Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords]

Polly Billington Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

That is an important point. Polluted water does not just damage people’s health; it damages the health of local economies as well, and the compensation will extend to businesses in a way that it previously did not.

The Bill gives Ofwat legal powers to ban bonuses if water company executives fail to meet high standards. It will introduce stricter penalties, including imprisonment, when senior executives in water companies obstruct investigations by environmental regulators, and it includes provisions to allow automatic and severe fines to be imposed for wrongdoing. When increased costs are a result of penalties being issued by the regulators, for instance under the new automatic penalties regime, penalties will come out of water company profits and not from customers.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

In evidence given to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Ofwat confirmed that had the measures to ban bonuses been in place earlier, the boss of Southern Water—which covers my constituency—would not have received his most recent bonus. It was Tory inaction that allowed it.

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[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

It is an honour to speak on such an important issue, one that affects my coastal constituency daily. Sewage discharges, water quality, and the related issue of flooding are among the most pressing concerns for my constituents.

The Environment Agency’s bathing water classifications, updated on 26 November, reveal alarming declines in water quality. Bognor Regis East’s classification dropped from good to sufficient, while Aldwick’s remained poor for the third consecutive year. Abuses of our water system are having a serious impact on public health, our vital tourism industry and our natural environment. However, by focusing only on water companies and sewage, this Bill delivers an oversimplified approach. There is an urgent need for holistic and comprehensive solutions to protect our waters, prevent flooding and tackle sewage discharges. This issue is not simply about water companies and sewage, but the Bill falls into the trap of focusing solely on them.

In Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, the situation is compounded by recurring flooding, which affects businesses and homes from Shripney Road and Durban Road on the boundary of the constituency to Fish Lane and Rope Walk in Aldwick and Littlehampton respectively. That flooding is exacerbated by extensive house building on our flood plain and by the local topography. Without infrastructure improvements and an integrated action plan, sewage outflows will continue to blight our coastline. Combined, these issues are causing a decline in our tourism industry, devastation to homes and businesses, increases in insurance premiums and significant financial losses for affected local businesses and employers. This is not a mild inconvenience for a few sea swimmers—although I count myself among their number—but something that affects our entire area.

As such, the Water (Special Measures) Bill is a timely opportunity to accelerate essential environmental improvements. I am concerned, though, that the Government are not sufficiently grasping this opportunity. The absence of robust enforcement measures for proposed reporting is particularly concerning. Clause 2 requires water companies to “prepare and publish” annual pollution incident reduction plans. That is a step towards greater accountability, which I welcome. However, the clause lacks enforceability and thus any purpose, as it mandates only the preparation and publication of those plans, not their implementation. As such, will the Government amend the Bill to ensure the delivery of measures set out in those reports and provide the necessary enforcement powers? My constituents, and the public, are weary of empty promises on water quality. It is essential that this Bill mandates that water companies deliver measurable improvements, not meaningless promises.

[Ms Billington]

The hon. Lady and I share concerns about the safety and health of our seawater. I just want to clarify for her that we have accepted the Lords amendment in relation to the enforcement plans, and are ensuring that those plans will be on the face of the Bill.

[Alison Griffiths]

I thank the hon. Lady for clarifying that point. Letting the Bill pass without that amendment would have been a disservice, so I am delighted to hear it.

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[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

On new year’s day, I will, like many people in Thanet, take part in a bracing dash into the sea to raise money for worthwhile causes. However, we should not take our health in our hands as we do so. Swimming should be good for you, not a risky adventure because of pollution. Good governance might seem a long way away from the delights of sea swimming, yet we cannot safely have one without the other.

Water plays such a huge role in the history and culture of East Thanet, not least because of our fantastic beaches. Margate can claim to be the first English seaside resort—I know there are others, but we are the first. For 250 years, people have come to all three of our towns in East Thanet to enjoy the stunning scenery, breathe the fabulous fresh air and swim in the sea, but as a very wise business owner in my constituency told me, “People don’t come here to paddle in poo.” That is why I and my constituents welcome this Bill, as a great starting point in cleaning up the mess that the Conservative party has left—not a figurative mess, but a literal one in our waterways. For years, the privatised water industry has been under-investing and over-polluting while paying itself millions of pounds in bonuses. That is why the action that the Government are taking through this Bill is extremely welcome and long needed.

Residents in Broadstairs have had to cope with their water being off during a red warning for extreme heat and in the middle of winter in the run-up to Christmas, managing on bottled water, because of infrastructure failures. Bills are up, the quality of service is down, the environment is in ruins, and big bonuses fuelled by gorging on debt are being paid. The water companies argue that they may need to pay more in salary bonuses to get the best people in—well, if this is the best they can get, I will be asking for my money back. We need a fundamental change in the way our water system is run, and critically, we need more accountability to bring that change about.

I know that the Secretary of State does not want to be spending his time running the water companies. I do not want him spending his time doing that either—that is not what I am suggesting. I recommend that this accountability should be local, rather than at the national level. The new independent water commission could look into how we fine water companies that break the rules by exploring the possibility of taking company stock from them instead of money. We could put any stock in a trust held on behalf of local billpayers, who would then benefit.

It may be some time before we can be confident about enjoying our waters again—some time before our rivers and seas are restored to full health—but I believe this Bill will start the process of cleaning up our water industry. It is crucial that we get the future governance right, so that our constituents can feel confident that paddling in poo is a thing of the past.

Oral Answers to Questions

Polly Billington Excerpts

Thursday 14th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner]

Once again, I direct right the hon. Gentleman back to the figures from the Treasury, which show that the numbers affected are under 500. That is the answer to his question.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

13. What steps his Department is taking to help ensure that the independent commission on the water sector regulatory system strengthens regulation.

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

The independent commission on the water sector was launched on 23 October and will be chaired by Sir Jon Cunliffe. It is the biggest review of the industry since privatisation and will report next summer. It will focus on boosting investability, speeding up the delivery of water infrastructure and cleaning up our waterways.

[Ms Billington]

Southern Water is responsible for blighting beaches with raw sewage along Ramsgate, Margate and Broadstairs, yet it plans on increasing household bills by 73% over the next five years, and the chief executive officers of Southern Water have received £4 million over the last five years in bonuses and salaries. Will the new independent commission do something about this egregious situation?

[Steve Reed]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on campaigning for her local water consumers. She is right to point to the wide failings across the system. We have charged Sir Jon Cunliffe with leading a commission that will look at how we can completely reset the sector—regulation, governance and how the sector operates—so that the levels of pollution and failure under the previous Government can never be repeated.

Agricultural Land: Protection

Polly Billington Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Laura Kyrke-Smith]

I agree that supporting smallholder farmers is absolutely essential.

There is too much to say in the time we have available tonight, but I will pull out three particularly important ways to help set up our farmers for success. First and foremost, we have to ensure the long-term financial sustainability of British farming. The environment land management schemes have been unclear, difficult to navigate and poorly tailored to different contexts—in the case of Ledburn farm, to the heavy clay land. As a result, the uptake has been low, but farmers remain in need of that support and we have to find a way to make it easier to access. Equally, farmers are forging ahead and finding ways to diversify their income, but there is much more we can do to support that—for example, by making it much easier to change the use of existing farm buildings, or to develop lower-grade agricultural land, if it creates renewable energy sources or affordable housing for farm workers.

Secondly, we have to promote and support farmers to roll out sustainable farming practices that address challenges such as soil erosion and low land productivity—for example, by supporting the farmer clusters that have become increasingly prevalent across Buckinghamshire, which bring together farmers to help explore best practice and to share ideas for enhancing natural habitats on their land.

Thirdly, we need to invest in the next generation of British farmers. This means ensuring that we give the profession the status that it deserves in the first place, and that we start educating children about it at a very young age. That means creating pathways into the farming sector—for example, through investing in specialist technical education and expanding agriculture apprenticeships. It means making it not just attractive but affordable to live in rural communities and to pursue a career in farming, particularly in places such as Buckinghamshire, where there is far too little affordable rural housing and services. As a result, the pull to towns is too strong. In short, we can put all the necessary protections in place for quality agricultural land, and I am confident that we will, but without a thriving farming sector to safeguard that land, they will have little impact.

My constituency has suffered from the absence of a coherent strategy for our land—where and how we protect it, where and how we use it, and where and how we develop it. Recent Governments have left nature depleted, farmers deeply uncertain at best and out of business at worst, and communities frustrated by haphazard house building without access to green spaces, infrastructure or services. Under this Government, the future has to look different, and we have to start with clear principles. Alongside the NPPF, the new land use framework will surely help to ensure that we get the right balance between food production, nature and economic growth.

We need more predictability. Of course external shocks will happen, but the role of the Government is to be a steadying force. It is great that we have got to work quickly on the first steps—whether planning reform or setting up Great British Energy—and I think we can look forward to a steady, focused roll-out.

Finally, we need a good deal of pragmatism and an acceptance that getting the right balance between development and environmental protection is not easy, and there will be compromises, but it is necessary. We have to find a way both to build the homes and infrastructure of the future, and to protect and regenerate our agricultural and nature-rich lands, because ultimately one cannot exist without the other.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. It is highly unusual for other Members to contribute to an Adjournment debate, because it is a conversation between the lead Member and the Minister. I believe that you have sought permission, but it is still highly unusual, so I assume that the contribution will be short before the Minister responds.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

Thank you very much for your permission to speak in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to support the representations from my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith), because some of the things that she raises are also relevant to my constituency and those across the country.

As my hon. Friend said, the case for more genuinely affordable homes is clear. That is accepted in my community as much as in hers, if not more so, as so many people struggle in the private sector and house prices spiral due to the pressure of unregulated short-term holiday lets, driven by many people’s huge and understandable desire to enjoy the delights of Margate, Broadstairs and Ramsgate.

We need new homes. I have spoken to far too many people in their 30s and beyond who live in their childhood bedrooms, sometimes with a partner. They are desperate to be able to start their lives in a home of their own, but they are priced out of their own community. We also desperately need the infrastructure to support the families who will live in those homes, and we need to protect and enhance not only the nature that we love but the nature that is essential to our own economy, wellbeing and future.

I came here to change the rules, Madam Deputy Speaker, although of course I observe the ones that you enforce in this House. It is clear that the current rules do not serve our need for homes or our need to protect and enhance nature. They do not enable the right infrastructure to be built, nor do they effectively help us identify and protect our vital farmland. Those who protect the status quo in this argument are condemning our country to failure. Those who think that any of these four elements—homes, farming, nature or infrastructure, including energy—should drop off the list of our priorities do not understand the importance of shaping our communities to benefit our residents, now and for the long term.

Nature is not just a “nice to have”. It is fundamental to us in achieving our economic, health and climate goals. In Thanet, people come to see and enjoy our natural world. Damaging nature, where it is a vital part of the economy, is short-sighted and dangerous. We also have some of the most productive farmland in the whole of the UK, yet the existing planning rules do not protect it from speculation and development. Access to nature is proven to enhance health and wellbeing, and the successes of previous Labour Governments in creating access to nature for everyone are some of our proudest achievements. Furthermore, responsible custodianship of our natural environment, especially precious ecosystems, is vital to capturing, sequestering and reducing carbon emissions. The sixth carbon budget predicts that, by 2050, we will need to remove 39 megatonnes of CO₂ a year via nature-based solutions, which is more than double what we do today. That includes wetlands, woodlands and peatlands, which are both beautiful and useful.

This Labour Government were elected on a mandate to transform us into a clean energy superpower by 2030 and to restore and protect 30% of nature by 2030. We cannot achieve those goals under the current rules. That is why I look forward to us publishing a land use framework that will help us to decide what we use land for, and help us to shape our communities and our country to meet our ambition to be somewhere with affordable homes to rent or own and run, affordable sustainable food, affordable secure home-grown clean energy, decent public services, and our beloved countryside providing us with the peace and climate security we all need.

Independent Water Commission

Polly Billington Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

I welcome the commission announced by my right hon. Friend. Last week, six beaches in my constituency were affected by raw sewage dumping, with two of them—Joss Bay and Stone Bay—experiencing a bad effect on their bathing water quality, but the verdict was that they were still within Environment Agency permitted limits. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the commission will investigate regulatory standards, so that when raw sewage is dumped, there is actually a fine and a punishment for the water companies? I must also make a declaration as a customer of Southern Water and a sea water swimmer.

[Steve Reed]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. She is, of course, a well-known environmental campaigner who stands up for her constituents and for the many businesses, including tourism businesses, that are adversely affected by the appalling state of our waters. It is clear that regulation and governance have been inadequate for a long time. This is a reset moment, where we can finally strengthen those things and deliver the clean water that her constituents, mine and those of all Members across the House expect to see.

Oral Answers to Questions

Polly Billington Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new seat and congratulate him on winning the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ Massingham advocacy award. The Department remains vigilant to potential global disease threats and has robust measures in place to prevent and detect disease incursion. We will be looking at funding as part of the spending review, but I pay tribute to those officials and veterinary officers who are working so hard to tackle the outbreaks that the hon. Gentleman mentioned.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

T7. Margate, Broadstairs and Ramsgate are bywords for the English seaside holiday, but Thanet district council has to deal with the appalling levels of littering and fly-tipping that come with the popularity of our beautiful beaches. At the end of a hot, sunny day, 5,000 people will have descended on Margate main sands, leaving them far from beautiful. The rubbish is an environmental and health hazard. Of course, the challenge is a seasonal one. What plans do the Government have to support coastal communities in tackling this blight?

[Mary Creagh]

I welcome my hon. Friend to her place. We need to educate the public and ourselves that there is no such place as “away” and that when we bring our children and our picnics to the beach, we should consume the food and leave only footprints in the sand. I am convening a circular economy taskforce, and we will look at seasonal needs as part of that.

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[The Solicitor General]

The main lesson that we can take from this is how well the system can work when all of its constituent parts—the police, the leadership at the top of Government, and the CPS—all pull in the same direction. That approach will inform this Government’s commitment to mission-led government, which will bring all the key elements of the criminal justice system together and ensure that decisions are taken with the whole system in mind. That will particularly apply to the mission on halving violence against women and girls.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

6. What steps she is taking to help ensure the effective prosecution of street crime.

[The Solicitor General (Sarah Sackman)]

This Government have made tackling antisocial behaviour, which blights our streets and threatens many of our communities, a top priority. The new crime and policing Bill announced in the King’s Speech will include strong measures to tackle antisocial behaviour, to support neighbourhood policing and to give the police stronger powers to crack down on antisocial behaviour and keep our streets safe.

[Ms Billington]

What we have noticed, particularly in town centres such as Ramsgate and Margate, is that antisocial behaviour, drug dealing and street crime, particularly knife crime, continue because of people’s anxiety about giving evidence against the criminals. What will my hon. and learned Friend and the Government do to give people confidence that the criminal justice system and prosecutions will flow once they have given their evidence?

[The Solicitor General]

Just this week the Prime Minister met police, victims, families and media companies specifically to discuss knife crime, which plagues my hon. Friend’s community and many others across the country. The Prime Minister has promised to double down on these crimes, and to halve them in the next decade. I am part of a cross-departmental team that will work to deliver this. The Government are committed to taking back our streets by increasing the amount of neighbourhood policing, recruiting more prosecutors to deal swiftly with these crimes and bringing forward laws to ban zombie knives and machetes.