Environment Bill

Debate between Ruth Edwards and Tony Lloyd

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I hope that the Minister does listen. Although the Government recognised that there was no need to use the exemption this year because of the weather conditions, that may not apply next year or the year after, so we need to follow the experts in a way that they most certainly were not followed by the Government.

Amendment 43 is not partisan; it is in the interests of everybody. I hope the whole House will seriously think about supporting its retention.

[Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

There is a lot covered in this group of amendments, but in the interests of time I will limit my remarks to the three Ps of pollinators, pesticides and poo. We are beekeepers at home. As I speak, my husband is processing the honey from our seven hives in our kitchen. For reasons I have never fully understood, this seems to involve coating every single implement in said kitchen in honey, so I am quite resigned to going back on Friday evening to a kitchen that resembles the aftermath of a house party thrown by Winnie the Pooh. Wish me luck.

Starting with pollinators and pesticides, the UK already has legislation that regulates pesticides that was transferred from the EU. It takes a tougher, hazard-based approach to regulation rather than the risk-based approach that many other countries use. The Bill requires that pesticides have no unacceptable effects on the environment, having particular regard to its impact on non-target species, which of course includes all pollinators, not just bees. Amendment 43 would replicate part of this existing framework, which sounds to me like a recipe for confusion. It also seems to be jumping the gun on the new national action plan for sustainable use of pesticides, which I look forward to seeing before the end of this year.

So, on to poo. Storm overflows designed for emergencies are now being used as a daily method of sewage management. In Rushcliffe in 2020, Severn Trent recorded storm overflows at three points in the village of Radcliffe-on-Trent alone, totalling 6,854 hours, while in the village of East Leake, the sewage treatment works there discharged 58 times for a total of 715 hours. Yet Severn Trent has still not acknowledged the need for a new pumping station. I welcome the measures in the Bill that will require water companies to publish data on storm overflows both on an annual basis and in real time, especially because it took my team months to extract the data that we needed from Severn Trent.

The Bill also puts a duty on water companies to produce comprehensive statutory drainage and sewerage management plans, including how storm overflows will be addressed. Those plans will cover a minimum 25-year horizon, which is crucial, because much of the problem in Rushcliffe comes from investment in drainage and sewerage not keeping pace with development and new homes.

The Bill also puts a duty on Government to produce a statutory plan to reduce discharges from storm overflows next year. I believe that is the right approach, because it acknowledges two things. First, it acknowledges that reducing storm overflows is the responsibility of a wider range of actors than just water companies. As the Rivers Trust has said, delivering a plan will require contributions from the whole of society, and in particular landowners, developers, highway constructors and homeowners, to divert surface water away from sewers. I am concerned that proposed new section 141A of amendment 45 covers only sewerage undertakers, leaving other significant stakeholders off the hook. We need a comprehensive strategy that addresses the problem from all angles.

Secondly, as implied by the first point, and as has been discussed today, this is going to cost a lot of money. Initial estimates, as the Minister said, range between £150 billion and £650 billion, and it will probably require some fundamental changes to how we do things. Neither of those is reason not to tackle the problem. I firmly believe we should do so, and the Bill makes a first, important step towards doing that, but we need to ensure that we understand the costs, the likely customer bill increases and the trade-offs against other areas that we want to see water companies investing in. While I support the aims of the amendment, and I acknowledge and thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) for all his work in this area and in strengthening the Bill to date, I will not be voting for the amendment tonight. We need to go further, but we need to make sure that is based on data.

The final thought I offer is that although debates such as this naturally focus on what is not in the Bill, I join my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) in recognising all the great things that are in the Bill and the huge, fantastic job that the Minister has done, including on strengthening protection for ancient woodlands, the conservation covenants, the scrutiny of forest risk products in the supply chain and a legally binding target to halt species decline by 2030. That is just in the part of the Bill we are discussing now, and I think those things are worth celebrating.