Thames in Oxford: Bathing Water Status

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure, as ever, to see you in the Chair, Dame Angela. I thank the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) for raising this issue on behalf of her constituents. Of course, it is an issue that many people are talking about. I like the image of her in her wetsuit and I am sorry she did not get to use it. I am a bit of a coward when it comes to the cold. I always wear my wetsuit, even in high summer in Cornwall when I go to the bathing water areas there, which I recommend. It’s great.

The hon. Lady knows—at least, I hope she is getting the message—that the Government have made improving our water quality an absolute priority, and it is a personal priority of mine. I hope colleagues understand that. I worked closely with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) on what was going to be a private Member’s Bill and we rolled it over into the Environment Bill. I have worked with other Members here. My door is always open to talk about these issues, because we want to improve our water quality. I am sure the hon. Lady knows that I have put the water companies on notice. They are under the microscope and things need to improve.

I will touch on the Environment Bill, although the hon. Lady promised that we would not get bogged down in that. She knows that we voted through six pages of measures in the Environment Bill the other day when I was at the Dispatch Box in the main Chamber, and they were all things to improve water quality and to tackle sewage pollution in particular. I made it crystal clear to the water companies that what has been happening is unacceptable.

The Government have also introduced new environment measures that will require water companies to report in as near real time as possible on storm sewage overflows—in fact, within an hour of their being used. That will make a significant difference to how the Environment Agency can then enforce those measures. Those things will be positive. As well as all the other measures introduced in the Bill, the Government announced in the other place the other day that we will further strengthen the Bill with an amendment to ensure that water companies secure a progressive reduction in the adverse effects of the discharges. We have worked very closely with colleagues on that, and we are going in the right direction. All that gold-plates what we have already flagged to the regulator, Ofwat, in the draft policy statement. It has to make it a top priority for water companies to reduce their use of storm sewage overflows, which is the first time a Government have done that. Also, DEFRA has to produce a plan for all that by September 2022. So movement is happening, and it needs to.

The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon talked about water quality in detail, and there are many pressures on our water environment that affect it. It is not just storm sewage overflows. It all relates to our growing population, intensive farming, climate change, chemical use and so forth. We need to collectively address all those things in order to return our water to its near natural state. The Government are determined to do that. I put on the record that £30 billion has already been invested by the water companies since 1990, and they have achieved a significant reduction in phosphates and ammonia, but there is a lot more still to do.

The hon. Lady mentioned enforcement, and I am pleased to say that we have provided additional funding for the EA to increase farm inspections nationwide over the next 18 months. That will include an extra 50 inspectors carrying out more than 1,000 inspections this financial year. They will target areas of particular concern initially—for example, the River Wye, the Solent, the Somerset levels in my constituency, and Lyme bay. We have also committed additional funding for extra catchment-sensitive officers to work on the ground to tackle land use on the agricultural side, which also impacts on our pollution. We have support for farmers to help deliver on that.

The bathing water issue is obviously the crux of the debate. There are more than 400 designated bathing waters in England, mostly around the coast, because we are an island. That is a difference between France and us. They are managed to protect the public’s health. The EA regularly takes samples and tests the bacteria level because the water needs to be clean and safe for swimmers. We recently introduced a new measure for water companies to monitor those sites all year round and give data, which is very useful for swimmers, surfers and others. There has been good progress over the past 30 years, but there is clearly more to be done.

More than £2.5 billion has been invested by English water companies to improve bathing water since privatisation. Figures in those bathing areas are good on the whole: 98.3% of bathing waters in England pass the minimum test and, of those, 70% achieved excellent ratings. That compares with 28% in 1990. I was an environment correspondent in the west region and regularly reported on those sites. I can confirm that things have improved since those days, but there is certainly more to do.

We welcome applications for bathing water designations for both coastal and inland sites. They are used by many people and we believe more people would use them. Coronavirus has demonstrated how valuable they are. When an application is received, it is reviewed against Government criteria, which are on the gov.uk site. If it meets those criteria, a consultation is run, as happened in the Wharfe area, as my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) will know. Following that, a final decision is made about whether the site can be designated. If so, the aim is to designate it the following season.

If a site were to receive the designation of bathing water status, the EA is enabled to spring into action and look at what is needed to improve the water quality to meet the standards set by the regulation. It could add a requirement to the water industry natural environment programme—WINEP as we call it—for funding for the next price review, for example. If necessary, the EA assessment could include discussing options with Ofwat, to explore bringing forward investment. There are measures, as the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon well knows.

As has been mentioned, this year my Department designated the River Wharfe in Ilkley. We are currently considering the application, received just two weeks ago, from Oxford City Council. We received letters of support from the hon. Members for Oxford West and Abingdon and for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), as well as from Thames Water, making clear how proactively it wants to support this, which is welcome.

I met the chief executive at my chalk stream restoration strategy launch recently, and she told me how determined the company is to get to grips with the storm sewage overflows. It has made a commitment to get close to real-time notifications on all discharges, and expects to have that up and running by 2022. That will obviously be significant for this application. The point is that water quality will not change overnight; it will not be instant. That is why all the other actions to reduce the overall levels of pollution, taken by farmers, landowners, the industry and other combinations, are so important. Multiple organisations will be involved, as they are in the Ilkley area.

We heard references to some other areas. I am heartened that we are getting those other applications because it means we can genuinely get moving. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley for the work he is pushing on that. Similarly, I look forward to hearing from my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow about the River Teme application and the work that he is doing; he is doing such good work on this issue. I have already met the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) about Windermere.

Local authorities have been able to apply for bathing water status since 2013 and every year my Department writes to them to ask them if they would like to put forward a site. Interestingly, how many such applications do hon. Members think we have had since 2013? Five. Obviously, each application is considered, and of those five applications four have gone forward. So this is a new world of bathing water that we are looking at.

[Robbie Moore]

Anyone can submit an application, as we saw in Ilkley, where it was not the local authority that submitted the application; it was our hard-working, dedicated campaign group that was at the forefront in submitting that application. I just wanted to reiterate the point that this process is open to everyone to get involved with.

[Dame Angela Eagle (in the Chair)]

Order. We are talking about bathing water in the Thames at the moment. I have given some leeway, but let us not stray too far.

[Rebecca Pow]

Thank you very much, Dame Angela, for getting us back on track and enabling us to get back to Oxford. However, my hon. Friend made a very good point and we genuinely understand everybody’s strength of feeling about swimming in their local area.

[Tim Farron]

I am very much guided by your words, Dame Angela. I was very interested to hear what the Minister said about the number of applications made by local authorities; the hon. Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) made the point that other people can also make applications. However, is the Minister saying that—whether it is the Thames, Windermere, a river in Kent or any other river or waterway—if local authorities make a request for bathing site status for one of their waterways, that request will be taken seriously and considered?

[Rebecca Pow]

I had hoped that I had already made that clear. There is a process, which is set out on the gov.uk website. What has to be done and the procedures that have to be gone through are set out very clearly. Then there is a consultation and consideration of the feasibility of an application.

However, I must reiterate that there are other requirements, which the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon mentioned. There is also a particular emphasis on safety; for example, will life-saving equipment be provided? Is there space for all the people who might turn up and will they be provided for, with parking spaces, cafés and toilets? All those things then become part of the whole discussion about whether a site is a suitable area for bathing. As I say, safety—keeping people safe when they are swimming—is obviously a really key issue.

I will wind up there. As a Government, we recognise the real health benefits of healthy waters and the importance of managing them well. Of course, all this links in to everything we are doing this very week at COP26 to have a healthy, sustainable planet on which we can all live and thrive.

Question put and agreed to.