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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to (a) monitor and (b) stop lead contamination in waterways.

The Environment Agency identifies and prioritises sources of metal pollution, including waterways contaminated by lead, and conducts regular and routine water quality inspections, in line with their regulatory duties. The results are published on the Environment Agency’s public water quality archive website.

The Government has set a long-term statutory target under the Environment Act to reduce by half the 1,500km of English rivers polluted by target metals (including lead) from abandoned metal mines by 31 December 2038. To achieve this target, the Government is building mine water treatment schemes and diffuse interventions under the Water & Abandoned Metal Mines Programme - a partnership between Defra, the Environment Agency and the Mining Remediation Authority - to prevent metals from abandoned metal mines, including lead, from polluting rivers.