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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent steps her Department has taken to monitor storm overflows.

No government has done more to tackle the issue of storm overflow discharges. Last year this Government launched The Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan. This will require water companies to deliver their largest infrastructure programme in water company history – a £56 billion capital investment over 25 years.

We are taking action now. Between 2020 and 2025 water companies are investing £3.1 billion in storm overflow improvements. We have increased the number of storm overflows monitored across the network from 5% in 2016 to almost 90% now, and we will reach 100% cover by the end of the year. All the data is published online.