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

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to address agricultural pollution in rivers; and whether they will launch a dedicated review into this issue.

This Government has made it clear that levels of water pollution are unacceptable. That is why cleaning up our rivers is a priority for this Government; addressing agricultural pollution is key to delivering this.

To this end, we are currently reviewing the Environmental Improvement Plan to set out how Defra will deliver improvements to reach our legally binding targets including to reduce agricultural pollution. We want to work with farmers to tackle agricultural pollution through a range of proportionate and effective regulations, advice programmes and incentives schemes.

As part of this, we are prioritising finalising the Post-Implementation Reviews on both the Farming Rules for Water and Nitrate Pollution Prevention Regulations. The outcomes of these reviews will inform our next steps to ensure these regulations are effective for both farmers and the environment.