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 she has made of progress on improving the cleanliness of rivers.

We have made strong progress in cleaning up our rivers. They are now in far better health than 20 years ago. For example, pollution from sewage works has gone down significantly; phosphate pollution will fall by a further fifth and ammonia by a further sixth by 2015. Overall, this government has improved over 15,000 kilometres of rivers – equivalent to the length of the Amazon and Nile combined – but we know more needs to be done.