Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many recorded sewage spills and leaks into (a) rivers, (b) coastal waters and (c) other inland waterways there have been in England in the last 12 months; and what assessment his Department has made of trends in the number of such incidents.

Sewage spills can enter water bodies from a number of sources and pathways. One mechanism is via storm overflows, designed to spill into water bodies when the sewer system is under strain from rainfall or snowmelt. Storm overflows are tracked through Event Duration Monitors in near real time.