Water Quality: Sewage Discharge

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Bob Seely

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[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.

Health and Social Care Update

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Bob Seely

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

The Prime Minister set out during the summer that she intends to make sure that there are mental health practitioners available in local GP practices and in schools.

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

I welcome the Minister’s priorities on GP appointments, pharmacies and dentistry, which are important for Islanders. May I make her aware of the specific needs of what her Department calls “unavoidably small hospitals”? We have 12 in England and Wales, covering 20 mainly Conservative constituencies, of which St Mary’s is the most isolated. We have done good work on improving funding, but there is more to be done to ensure fairness and equality. So will she or her Ministers meet me and other right hon. and hon. Members to discuss what more can be done to ensure support for these small hospitals, which are so important for our communities?

[Dr Coffey]

I believe it is in the Isle of Wight where we have a particularly difficult challenge as many patients are still in hospital who do not need to be there. I know we have asked the local NHS to start working with the council on how we can get that discharge going, and I know how important it is to make sure that the hospital can function readily.

Draft Littering from Vehicles Outside London (Keepers: Civil Penalties) Regulations 2018

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Bob Seely

Wednesday 31st January 2018 General Committees

[Dr Coffey]

We work closely with a number of organisations, and we push litter education programmes. I am very fond of something that the official Government comms do not like: I am prone to using the hashtag #dontbeatosser, which is a slogan that came from Australia and was adopted by my local radio station, BBC Suffolk—I think some people have different thoughts about what it might mean. I am quite keen to escalate the activities, which is why we are working closely with organisations such as Keep Britain Tidy.

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

My hon. Friend may be aware that we tried #dontbeatosser on the Isle of Wight, but the Campaign to Protect Rural England felt that we were a little too genteel for that. Excuse my ignorance about this—I am new to this place and to Delegated Legislation Committees—but what is the process by which councils are informed of these decisions that are taken in Parliament? What does she expect councils to do and how active should they be in getting that message out? Clearly, as she says, this is about public information.

[Dr Coffey]

Councils have been asking us for the opportunity to have these powers. Our estimate is that about one third of councils are minded to take them out. The point is that we are giving the councils the powers to do that. I encourage my hon. Friend to go back to the Isle of Wight and proclaim that from 1 April, if both Houses of Parliament agree, the council will be able to have these powers, and drivers should look carefully, consider their local environments and recognise that other people may be watching them to make sure they do the right thing. At the end of the day, we have to have the kind of behaviour—I think we do generally—where littering becomes unacceptable. We need to keep reinforcing that with positive powers and messaging.