Transport Infrastructure: Devon and Somerset

Debate between Richard Foord and Ian Liddell-Grainger

Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I am incredibly grateful to the Minister, as always. He is right, and I was going to come on to HS2. I know that he sympathises with this, because he has a huge rural constituency, bigger than any in Devon. The road system up there is challenging, as I know—I used to live in it—not least because he has got the military running all over a part of his constituency.

The Minister is right: we have got to embrace that money. If nothing else, the message I give today to all colleagues is that Devon, Somerset and other counties need to get together, to start buying very expensive but very clever machines. There are ways to do that, and the Minister is right that the Prime Minister has led the way with this windfall, thank the Lord. It is marvellous to have it, and we should use every penny we can.

There is no secret that in Somerset we have a financial crisis. It is very difficult at the moment. We have managed to get through this year—we are fine—but next year is not looking so good. We have a lot of work to do, and if we do not do the work on roads, they just get worse. Then more money is required, and it a self-fulfilling prophecy. We have to help places that do not have the money—the same goes for Buckinghamshire and other counties that have the same problem. Devon is not in the same position, as my hon. Friend has already said—the county has been extremely generous and has got extra money out of its own resources, as we are all aware, which is tremendous—but we do need a better system.

One thing that has always struck me is that it is up to us—not just MPs, but county councillors—to ensure we work to try to resolve this. All of us walk or drive round our areas. How many times have we been down potholes? I quite often end up in hedgerows with punctures—as you can well imagine, Mr Streeter, knowing that my driving does not bear much scrutiny. It is infuriating but, if we do not say where the potholes are, we cause a problem for ourselves.

One of the biggest problems we all face is the size of tractors, which has increased enormously since we were young, dare I say. Tractors are now lane-filling. Devon and Somerset roads were never designed for that size of tractors, big lorries or some big cars. The weight of tractors has gone through the roof. What they now haul is hugely heavier than it used to be. That is one of the biggest problems we face, because they cause more and more damage. As one drives around both counties, it is the structure of the sides of the roads that is causing the problems. We have to be much more aware that farming damages roads, but there is nothing we can do about it. The farmers have every right to be there and need to be, but we need to cover that up.

This is my last point before I sit down and give way to the Minister, who I know has a lot to say on this. I am really disappointed about certain parts of Devon, which I am beginning to learn about, and especially Mid Devon District Council, which I find iniquitous. It should be scrutinising this, as should everyone else. I know it happens in Somerset and Devon counties. We would not have got the money if it had not. That is the point: they should scrutinise. To learn that the head of scrutiny has now legged it because it all got a bit tough and hard is pathetic. We need proper scrutiny.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

In a minute.

I find it ridiculous that we cannot get this sorted. That is a ridiculous position for us to find ourselves in. Some people need to start thinking about what they are there for. MPs have a responsibility, which can be seen every day in newspapers, and we know what we suffer. I just wish a few of the councillors who are meant to represent their areas would do the same.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Foord]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way and commend him for securing this debate. Devon County Council is the local authority responsible for roads in Devon and the leader of Devon County Council, John Hart, said last year:

“They gave us £9.5 million and I hate to say it but £7 million of that went in inflation”.

He also said of that £9.5 million that it

“is a drop in the ocean.”

Does the hon. Member agree that the county council is responsible for roads and that the potholes we see are ultimately the responsibility of central Government?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I can see why the hon. Member was in the education corps. Where does one start? I think I will start with a sigh. That is better; I now feel fresh to go on.

John Hart, who I knew nearly 30 years ago, has led a council and has made massive differences. He has just announced that he will stand down after a very long period and I respect that. He has made £10 million available. He has taken his responsibility for roads in Devon deadly seriously. His achievement is remarkable, given that Devon has more roads than Belgium—am I right, Mr Streeter? I think that is right. My hon. Friend the Member for East Devon has made it quite clear that Devon has stepped up to the mark.

As for the hon. Member for the education corps—God help us!—scrutiny should be scrutiny. You can scrutinise anything you want—that is the point. I have always found that the best way to scrutinise is to take scrutiny down to a local level, because we live with those potholes in our areas. We live with them, not just as MPs, but as constituents and members of district councils. I therefore find the hon. Gentleman’s question iniquitously ridiculous.

On that happy note, Mr Streeter, I sit down. Thank you.

South West Water: Environmental Performance

Debate between Richard Foord and Ian Liddell-Grainger

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the environmental performance of South West Water.

I am delighted to have secured this debate on South West Water, Mr Hollobone. South West Water looks after Devon and Cornwall, yet it has been dumping raw sewage in the lovely rivers of Devon and Cornwall for years. For 10 disgraceful years, South West Water has dished out huge dividends to its shareholders instead of investing to clean up its own filthy act. For 10 deplorable years, South West Water has been rated red by the Environment Agency—red for appalling, red for risky, red for downright dangerous. People can buy its shares if they fancy it and are brave enough, but they should look out, because this company has been borrowing its way out of trouble for many years.

Pre-privatisation South West Water was debt free, but two years ago it was in hock to the tune of £2 billion. It has reduced the debt a little bit, but with rising costs and the threat of a big stick from the regulators—rightly so—South West Water looks like, I am afraid to say, a very dodgy stock in which to place money. The company’s chief financial officer has left, and who can blame him? South West Water is now under severe and serious investigation for massaging statistics. It has lied about the scale of the ongoing pollution. It has already been fined over £2 million for dumping poo in the recent past. It does not even make the water; it sells it. God makes water! It sells water, and charges the highest price in Britain for every drop used.

South West Water also loses water at a frightening rate through burst pipes and its own broken promises to repair them. Almost 127 million litres a day goes down the drain. I will repeat that: 127 million litres. It would matter less if it had enough water to last, but it does not. There are two reservoirs in the area; one is in Roadford in Devon, and the other is Wimbleball, the big lake on Exmoor. Needless to say, South West Water did not build either of them. They were constructed in the days before privatisation.

The only addition that South West Water seems to have made is a highly unpopular timeshare village, believe it or not, on the banks of Roadwater lake, and guess what? It did it for money, of course. South West Water leaks like a sieve, it makes its customers pay through the nose and it is rapidly running out of storage space for what is left. None of us should be surprised that South West Water still has a hosepipe ban in place—the only one in Britain. It is a complete joke.

The Government have been passing laws to trample on obscene bonuses, often awarded in the name of protecting the environment. The Lord-Lieutenant of Devon is one such recipient. In principle, I am all in favour of hitting the culprits hard where it hurts—in their wallets. It is a good idea, but the Minister and her team probably did not reckon on the ingenious methods used by some of the water companies. South West Water is not the only one, but it is the one that I am concentrating on.

When it became clear that it could not get away with pumping poo into the rivers willy-nilly and then paying each other fat bungs for saving the planet, South West Water had a little rethink. Surprise, surprise—guess what? It decided to award handsome bonuses for meeting its financial targets instead. Funnily enough, it was an idea borrowed from Wessex Water. You do not really invent the wheel; it goes round. When that ruse fails, South West Water will probably move the goalposts again. Who knows? They might start awarding each other big bungs for helping old ladies to cross the road.

In the water industry, more or less anything is acceptable these days, which is bizarre. For example, last week the BBC—yes, the BBC—did something very unusual. It did some good old-fashioned journalism. That is amazing —not dance-offs, but journalism. It produced a story that I think would have chilled the Minister to her core, along with many others. Water companies are allowed to dump raw or partly treated sewage on a strictly limited basis, when the weather is really wet and the pipes would get overloaded, and they need a permit to do so. Some bright spark at the Beeb—and that is going some—wondered whether it could be discovered exactly when the discharges happened and what the weather was like at the time, and to look at all water companies. The results of these inquiries were shocking.

The BBC found out that 388 dumps—if you will pardon my expression, Mr Hollobone—took place in bone-dry conditions, which is illegal, yet this is probably only the tip of a very smelly scandal, because so few water companies provided any information whatsoever. All nine water companies were sent requests about when their spills started and when they stopped, but only Thames, Southern and Wessex provided details. The BBC cross-referenced those with the Met Office’s rainfall data and found that most of the spills took place during the drought last year. As an example, take Wessex, which covers my and the Minister’s constituencies. It admitted 215 individual spills at 68 different sites that lasted more than 60 hot, rainless days. That is one hell of a lot of illegal poo. My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) looks quizzical, but he can ask the BBC if he wishes.

The Beeb had to rely on water companies’ own monitoring equipment, but—surprise, surprise—South West Water claimed it could not help because it has very old equipment; more likely is that it just could not be bothered to reply. I am afraid it is a bit like Russell Brand: not to be trusted. South West Water has a broken moral compass and a cavalier attitude to its own filth. In my view, it is a working certainty that South West Water was and still is quietly pumping pollution into our rivers, but we do not know how much or when.

The people who ought to be finding out are equally powerless to do so. The Environment Agency does not have the manpower or the time to investigate every single infringement. It has to rely on information from the companies themselves. In 2010, its budget was halved, and austerity came at a price. The Environment Agency no longer audits water companies every year, which it is meant to do by law. Only a third of all audits, to check if companies are telling the truth about pollution and illegal sewage, take place. Audits for South West Water, with its dismal record of pollution, are missing for eight of the last 13 years. I repeat: missing for eight of the last 13 years.

This company of ruthless, money-grabbing cowboys makes Al Capone look like an angel. South West Water is by far and away the worst water company in this country. The chief executive was paid £456,000 last year, which is four times more than the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and you should see the size of the bonuses these people get, Mr Hollobone. The same chief executive could have cleaned up an extra £450,000 this year, but she reckoned it would be good PR to turn it down—it makes her look like a caring type of chief exec, doesn’t it—so I will be coming round with a begging bowl a bit later if you could give generously to help her.

Let us not forget the company’s chair, the squeaky clean figurehead of Pennon Group, who was appointed deliberately to add gravitas to the grubby business of getting rid of what goes down the toilet. Her name is Gill Rider—actually, Dr Gill Rider, but if she wants to give you the botty probe, say no. She did five years at the top of the Cabinet Office, so she should jolly well understand what it takes for leaks and dirty deeds. She is also president of the Marine Biological Association, which was set up to help protect the environment of our coasts. What a wonderful irony that is, given that South West Water sewage ends up in the sea.

Miss Rider is of course the non-executive chairperson of Pennon Group, which is why I am afraid the poor lady has to scrape by on £113,000 a year. Perhaps it was her who suggested hiring a firm of top City lawyers to scare off local news organisations, and the Minister is aware of this. The editors were bullied by a City law firm into censoring my press releases about this company for fear of writs for defamation. Those are the tactics of mobsters, but I am afraid that Dr Gill Rider is used to getting her own way. One foot out of line, and you risk ending up with a severed horse’s head on your pillow—or perhaps, unfortunately, dead fish in the river.

That reminds me that there is in Tiverton an almost dead building firm called 3 Rivers Developments. It was conceived by senior officers in Mid Devon District Council, next to the Exe. They thought it would solve their financial problems. They have never built a Lego house, never mind a real one. They do not have a clue. Six years and £21 million later, the company is stony broke. There is an irony in all that. The kindest thing would be to cut their losses and shut it down—full administration, which is the only way to get to the bottom of what has gone on. We understand that as MPs—we have seen it in our seats—but the Liberal loonies decided to let it limp on, haemorrhaging public money. By the way, this is a political party that promised big change in Mid Devon. They cannot even change themselves. I noticed with some alarm that one of the members elected to Tiverton Town Council in May has not turned up for a single meeting—my hon. Friend the Minister looks shocked—so it is no wonder that people are calling for a by-election to unseat him.

The Liberal MP for the area, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord), who is in his place, ought to be—dare I say it—kicking the backsides of South West Water on a painful and regular basis. I gather that he would like the company to be reformed. I am sure that South West Water will take his views with the seriousness they deserve—and take no notice at all. I will do the kicking, because that is the job of an MP. I have attacked South West Water once, twice, three times, four times. I will not rest until this is sorted, and I have sharp toecaps. I have already highlighted the shortcomings of the Environment Agency and Ofwat—the regulators are far from rapid in their response to water company excesses—but I must say to my hon. Friend the Minister that her Department, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, is responsible. I gently say that the Department cannot plead complete innocence. I recognise that the Minister has worked hard—she is my neighbour in Taunton—to steer tough new water legislation through Westminster. It is good news to be able to offer limitless fines as a punishment for polluting our rivers—fantastic. But the whole exercise is pointless if the agencies cannot enforce the law. That is what is happening, and it should not be.

I am sure that the Minister will recall the Environment Act 2021. It created the brand-new Office for Environmental Protection, which is charged with holding everybody who is responsible to account. Ministers, Departments and agencies all come under the new OEP, and the new OEP has already spoken. The OEP opened an investigation into the Environment Agency, Ofwat and DEFRA last June, amid concerns that they had not properly been enforcing the law. At the heart of the case, the OEP said, was whether those bodies were correctly interpreting what count as “extraordinary circumstances”. Now, that is open to interpretation. Water companies have been granted permits to discharge sewage into rivers and seas hundreds of thousands of times a year when their network has been overwhelmed by rainwater—we have had serious flooding in Somerset, as the Minister knows, over the last 48 hours—on the basis that such rainfalls were considered “extraordinary circumstances”. The OEP, however, believes that DEFRA, the EA and Ofwat may be being too lenient in interpreting the law. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister and her Department to defend themselves against the public body that they created. This is a monumental mess.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I give way to the Member for the women’s auxiliary ballerina corps.

[Richard Foord]

The hon. Member is giving a bombastic speech of which the late Lord Flashheart would have been very proud. What does he think of the actions of the Government in this space? Although he seeks to shift the blame on to water companies or regulators, the Government ultimately have the responsibility for the regulation of South West Water and for holding it to account.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

More to be pitied than scolded, Mr Hollobone. I would say to the hon. Member that he must listen to what Members in this House say. We are not complete morons. I have laid out why I was saying what I was doing. I have made the point.

I know that my hon. Friend the Minister, whom I have worked with for over a decade, understands that there is much to do, and the OEP has made it clear that DEFRA, the EA and Ofwat have a lot to answer for. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton may not know this as a new MP—I understand the limitations—but DEFRA is a Government Department. It is the Department for Environment, Food And Rural Affairs, as my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland mouthed with me— I am grateful to him for that.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton needs to sit up and listen. He really does. Quite honestly, I wish he was a little more proactive on South West Water, because all we get from him is resounding silence. I know he was a major in the education corps, but that is not an excuse.

My hon. Friend the Minister’s constituency includes Taunton, which is on a flood plain—we are the levels—so she knows how important water is. Will she say in response what action the OEP needs to take? How are we going to get South West Water to actually do the job, because its staff and team are not doing it and it is going to go bankrupt at some point because it is haemorrhaging money? How we are going to stop this before we all end up back in Westminster Hall or the main Chamber saying, “What did we miss?” I am glad that the Minister is in her place, and I look forward, as always, to hearing her words of wisdom.

Levelling Up: South-west

Debate between Richard Foord and Ian Liddell-Grainger

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I am incredibly grateful for that intervention, not only because my hon. Friend has done sterling work in the south-west and is well known and revered for it but because the A303 has been a labour of love for him; I know that it has been incredibly hard. For 22 years, Sir Charles—as you know, I have been here that long, God help you—it has been a bone of contention, but I think that my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) has managed to move it on further than almost any of us, and I congratulate him on that. The A303 is crucial for all of us.

That neatly brings me on to the fact that Sedgemoor smoothed the way for building Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, as my colleagues are well aware. This was a mammoth task for a local council. It did a superb job, an amazing job, on a £25 billion project, which nobody had done for a generation. Sedgemoor has also been working incredibly hard to attract the latest innovations to the town. The chances are that the latest opportunity will soon be announced. I cannot say what it is, but it is called Gravity and it is on an old bombsite outside Bridgwater; it goes to 626 acres. I think that we will hopefully be announcing good news on that soon. Again, that will help the whole south-west with a massive input—

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

Yes, I give way to the education corps.

[Richard Foord]

It is really good to hear about the work of Sedgemoor District Council and the excellent bid that the hon. Member put his weight behind. When I became MP for Tiverton and Honiton last year, I gave my endorsement to a bid by Mid Devon District Council to build a relief road at Cullompton. This and a railway station at Cullompton would be fantastic in easing congestion and improving people’s health. Does the hon. Member agree with me that Mid Devon District Council was right to prioritise the levelling-up fund bid for the relief road at Cullompton?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the intervention. I did say earlier that there was a lack of intelligence in some of these bids, and the hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Perhaps having had a little bit more intelligence from, if I may say so, certain people could have been a little bit more helpful. It is a great shame that we did not get what was bid for. That is a great shame. But I can give an assurance that although Cullompton will not be in the new constituency, I think that it is in our interests to work together to try to get this. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister has been very good on this and that I and my neighbours will be having a conservation with her about it. I think that we can probably do something and add intelligence to it, if I may be so proud—who needs the education corps?

Meanwhile, just over the border, the district council—dare I say it to the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord)?—limps along. Since May, it has been under Lib Dem management, but it is absolutely rudderless. The new Lib Dem leader—forgive me, but his name has escaped me—has announced that he will only work part time. Perhaps that is actually a blessing for everybody—you never can tell these days. It certainly shares out the spoils of running a council exclusively among themselves. This is why we need people who can do the job. All the councillors running the main committees are, yes, Liberal Democrats. That includes the important scrutiny committee —yes, exactly. There is considerable doubt whether the Lib Dem lady who chairs the committee is able to scrutinise anything, including her own shopping list.

[Richard Foord]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

No. The Lib Dems said that they were going to scrap bigger charges for car parks. Guess what? They are putting them up. The new councillors could have reneged on their annual increase in allowances —now up to £5,600 a year. They voted to abstain, dare I say it? I do not know how you vote to abstain, but never mind. So they get paid anyway. The new council leader, whatever his name is, also picks up £16,800 for his extra responsibility of being a part-time leader—and you wonder why these bids fail. That makes £22,000 in total. “Ching”, as the cash register goes. To think that they promised to be totally transparent. The truth is that these people are not transparent at all; they are totally invisible. Levelling up demands visibility—that is something that I have learned. Very vocal, completely focused local authorities need to argue the case. It has been proved that that is how to get results.

What price for Mid Devon’s part-timers? A vital new high school is needed in Tiverton. I am grateful for the Minister’s incredible help on that. Just before Christmas last year, the Government said, “Yes, the money is ready and waiting.” It is still waiting. We know the issue, and I thank the Government for their help. Seven months later, no progress has been made. Did anybody ask? Well, I have asked, and we are getting to the bottom of it. That is what this is about. Does the part-time leader of the council, Mr Thingummybob, pick up the blower and complain? Who knows what has become of the other invisible people, including the one who was suddenly catapulted, dare I say it, closer to here, last seen with clipboards and pencils preparing a strategy.

Levelling up means many things, but usually it means the unequal treatment of rural parts of the south-west. That is most important: we are rural areas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I completely agree, as I have already said, about local, intelligent, highly-motivated people. Having been in Somerset now for 25 years, St Paul’s is slightly legendary. It does need help. We have to say that. Talk to the police in Bridgwater: St Paul’s is always an issue. The Minister will have heard the second part of what the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) said, and I cannot disagree. It is vital. In the middle of Bristol is one of the most affluent areas of the south-west, but outside of Bristol it is completely different. The hon. Member’s seat has challenges. We all have to face up to that. I know the job that he does, and it is difficult.

I will move on—with more abuse, if I may. Yesterday morning, I received a self-congratulatory letter from Project Gigabit’s Minister of State telling me about the wonderful developments of bringing ultra-fast broadband to the extremities of Somerset and Devon. I had a giggle about that. There is no encouraging news for either of the counties, partly because the broadband roll-out has been left in the incapable hands of “Project Useless”, actually known as Connecting Devon and Somerset. CDS is a total cock-up. It was designed—I think that is loosely the word—by someone in a hurry and without a fully functioning brain. There does not seem to be anybody on the board capable of understanding the technology or writing a contract. How many times have we had problems? As a result, millions have been committed in public money to an organisation that could not deliver. Now Connecting Devon and Somerset is still failing to deliver, and it is two years behind schedule.

Do not bother storming round to the CDS office, because it does not have one, which is great. It is run by councillors, who are mostly part time, across the two counties, and employs only a handful of people, who are doing their best but are basically not up to the job. We need to move on. We have to sort out broadband in rural areas across all our counties. The same goes for the management of what turns out to be the worst water company in the United Kingdom. Never mind Thames Water, we have South West Water. It overpays its top team, dumps sewage in rivers, fails to invest in new reservoirs, yet wants to be treated like a paragon of virtue. It sells services in Bristol and Bournemouth as well as in Devon and Cornwall. They are up to their necks in it.

[Richard Foord]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

No. Anyway, I received a jolly little email from the PR chief, which I would like to share. I will read, if I may, the first paragraph of the email I got yesterday, addressed to “Dear Mr Liddell-Grainger”, which was spelled correctly.

“I wanted to get in touch in advance of your levelling-up debate. May I congratulate you on securing this important debate? If you are planning to attend this debate on Tuesday I would be grateful if you or your team could confirm this.”

That is a water company supplying millions of people with water, yet is not sure I am turning up for my own debate. What hope have the rivers and fish of Somerset and Devon got, with people like that? If I may, I would also like to bring in potholes, the bane of all our lives.