Environment Bill

Oliver Heald Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that, and honestly, people are coming up to me left, right and centre about this. I feel as strongly about it as everybody else, so I am so pleased we have got this into the Bill. I have to say that a lot of it is thanks to working with my right hon. Friend the Member for—[Hon. Members: “Ludlow.”] I have been to Ludlow, but I have a lot of data in my head! I think my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) would agree that we have worked unbelievably constructively to get what was going to be in his private Member’s Bill into this Bill, which is absolutely the right thing to do. I hope we are demonstrating that this is happening quickly. For example, we are requiring water companies to put in monitors above and below every storm sewage overflow to monitor the data. They will have to start that right now, because the sewerage plans coming forward in the Bill are already under way.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

The Minister will know that I am one of the people who keeps talking to her about this, and I pay tribute to her for all the work she has done on it. Yes, there are all these duties to report, to produce plans and so on, which is great, but should there not also be a duty on the water companies to actually do something, rather than just to report on what they have or have not achieved? If amendment (a) to Lords amendment 45 succeeds, will she consider whether it is possible to have a more tightly drawn, concise and effective duty on water companies?

[Rebecca Pow]

We have been speaking about this. I hear what my right hon. and learned Friend is saying, and I am listening. I am going to say that there is a dialogue, but I will leave it at that. However, there is so much more that will help with this issue, and the wider issue of water pollution, than what is in this Bill. I think he would agree that there are a lot of water issues to be dealt with that the water companies will be held to account for. One of the very strong things we are doing, which is not in the Bill, is producing our draft policy statement to Ofwat, the regulator. For the first time ever, we have put at the top of the agenda that it will have to get the water companies to address storm sewage overflows. I think we would all agree that they are necessary in an emergency, but they have been used far too frequently. I hope by all of this we are demonstrating what are doing, and that is why I am taking so long going through it. It has not started right now—well, not all of it—but when it does start, it will make a huge difference to the progressive reduction of harm.