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

To ask His Majesty's Government how many prosecutions were made for illegal sewage dumping in each of the water authority areas in England in the most recent year for which figures are available.

The Government is holding water companies to account on a scale never seen before and the regulators will not hesitate to hold companies to take appropriate action if they are in breach of their permits and failing to meet their legal obligations. The EA can now use new powers to impose unlimited penalties for a wider range of offenses following Government’s changes to broaden of the scope of the existing civil sanctions regime and remove the previous cap on penalties.

The EA has made 59 prosecutions against water and sewerage companies for pollution offences since 2015, securing fines of over £150m.

Four prosecutions have been concluded so far in 2023 for pollution offences:

• Anglian Water fined £510,000 on 12 January 2023 and £2,650,000 on 27 April 2023
• South West Water fined £2,150,000 (for 7 offences) on 26 April 2023
• Thames Water fined £3,334,000 on 04 July 2023)

More prosecutions are progressing through the court system with hearing dates next year.