Sewage
Debate between Roz Savage and Angus MacDonald(2 days, 8 hours ago)
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Dr Savage
I completely agree. Although I commend those grassroots efforts, that is not their job. I was delighted to hear from the Secretary of State that we will soon have real-time reporting on water pollution, and I look forward to seeing the visible—and smellable—results of that. It is also the Earthwatch WaterBlitz this weekend, so hon. Members may still have time to get their water testing kits do their own bit of citizen science.
Secondly, again, I applaud local efforts, and especially the Malmesbury River Valleys Trust and the Cotswold Lakes Trust, for doing such exemplary work in taking care of our waterways and our wetlands in the South Cotswolds. I recommend to hon. Members across the House that we use our power to convene to bring together people around these issues. In the South Cotswolds, we recently held two fruitful summits—one on the Gloucestershire side and one on the Wiltshire side—bringing people together on the issue of flooding. They yielded a lot of enthusiasm, expertise and actionable solutions. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Frome and East Somerset (Anna Sabine) mentioned, we cannot leave it all to the grassroots. We have a deeply dysfunctional water industry in this country, and we need to get upstream of these problems to the source.
Mr Angus MacDonald
We have been hearing all about monitoring in one hour and the huge amounts of discharges. We do not have any of that information in Scotland as it is not a requirement for Scottish Water to release that and the SNP Government are not taking any steps to do so. We have no idea about the extent of the problem, but we know that it is substantial. Will my hon. Friend back me in supporting the cause for the Scottish Government to release the same information as there is England?
Dr Savage
I would be more than happy to back my hon. Friend’s calls for an equivalent system in Scotland.
Finally, I thank the Government for everything they are already doing to reform the water industry and look forward to seeing real results in our waterways. I will add that, while I welcome the Cunliffe review, I was disappointed to find out that the ownership of water companies is outside its scope.