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 has taken to reduce (a) sewage and (b) microplastic pollution from overflows in (i) Greater Manchester and (ii) Lake Windemere.

Tackling marine litter and plastic pollution is a priority for the UK Government, which is why we are working domestically and internationally to implement measures that will prevent macro-sized plastic litter which are sources of microplastics from reaching rivers, seas and the ocean in the first place.

As part of a historic £104 billion of investment by water companies in England and Wales in Price Review 2024 (PR24), which runs from 2025–2030, United Utilities is required to improve sewage discharges within the Lake Windermere catchment. This includes reducing how often storm overflows discharge from Ambleside Waste water Treatment Works (WwTW), Elterwater Pumping Station (PS), Hawkshead PS and Near Sawrey WwTW. United Utilities will also be improving over 100 storm overflows across the river catchments of the Tame, Mersey, Roch, Croal, Irwell, Glaze and Douglas within Greater Manchester as progress towards meeting environmental targets, including those of the Environment Act 2021.

These improvements will help to reduce discharges of raw sewage which can contain organic pollutants, microplastics, pharmaceuticals, nutrients, and heavy metals, as well as visible litter that is flushed down toilets.

We are also taking forward investigations through the water industry’s Chemical Investigations Programme, to understand how we can reduce the levels of microplastics entering the water environment through treated wastewater. Microplastics have been recognised as a significant standalone issue and the water industry are funding six further investigations between 2025 and 2030.