it difficult to pay their water bills in addition to everything else. I would like either the Government or Ofwat to conduct a more critical analysis of Thames Water’s plans and the costs. We did that in respect of Crossrail, which is another major civil engineering project in London, to try to keep down, or drive down, costs, and I believe we should do the same for the Thames tunnel. It is not good enough simply to say that there are social tariffs and that the bills will be no higher than the national average. People are being asked to pay substantially extra on top of bills they may already be struggling to pay.

I am grateful for the House finding additional time to debate this issue, which is vital for London. There are only a handful of opponents, including those representing Hammersmith and Fulham. It is extraordinary that they do not have a response to what is a national embarrassment and a health hazard, and something that we can no longer sustain in London—a river that is getting back to the state it was in in the 19th century, when the Bazalgette scheme was necessary. Whenever we discuss projects such as HS2, Crossrail and the Thames tunnel, I am always ashamed that there seems to be a reluctance to undertake great civil engineering projects, in which this country led the world in the 19th century.

I hope that there is a solution, and I suspect that it is the Thames tunnel project. In going forward with it, the Government must consider the sensitivities of the various local areas and the cost.