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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will take steps to ensure water quality monitoring data is published all year round.

The Environment Act places monitoring duties on the water industry to improve transparency and reduce harm from sewage discharges. As outlined in Section 82, the Continuous Water Quality Monitoring programme will require water companies to continuously measure the quality of water upstream and downstream of their storm overflows and sewage disposal works.

In addition, the Government’s Water (Special Measures) Bill will require independent event duration monitoring of all sewage outlets, to support greater scrutiny of water company activity.