Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent steps he has taken to reduce the levels of (a) nitrogen dioxide and (b) particulate matter in air.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The nitrogen dioxide (NO2) programme has allocated £883m to support local authorities to address NO2 exceedances. This funding has supported measures including vehicle upgrade and scrappage schemes, improved traffic management, and better cycling infrastructure.
New PM2.5 targets were recently set as part of the Environment Act. These targets focus on reducing PM2.5 where concentrations are highest as well as ensuring population exposure is reduced across the country. Meeting these targets will require action across a range of sectors and has included legislation to restrict the sale of wet wood, coal and high sulphur manufactured solid fuels for use in domestic premises. Since January 2022 all stoves placed on the market in the United Kingdom must be Ecodesign compliant. These requirements have been accompanied by an ongoing communication campaign aimed at raising awareness and educating people on the risks of burning solid fuels, encouraging those that need to burn to do so as cleanly and efficiently as possible.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps is he taking to neutralise sewage in rivers.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Through the Government's expanded Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan, published in September 2023, we have set stringent targets for water companies to reduce their use of storm overflows.
The Plan requires that water companies must significantly reduce harmful pathogens from storm overflows discharging near designated bathing waters, by either: applying disinfection; or reducing the frequency of discharges to meet Environment Agency spill standards by 2035. It also sets out that water companies will only be permitted to discharge from a storm overflow where they can demonstrate that there is no local adverse ecological impact. This target must be achieved for all storm overflows in England by 2050.
Furthermore, new provisions in the Water Industry Act, inserted by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, will address pollution at source by placing a new statutory duty on water companies in designated catchments to upgrade wastewater treatment works by 2030, reducing the impact of sewage on our waterways and the people who use them.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how river water quality is tested for sewage releases.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Monitoring data provides the Environment Agency (EA) with information for different needs and uses, including environmental health surveillance, effective regulation and incident management. Various monitoring programmes fulfil these information needs.
The EA‘s monitoring collects and makes available essential measurements on water quality (chemistry and physico-chemistry), ecology (including fish, invertebrates, plants and algae), all of which can be impacted by sewage. Where there is a serious incident involving the release of untreated sewage, which could have a significant impact on the environment, the EA may collect samples to determine the level of impact, and in some cases for the provision of evidence in formal investigations.
To aid further monitoring, the government has brought forward new measures under the Environment Act 2021 to require sewerage undertakers to monitor sewerage assets and the impact they have on the local environment. This data will allow water companies to better target their investments in infrastructure and allow regulators to monitor how successful these improvements are.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will (a) take steps to set targets for water companies to end sewage releases and (b) ensure that water companies invest in infrastructure.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is clear that the amount of sewage currently being discharged into our waters is unacceptable. Through the government’s Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan we have set stringent targets for water companies to reduce the use of storm overflows, driving the largest infrastructure programme in water company history of £60 billion over 25 years. This Plan prioritises early action at sensitive sites, so that by 2035, water companies will have: improved all storm overflows discharging near every designated bathing water; and improved 75% of storm overflows discharging into or near high priority sites such as SSSIs.
Water company investment in environmental improvements has been scaled up to £7.1 billion over the period 2020 – 25. This includes £3.1 billion invested in storm overflow improvements specifically. Furthermore, we expect water companies to use the next five-year Price Review period (2025-2030) to set bold and ambitious plans that deliver for people and the environment.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure that the polluter pays principle is upheld on sewage releases.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is clear that water companies must not profit from environmental damage and that those responsible for pollution must pay. On 12 February, we announced that Ofwat will be consulting on banning water bosses from receiving bonuses if a company has committed a serious criminal breach. This builds on Ofwat’s announcements last year to tighten restrictions on bonuses and dividends so that consumer bills never reward pollution.
We have also legislated to introduce unlimited penalties on water companies who breach their environmental permits and expand the range of offences to which penalties can be applied, giving the Environment Agency the tools, they need to hold water companies to account. Fines and penalties will be reinvested into cleaning our rivers through the establishment of a Water Restoration Fund (WRF), as outlined in the Plan for Water. Further information on the WRF will be provided in due course.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he expects sewage release levels to be reduced.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Through the Government’s Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan (SODRP) we have set stringent targets for water companies to reduce the use of storm overflows, driving the largest infrastructure programme in water company history of £60 billion over 25 years. These stringent targets will prevent hundreds of thousands of storm overflow discharges every year.
An indicative trajectory of spill reductions can be found on page 19 of the government’s Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan which is publicly available on the government website (Storm overflows discharge reduction plan - GOV.UK ).
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what data his Department holds on sewage releases into York on (a) the River Foss and (b) River Ouse and their tributories in each of the last 5 years for which data is available.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
There are two key datasets that provide information on Water Company sewage releases.
Event Duration Monitoring (EDM) provides information on when and for how long sewage discharges have occurred. All EDM data is published online annually since 2020
Operator Self-Monitoring (OSM) compliance sample data is self-reported by the water companies and provides information on the quality of the final effluent which is discharged from sewage treatment works with numeric limits in their permits. This data is available for the Foss and Ouse and their tributaries for each of the last 5 years via: Open WIMS data.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much his Department has invested in flood resilience in each of the last five years.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency counts properties flooded during all flood events, with final numbers verified by local flood authorities. Additionally, the Environment Agency looks at long term national trends, rates of optimal spend, but only calculates the economic costs of an actual flood in occasional circumstances due to the significant time and cost associated with undertaking the reports. Therefore, data is not collated on an annual basis.
Since 2010, there are costs of flood reports for the major events of winter 2013/14 and winter 2015/16. It is estimated the 2013/14 winter floods caused approximately £1.3 billion of damage and the 2015/16 winter floods caused approximately £1.6 billion of damage.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the cost to the public purse was of flooding in each of the last five years.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency counts properties flooded during all flood events, with final numbers verified by local flood authorities. Additionally, the Environment Agency looks at long term national trends, rates of optimal spend, but only calculates the economic costs of an actual flood in occasional circumstances due to the significant time and cost associated with undertaking the reports. Therefore, data is not collated on an annual basis.
Since 2010, there are costs of flood reports for the major events of winter 2013/14 and winter 2015/16. It is estimated the 2013/14 winter floods caused approximately £1.3 billion of damage and the 2015/16 winter floods caused approximately £1.6 billion of damage.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many properties have had property level resilience measures installed in each of the last five years.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The information requested is not held centrally and to obtain it would incur disproportionate costs.