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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 4 May 2023 to Question 182819, whether her Department plans to require water companies to publish the volume of sewage discharges in addition to frequency and duration of discharge events.

The Environment Agency has instructed water companies to install flow monitors at 2,000 wastewater treatment works. These provide important data on the volume of treated final effluent discharges to the environment. We have no plans to require water companies to install volume monitors on sewage overflows as they are highly challenging to adapt to use in the field.

We have increased the number of storm overflows monitored across the network from 7% in 2010 to 91% now monitored, and we will reach 100% cover by end of this year. In April, we launched our consultation on Continuous Water Quality Monitoring and Event Duration Monitoring. This outlines the government’s proposals to enhance the monitoring of storm overflow and final effluent discharges and to report on this in near-real time. This consultation closes on 23 May.