Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords]

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 28th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jon Pearce]

I welcome that intervention from the shadow Secretary of State, but let me suggest that if the measures in this Bill had been implemented by her Government, we might have seen some of those enforcement actions.

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is very kind. I remind him that in 2002 a Labour Government allowed, through their regulatory regime, the uplift in bonuses that he outlined. Can he tell the House how much sewage dumping happened in his constituency between the years 1997 and 2010, and can he justify why only 7% of rivers were being monitored? He will not be able to, because we did not know.

[Jon Pearce]

I welcome the hon. Member’s intervention. I simply say to him that his party was in power for 14 years and did nothing. To go back 30 years seems rather extraordinary.

In 2002, the United Utilities chief executive received a bonus of nearly £1 million, and Severn Trent lifted its bonus to £3.36 million. That is millions of pounds that my constituents in High Peak have put in bosses’ back pockets to reward their failure. When I speak to residents on the doorstep in High Peak, they ask me, “How did they get away with it? How can they be allowed to do this?” They got away with it because Conservative Members let them. The previous Conservative Government cut the Environment Agency’s budget by half between 2010 and 2024, leaving the agency toothless to tackle the disgraceful behaviour of our water company bosses. Perhaps that helps us to understand the enforcement issues we have been talking about.

I also remember that just before the election, the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), in his previous role as Water Minister, told Environment Agency officials not to publish the headline figures of the total number and duration of spills. How typical of the Conservative party’s approach—rather than face issues head-on and tackle them, it chose to hide them and keep them in the shadows. That approach to government has left our water infrastructure crumbling. By failing to confront these issues, failing to invest in our broken infrastructure and letting consumer money be spent irresponsibly, the Conservative Government left my constituents in High Peak paying twice.

These points underpin the importance of this legislation. This Bill, coupled with the Government’s wider programme to safeguard the environment, will ensure that the beauty of the Peak district in my constituency, with our nature-rich rivers, is entrenched for generations to come. The Bill introduces tougher penalties, including imprisonment for water executives who fail to comply with or obstruct investigations. The Bill will ban bonuses for CEOs and senior leaders unless high standards are met on protecting the environment and their consumers. The Bill will also introduce severe and automatic fines for offences, closing the gap in the Environment Agency’s enforcement powers. Importantly, the water companies will have to start covering the costs of enforcement action. Unlike the previous Government, we will not let the water companies hide from their wrongdoing. The Bill will see that every outlet has independent monitoring.

I am proud to support this major step forward in the Government’s wider reforms to fix the broken water system left behind by the Conservative party. This is a great first step, and a commission will look at the whole water industry, which will hopefully address some of the concerns raised by Members. Only by taking these actions with this ambitious plan, which the Government have done in their first six months in office, can we begin to turn the page on years of decline and attract much-needed investment into the sector, which will preserve the beauty of High Peak and the Peak district for the long term.

Water Quality: Sewage Discharge

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

I will make some progress.

Conservative MPs should see this as a second chance, which everyone deserves. Let us take our mind back to the first chance, which was the passage of the Environment Act 2021, and an amendment that Labour backed that would have introduced a legal obligation to bring down sewage dumping progressively. It was blocked by Conservative MPs, who voted against it. It fell at the first test, but we believe in second chances. Today provides that second chance to right that wrong and to get behind Labour’s plan to clean up the Tory sewage scandal.

Let me come to Labour’s record, because the Conservatives would have us believe that the scale of dumping was inevitable, that there is nothing we can do about it, and that there is no alternative or somehow it has always been terrible. That is not what the evidence says. The last Labour Government had a proud record of delivering improvements in water quality. Shortly after the Labour party left office, the Environment Agency—in the Secretary of State’s own Department—reported that our rivers were cleaner than at any time since before the industrial revolution. In fact, in 2002, the then Environment Minister—the former Member for Oldham West and Royton, as it happens—celebrated how clean the water was when he took to it in Blackpool, with cameras looking on, to celebrate the proud moment that it met bathing water quality status. I would not think that the Environment Secretary would have the confidence to go swimming on the shores of Blackpool today, since over the past year there have been 22 incidents—62 hours—of raw human sewage being dumped in those waters, straight into the Irish sea.

We have shown that Labour will clean up the Tory sewage scandal—we have done it before, and we can do it again. In the absence of any leadership from the Government, Labour is stepping up. Today, there is finally something worth getting behind, after waiting 13 lost years—a whole generation of opportunity taken away.

Let me address cost. We are in the middle of a Tory cost of living crisis. Households are being hammered, and at every angle it seems that things are getting worse, not better. People see that when they go to the supermarket for their shop—again, a risible failing by the Secretary of State responsible for food, who does not think it is her job to have a roundtable with the food industry—and straight through to energy bills and mortgages. People are feeling the pinch. In their water bills, people are already paying for a service. Sewage treatment is itemised in every one of our bills but is not being delivered. Instead, the Tories are allowing water companies to cut corners and to dump sewage untreated.

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

Will the shadow Secretary of State give way?

[Jim McMahon]

Let me make this point, because it ties in with following the money and tracking back to the impact. The storm overflow data, which water companies themselves provide to the Government, tells us that not a single one of the dumping incidents from last year was a result of exceptional circumstances. They were not down to rainfall or storms—the water companies and the Government say so. It is about a lack of treatment and investment. [Interruption.] I hope that the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Paul Holmes) can learn to be quiet without the attention. That is basic good sense.

We need to address the issue of who pays. We believe that the polluter should pay. At the same time, water companies have walked away with £72 billion in dividends, and water bosses have enjoyed payments and bonuses of millions of pounds, even after sewage dumping had been identified. The Bill is about fixing those loopholes that allow poor practice and corner cutting, to ensure that the Government and the water companies together are acting in the public interest. It is not right that working people are paying for the privilege of having raw human sewage dumped in their communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Holmes]

rose—

[Jim McMahon]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, as he has been persistent.

[Paul Holmes]

I note that the shadow Secretary of State’s paragraph on the Labour record was very short—perhaps because under the Labour Government 7% of sewage discharges were monitored, whereas now that is 91%, with an ambition of 100% through the legislation that the Secretary of State has laid out. Why can the shadow Secretary of State not stand at the Dispatch Box and welcome that, and accept that his party did nothing about this issue in its time in government?

[Jim McMahon]

I am not sure that was worth waiting for. The hon. Gentleman was so persistent that I thought a gem would come to advance the debate, but the House was left wanting, yet again. I am proud of Labour’s record. We went from industrial pollution affecting our rivers and canals to the cleanest water since before the industrial revolution. That progress and legacy should have been built on, but they have been trashed. We have gone backwards, not forwards.

We need to change the culture in water companies and demand change, by setting down legally binding targets and enforcing straightforward penalties for failure. The Bill protects bill payers in law—no ifs, not buts. The cost must and will be borne by water companies and their shareholders, protected in the Bill in black and white. That is the basis of our motion, and it is what Members on all sides of the House will vote for later—not a fabricated version of reality that does not hold up to the evidence; no more jam tomorrow, asking people to wait until 2050 at the earliest to see an end to the sewage scandal; in black and white, a plan finally to end the scandal.

Let me outline what the Bill does, before I close and allow other Members to speak. It will deliver mandatory monitoring on all sewage outlets and a standing charge on water companies that fail.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

I share with the hon. Lady a love for that part of the north-west. I grew up there, and I used to cycle down to the River Mersey regularly on the Otterspool prom. I was not quite so much a visitor to the other side, apart from when I was visiting family elsewhere.

It is thanks to the openness of this Government in getting the monitoring done and publishing it that the scale of the scourge of sewage has been unveiled. The hon. Lady should welcome that. She should also welcome the active plans that we have been undertaking, with investment, so that even more action will be under way to reduce that sewage, if not eliminate it.

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

The constituency that I have the privilege of representing has the River Itchen and the River Hamble. Last week I met Southern Water, which now has an investment plan, purely because of the 91% of monitoring that this Government have put in place. Would that infrastructural investment have been able to go ahead if just 7% of our rivers were being monitored?

[Dr Coffey]

Quite clearly, the answer is no. There would not have been the scrutiny that there is today, nor would there have been the investigations that are already under way. The Hamble is a very precious sailing river that goes out into the Solent, so it is important that people can have confidence. That is why our plan has investment behind it so that we can continue to ensure that our waters are cleaner than ever before.

Water Company Performance

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

If I might say, the hon. Gentleman is a fine one to talk. I believe the water Minister in the coalition was a Liberal Democrat: what exactly did he do? It is this Government who are taking action now on the water companies. This Government introduced the storm overflows reduction plan and, in addition to that plan and all the requirements it puts on the water companies, just this week the Secretary of State has asked that a plan be submitted for every single storm sewerage overflow, with water companies’ proposed actions clearly outlined.

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

Before Christmas, some 20,000 of my constituents were without water—last week, thousands were—and this clearly stems from a chronic lack of investment in infrastructure by South West Water, despite its balance sheet showing an ability to do so. Six weeks later, we have the same issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) has organised a meeting with the chief executive later, but one word not elaborated on is “compensation”. Will the Minister contact the CEO to press that point, and will the Government up their game not by asking water companies to invest in infrastructure but by forcing them to do so?

[Rebecca Pow]

There is a clear compensation scheme, as my hon. Friend will know, and that will be being looked at by his water company. I urge him to press for that. If he wants my involvement in ensuring that that is properly understood and followed, I am happy to do that.