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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the severity of sewage overflow incidents reported in 2022.

The only reason that the Government has been able to take action to reduce storm overflows is because of the increase in monitoring under this Government, from 5% in 2016 to almost 90% of the sewage network. The latest assessment shows sewage discharges cause 7% of waterbodies to fail to achieve Good Ecological Status. This is unacceptable.

Our Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan will prevent waterbodies from failing to meet Good Ecological Status due to storm discharges and will frontload action to protect bathing waters. We take robust action against illegal discharges. The EA and Ofwat have launched major investigations into suspected non-compliance at sewage treatment works.