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

To ask His Majesty's Government whether water companies are required to collect and submit data on (1) the number of storm overflow monitors that are offline at any time, (2) the duration of these outages, and (3) the reasons for the outages; and if not, whether they intend to introduce such requirements.

Data is provided by Water and Sewerage Companies to the Environment Agency each year as part of their regulatory Annual Return. As a result of additional duties introduced through the Environment Act, water companies will report in near real time, and where a monitor is offline, water companies are required to bring monitors back into service as soon as reasonably practical.

As part of the Annual Return, Water and Sewerage Companies are asked to provide:

• The percentage of the reporting period that the monitor was functioning and could reliably record discharges if one occurred.
• Primary reason why the Event Duration Monitor may not have been operational ≥90% of the reporting period
• Whether action to improve this overflow has been taken / is planned to be taken, and in which month; or whether there is an ongoing investigation to identify the appropriate action.