Water Quality: Sewage Discharge

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from

“an impact assessment of sewage discharges;”

to the end of the Question.

The public are rightly disgusted by the excessive sewage discharges from storm overflows, and so am I, my colleagues on the Government Benches and hon. Members across the House. So are this Government. That is why we have taken more action than any other Government on the issue.

We created our storm overflow discharge plan, with an impact assessment showing that it will require the largest ever investment by the water industry, up to £56 billion. Last month we set out our new comprehensive, integrated plan for water. That will deliver a clean and plentiful supply of water for people, businesses and nature, building on the significant investments and progress already made in cleaning up our waters since 2010.

Nearly three in four beaches are rated excellent for bathing, which is up from just half in 2010, when Labour left power. We have taken on the micro and single-use plastics that are a plague for marine life; we are supporting the super-sewer in London, which is taking over 10 years to construct; and there is consistent action, right across the country, on cleaning up our waters. That is why we are seeing much-loved species, such as seahorses, otters and seals, returning to our rivers and seas.

By requiring water companies to start monitoring, we unveiled the scourge of sewage. It was a Conservative Minister, Richard Benyon, who ordered that. By the end of this year, not by 2030, all combined sewer overflows will have monitors. Informed by monitoring, we are now in the situation where the water companies are under active criminal and civil investigation by the Environment Agency and by Ofwat, which is the largest investigation ever. That is why I move the amendment in my name and that of the Prime Minister, because this Government have already taken action.

With regard to this motion, we already have a target for a reduction in sewage discharges, which we will put into law; we have already consulted to remove caps on financial penalties; and we have already undertaken an assessment of sewage discharges. However, unlike the Opposition, we have a credible, costed plan to stop the scourge of sewage.

Today we have already heard a barrage of blame and finger pointing, but we have not heard a credible, costed plan to tackle the issue. I am used to the personal attacks, the diatribes and the cheap shots, but I can tell hon. Members that Labour’s plan is not cheap. My parents lived in Frodsham for some time, so I am very conscious of the River Weaver, and I grew up in Liverpool, so I am very conscious of the River Mersey, which has got cleaner and cleaner over time thanks to ongoing continued investment.

Frankly, we should be having a grown-up debate about the issue. A lot of the plan set out by the shadow Secretary of State is pointless because it is already being done. We were talking about food, and I guess the hon. Gentleman has taken up growing magic mushrooms: the Opposition did not publish the data, they were not monitoring it, they kept people in the dark and they fed them BS for all the time they were in government.

[Stephen Crabb]

Is my right hon. Friend slightly surprised by the tone that has been struck by the Opposition? Does she agree that they need to show a bit more humility, because if they were serious about these proposals being their official party policy, would we not expect to see some evidence of that being implemented in a part of the country where they are in power—namely, Wales—where there are no targets and no credible plan for tackling the issue?

[Dr Coffey]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The shadow Secretary of State is ambitious to take my job in the future, but I am confident that the Conservatives will win the next election, partly because we are used to cleaning up this sort of rubbish when Labour leaves office.

I gently say to the shadow Secretary of State that Ofwat is a non-ministerial department and the Welsh Government provide a strategic policy statement to Ofwat for matters in Wales. It is a devolved matter. The hon. Gentleman is dragging the Welsh Government into the debate today, but he should be aware that in 2022 Wales had, on average, 38 spills per outflow, whereas in England it was down to 22 spills. Tackling the issue is not straightforward, but Wales is not doing well. I am not going to blame the Welsh Government out loud, but I am conscious that they would be better following us and having a credible, costed plan, instead of looking away from Westminster.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The complacency that the Secretary of State is displaying is frankly shocking. Not one English river is classed as being in a healthy condition, none meet good chemical standards and few meet good ecological standards. The Conservatives have been in power for 13 years. That is a record of failure. In addition, dividends now average £1.6 billion a year, which is money going out of the system altogether. Why will she not accept that privatisation has been a complete failure, put water back into public hands and make sure the investment goes where it is needed?

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Lady should be aware that during the last decade we put in place legislation that made it tougher to meet ecological status. That includes taking on the monitoring of certain chemicals, which is not done by the Welsh or Scottish Governments. That is why we will continue to work on this issue in a specific way. We are leaning into the issue.

I genuinely wish that Labour had started to sort out the issues when in office. I am not saying that the Labour Government did completely nothing, but they were certainly not clear with the public about what was going on. In 2010, we knew there was no money left after Labour’s damage to the public purse. Indeed, the former Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury was honest enough to tell us that in his own writing. What we did not know was quite how much mess was left behind for a Conservative Government to clean up yet again, which is what we set about doing.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that since the privatisation that has just been criticised, investment has doubled to £160 billion?

[Dr Coffey]

My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. We are talking about sources of financing. Do the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and Opposition Members want to see fewer hospitals and schools being built, or less going towards all the other ways in which we are spending taxpayers’ money?

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

I listened to what the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) had to say, but under the last Labour Government the pumping of raw sewage into our waterways was unregulated, unmonitored and completely unrestricted. Since 2010, this Government have increased the monitoring of outflows, which will be at almost 100% next year. They have imposed £150 million in punitive fines on water companies. They have sponsored investment of more than £56 billion, over decades, into the water network. They are the first Government to tackle the issue for many decades. Does the Secretary of State agree that the Labour spokesman was talking poo?

[Dr Coffey]

I think that is a polite way of describing what we heard.

Sewage overflows are not new. They are the result of Victorian plumbing infrastructure combining waste water and surface water pipes, and they were designed to act as a safety valve so that the impact of heavy rainfall would not lead to sewage backing up into people’s homes. That was more than 100 years ago; since privatisation, we have seen much-needed investment into our leaking water network. More than 30% of pipes, if not close to 40%, have been replaced in that time.

It was in Labour’s time in government, back in 2003, that the EU took the Government to court in relation to sewage discharges from overflows. In 2009, it was a Labour Government who introduced operator self-monitoring, allowing water companies to mark their own homework. After the minimal progress under Labour, it was a Conservative Minister who recognised the problem and recognised that we needed an objective means of measuring discharges. That is why water companies were instructed in 2013 to monitor when and for how long their storm overflows operated. That data is published online; thanks to our Environment Act, it will now need to be provided in near-real time. As I have said, all storm overflows will be monitored by the end of this year.

It is the monitoring and opening up of information that has exposed the scale of the issue. It is why we have already had successful criminal prosecutions, it is why we have an unprecedented criminal investigation under way right now, and frankly it is why we are seeing a Labour party that is desperate to make up for its failures in office.

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

Would my right hon. Friend be kind enough to clarify to the House that in most cases, and certainly in my constituency, storm overflows are over 95% rainwater? Certainly, at no point is raw sewage being dumped on our beautiful beaches.

[Dr Coffey]

I agree. Facts are our friends in these matters, and it is important that we continue to ensure that our constituents are well informed.

I agree with the shadow Secretary of State that there is a massive difference between a press release and a plan. We have already set out our plans and are delivering them: the environmental improvement plan; our integrated plan for water, which is tackling all forms of water pollution from transport and metal mines to forever chemicals and farming; and our storm overflow reduction plan, which I am pleased to announce today that we are planning to enshrine further in law. Through the Environment Act 2021, we will legislate for a clear target on storm overflow reduction in line with our plan. That clear, credible and costed legally binding target will add to our transparent and determined approach to solving the issue, while being careful with consumer bills.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will know, having grown up in Liverpool, how beautiful the coastal constituency of Wirral West is. The Rivers Trust found that a sewer storm overflow in Caldy spilled 75 times in 2022, for a total of more than 1,700 hours, discharging directly into the Dee estuary. It is a very beautiful part of the world, where people go to enjoy the beach, let their children play, enjoy water sports and so forth. It is also very important environmentally—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Lady is meant to be making an intervention, not a speech. It has to be brief.

[Dr Coffey]

I share with the hon. Lady a love for that part of the north-west. I grew up there, and I used to cycle down to the River Mersey regularly on the Otterspool prom. I was not quite so much a visitor to the other side, apart from when I was visiting family elsewhere.

It is thanks to the openness of this Government in getting the monitoring done and publishing it that the scale of the scourge of sewage has been unveiled. The hon. Lady should welcome that. She should also welcome the active plans that we have been undertaking, with investment, so that even more action will be under way to reduce that sewage, if not eliminate it.

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

The constituency that I have the privilege of representing has the River Itchen and the River Hamble. Last week I met Southern Water, which now has an investment plan, purely because of the 91% of monitoring that this Government have put in place. Would that infrastructural investment have been able to go ahead if just 7% of our rivers were being monitored?

[Dr Coffey]

Quite clearly, the answer is no. There would not have been the scrutiny that there is today, nor would there have been the investigations that are already under way. The Hamble is a very precious sailing river that goes out into the Solent, so it is important that people can have confidence. That is why our plan has investment behind it so that we can continue to ensure that our waters are cleaner than ever before.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Dr Coffey]

No, I will try to make a bit of progress.

After the many press releases, it is good finally to see a little bit of detail about what the Labour party would do about sewage, but to some extent it is already being done. Frankly, today feels like another gimmick, if not a sham, from the Labour party.

I understand that the shadow Secretary of State’s Bill, which has been hastily prepared—I believe it was published last night—is pulling Wales into this. We have already somewhat covered that issue, but based on his logic, I am not surprised that he is embarrassed about the Welsh record. Of the longest sewage discharges in Britain in 2022, the top two were in Wales. Three of the top five constituencies for hours of sewage discharged were in Wales, according to Top of the Poops. In 2022, the average number of spills per outflow in England was 23; in Wales it was 38. As I say, I am not seeking to blame the Welsh Government, but—speaking candidly—facts are our friends. Instead of fudge and obfuscation, we will keep going with our credible plans, because we are determined to clean up our waters.

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree with Law Wales, which states that

“Senedd Cymru generally has legislative competence in relation to all aspects of water quality, water resources and water industry”?

Contrary to what the shadow Secretary of State said, this is the responsibility of the Welsh Government.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, as is the person he quoted. This is a matter that is dealt with by the Welsh Government, who issue the same strategic policy statement to Ofwat that my Department delivers. Indeed, a price review is under way right now.

[Alun Cairns]

When my right hon. Friend introduced legislation, it was clearly aimed at England, but did she give the Welsh Government the option of extending those tighter restrictions to Wales to ensure a tighter and more uniform structure across both nations?

[Dr Coffey]

Understandably, the Environment Act principally addresses England. It is important that we respect devolution to the Welsh Government, who have it in their power to act and who do different things. I do not think they shy away from the fact that this is a difficult challenge. I commend them on the many beautiful beaches in Wales, which I have visited many times, including in my right hon. Friend’s constituency and in that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb). However, this is not straightforward and there is no overnight fix. Credible plans are needed, so this Government are right to be making progress.

[Sir Robert Goodwill]

Further to the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes), does the Secretary of State agree that Welsh Water is a not-for-profit organisation, so the shadow Secretary of State’s argument that dividends should be used to pay for improvements does not wash in Wales?

[Dr Coffey]

Well said.

[Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)]

East Devon residents are rightly disgusted by sewage in our waters, and so am I; I am glad that the Secretary of State agrees. I live by the sea in Sidmouth, and I have repeatedly called on South West Water to clean up its act and our water. It has been fined millions thanks to this Government, and it should never reward failure for bonuses. Does my right hon. Friend agree that if it does not clean up its act, it must face the full force of the law, including unlimited penalties?

[Dr Coffey]

I absolutely agree. We exercised the necessary foresight in drawing up the legislation that became the Environment Act. We listened to the regulators, because we wanted to understand what was happening. Ofwat asked us to give it powers that would allow it to link dividend payments to performance, including environmental performance, and that is being done. We have completed the consultation, and we now need to review it, but we intend to ensure that the Environment Agency can impose unlimited penalties, which I think will be welcomed by my hon. Friend’s bill payers.

[Matt Western]

I have been listening intently to what the Secretary of State has had to say, and I admire her confidence, but that confidence is not shared by my constituents and many other members of the public when it comes to the condition of our rivers. May I invite her to come to my constituency and look at the River Avon? Perhaps she will don a cozzie, do a Gummer, and get in the water and see just how terrible it is.

[Dr Coffey]

I think I will be in Stratford-on-Avon in a few weeks, and I may well be able to find time to visit the hon. Gentleman. I have a lot of rivers, and of course the sea, in my own constituency, Suffolk Coastal, which stretches from the River Orwell in the south to the Hundred river in the very north, with many rivers in between. I am very conscious of the importance of this issue to our constituents, and I am proud of the fact that beaches in Felixstowe have had excellent bathing water status pretty much since the qualification arose. I am also aware that the Denes beach in Southwold lost that status, which is why, as a local Member of Parliament, I intervened, along with Anglian Water, to clean up the treatment works in Southwold. I am delighted to say that the beach is now back to a three-star rating. There is a case for ensuring that we have targeted activity, but overall, what I expect as Secretary of State is to receive the plans for every storm overflow that I have requested from the water companies by June.

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

My father is a civil and structural engineer and I have engaged with him regularly on the subject of sewage pollution, but I think that one of his more familial aphorisms is particularly important: “To fix a problem, you have to know about it.” Does my right hon. Friend agree that the fact that we now have the 90-odd per cent. knowledge of what is going on that allows us to prioritise plans is one of the Government’s key achievements?

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend is wise in her years, and she is absolutely right. It is a case of trying to ensure that we have the necessary information. I repeat that the process of getting the information out there began a decade ago, and the Environment Act allows us to ensure that near-real-time information is available as well.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I listened closely to the speech from the shadow Secretary of State, which I have to say was pretty poor—and given that I have listened to quite a few Labour speeches in my time, that takes some beating. Can the Secretary of State shed any light on why a Labour party that hates privatised utilities would allow the self-monitoring of water quality unless it was intended to hide a problem?

[Dr Coffey]

What can I say? When the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) ran for the leadership of the Labour party, he suggested that there should be common ownership, which I would describe as nationalisation. We are seeing yet another flip-flop from the Labour party when its members realise that it is one thing to get into power and another thing actually being in it.

We need to continue with what we are trying to do to cut sewage discharges. We have heard about the target of 90% by 2030, and it is a headline-catching figure, but there has been no credible, costed plan in any previous media scrutiny or, indeed, today. That is why I suggest that the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton is detached from reality and trying to pull a fast one with the public.

Our storm overflows discharge reduction plan outlines the largest infrastructure programme in water company history, and will deliver the toughest ever crackdown on sewage spills, transforming our Victorian sewerage infrastructure. The plan sets targets that will be underpinned by legally binding changes to company permits, designed to front-load action in particularly important areas such as bathing waters. To ensure that these ambitious targets are realised, I have also asked the water industry to produce a detailed action plan for every single storm overflow in England by June.

A critical element in the development of these targets and our plan was an assessment of technical deliverability and cost, which is why the Government published a full impact assessment and an additional report on the costs of eliminating discharges from storm overflows. If the shadow Secretary of State wants to deliver a 90% reduction by 2030, it would have been helpful for him to inform the House how he plans to practically deliver £56 billion worth of capital projects in the next seven years, let alone separate enough combined pipes to go almost two and a half times around the earth in those seven years, or indeed build the equivalent of 40,000 Olympic-size swimming pools of additional storage capacity. What will the Labour party’s proposals really mean for customers’ bills? Even the hon. Gentleman is not naive enough to think that there is a magic money tree to pay for this.

[Anthony Mangnall]

The Secretary of State has just mentioned the important issue of water companies producing plans. Can she reassure me, and all the people of the south-west and south Devon in particular, that those plans will have to be enforced, and that we will be keeping a very close eye on their implementation?

[Dr Coffey]

I can indeed give my hon. Friend that assurance. We will continue to ensure that the licence fees and the costs of permits cover inspections, and we will consider further what additional funding changes might be needed for that purpose.

Perhaps Labour intended to introduce a sewage tax or something similar, as proposed by the Liberal Democrats, although it would take such a tax some 500 years to fund the level of investment required. That is, dare I say, another classic Liberal Democrat policy—all soundbite but detached from reality. Meanwhile, we have an ambitious, credible and realistic plan.

As for mandatory sewage outlet monitoring, the Government are already doing that; 91% is already in place, and the rest will be completed by the end of the year. The Environment Agency will also ensure that water companies carry out monitoring in line with their permit conditions. The monitoring requirements introduced by the Government have been instrumental in enabling the regulators to undertake the largest criminal and civil investigations of sewage discharges in water company history, covering more than 2,200 treatment works. Through powers in our landmark Environment Act, we are also making it a legal requirement for the near real time data on discharges to be available to the public, and the consultation on those regulations is live now. We are going even further by placing a duty directly on water companies to monitor the water quality impact upstream and downstream of all their assets—not just storm overflows but wastewater treatment works as well.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

This is not just the responsibility of the water companies, because it is not just water assets that discharge into our rivers. Within a short section of the River Tame in Greater Manchester there are three water assets, but there are also Johnson brook and Wilson brook. Johnson brook regularly discharges raw sewage into the Tame because of a misconnected sewer somewhere along the reaches of that brook, and Wilson brook regularly discharges chemicals into the Tame because of industrial processes. The Environment Agency’s actions are appalling. What more is the Secretary of State doing—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. We cannot have these long interventions, because too many Members want to speak. It is simply not fair.

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Gentleman has raised a very specific constituency matter. I am sure that if he were to write to me or to the Water Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), we could follow it up.

I am conscious that a great many Members have applied to speak today, but I want to make a few more points clear. I have been advised by my officials that issuing automatic penalties could actually limit subsequent liability for more serious enforcement action and higher penalties when an investigation found that an incident was more severe than was initially thought. When a pollution incident occurs, the severity of the incident and the degree of culpability need to be properly investigated. It is through such proper investigation that the Environment Agency can determine the most appropriate response, including criminal prosecution for the most serious incidents.

I am sure that the policy is well intentioned, but it strongly risks making enforcement weaker and potentially letting the most serious polluters off the hook. Water companies must be liable for any illegal activity: polluters must pay. That is why, since 2015, the Environment Agency has carried out more than 50 prosecutions, securing court fines of over £140 million, including the record-breaking fine of £90 million handed to Southern Water. Again, we are going further to ensure that water companies face substantial penalties, which are easier to deploy than going through the courts. We are consulting on reforms to the civil penalties that the Environment Agency can issue to make the process quicker and easier. As I have said, the Government’s preferred option is to remove the cap on penalties entirely, which would pave the way for unlimited penalties for water companies that break the rules.

There is a great deal more that I could have said, but we listened to the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton for more than half an hour, and it is important for other Members to be able to contribute to the debate.

It is the role of Ofwat to scrutinise proposals from the water companies to make sure that customers get good value for money. We will try to carry out other activities such as trying to reduce the cost of these new projects overall, but I also want to flag up that we will continue to ensure that we deliver our integrated plan for water. It is a blueprint for a truly national effort to meet the stretching targets that we set through the Environment Act 2021, and it includes actions to tackle every source of pollution, including sewage discharge and pollution from agriculture, plastics, road run-off, chemicals and pesticides. The plan is underpinned by significant investment. Its scale and deliverability, plus the detail of it, mean that it will go further and faster than anything we have ever done before, and it is certainly going further and faster than most developed nations have ever gone before.

In summary: Labour wants monitoring; we have already delivered it. Labour wants fines; we have delivered record fines. Labour wants larger penalties; we are making them unlimited. Labour says that it wants stronger sanctions, but it would in effect weaken them. Labour wants a plan; we have already published one. Ours is fully costed and credible. Labour says that its plans will not impact household bills, but it cannot say how much they will cost. It was a Labour Government who were taken to court by the European Union for allowing the discharge of sewage, and 13 years later in Wales, where Labour is actually in government, they are discharging sewage almost twice as often as in England. That is not a plan; it is an uncosted political game and a recipe for tripling the average water bill. I encourage the House to support our amendment today, to stop the false attacks and to focus on delivering cleaner water. That is something that all our constituents want.

[Several hon. Members rose—]