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

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take to ensure that the Environment Agency is able to monitor and investigate illegal sewage discharges.

The Government is working closely with the water industry regulators, including the Environment Agency (EA), to ensure they are properly equipped to carry out investigation and enforcement action against illegal sewage discharges.

The EA is recruiting up to 500 additional staff for inspections, enforcement and stronger regulation by March next year. This will enable them to increase compliance checks, quadruple the number of water company inspections and conduct more in-depth and independent audits to get to the root-cause of incidents.

The Water (Special Measures) Bill will introduce a requirement for water companies to publish information on discharges from emergency overflows in near real-time (within an hour of a discharge occurring). This data will be independently scrutinised by the regulators, supporting investigations into possible permit breaches, and will fulfil the government’s commitment to ensure independent monitoring of every outlet.

An independent commission on the water sector regulatory system was recently announced, in conjunction with the Welsh Government. The commission will make a set of recommendations which will include ensuring that water industry regulators are effective, have a clear purpose and are empowered to hold water companies to account.