Chalk Streams: Sewage Discharge
Debate between Victoria Collins and Emma Hardy(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Hardy)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I am grateful to be part of this debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins) for securing it. Is this the first debate that she has secured in the House?
Emma Hardy
I am very pleased that one of the hon. Member’s first debates is on such an important issue. I do not want to get into a competition over who has the best chalk stream, but I must mention that the one near to where I live featured in “Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing” the other day. They were at Driffield beck. We get not only to share stories here about who has the most beautiful chalk streams, but to see them on national television. I share the hon. Member’s love of them: they are England’s equivalent of the Great Barrier Reef. They are amazing things to have and to be able to say are held within our own country. They are so precious to us. They are the rarest freshwater habitat on earth, and in England we are home to 85% of them. That is a remarkable achievement.
The hon. Member is absolutely right to feel outraged and upset about the levels of river pollution. I am sure there are more enjoyable things that she would like to do on a Friday night than go and examine a sewage discharge into the water, but it is good that she was there and able to document it, because where we have evidence of illegal sewage discharges, of course we wish to prosecute.