Environmental Protection and Green Growth
Opposition Day — [Un-allotted Day]
4:55 pm
Richard Benyon (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Natural Environment and Fisheries), Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Newbury, Conservative)
I have already said that we will address that in the near future in the water White Paper. We are determined to comply with directives, because that is what we all have to do, but we are also more ambitious, in that we want our aquatic environment to be restored. That legacy will be difficult to achieve, but we can achieve it. We can secure huge improvements in biodiversity and ecosystems by just making some changes. It is not easy to change abstraction when large numbers of people rely on the water in question for their daily lives, but this can be done, and it will be done under this Government.