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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make it his policy to introduce additional penalties for water companies that miss pollution incident reduction targets consistently over 5 years.

Ofwat has recently announced financial penalties of almost £150 million applying to 11 water companies. These penalties are the result of missed targets on areas such as water supply interruptions, pollution incidents and internal sewer flooding. This money will be returned to customers through water bills in the next financial year.

Since 2015, the Environment Agency has brought 54 prosecutions against water companies, securing fines of almost £140 million. On 9 July 2021, Southern Water was handed a record £90 million fine after pleading guilty to thousands of illegal discharges of sewage that polluted rivers and coastal waters in Kent, Hampshire and Sussex. The fine will be paid solely from the company's operating profits, not customer bills.