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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent research their Department has commissioned on the impact of sewage discharges on (a) the natural habitat, (b) species in inland waterways and (c) the marine environment.

Defra has commissioned recent research on the harm sewage from storm overflows may cause on English inland rivers as well as estimating the future impact in 2050. This research, the Storm Overflows Evidence Project has been published on gov.uk on 4 November 2021, with an addendum added on 29 March 2022.