Caroline Spelman: ...supply licensees. These reforms will be mirrored in an extension of the licensing regime to sewerage services. This will help unlock new supplies of water and diversify methods of dealing with sewage. To help these markets run more effectively we will allow Ofwat, other regulators and market participants to establish flexible charging rules and market codes. These changes will help...
Caroline Spelman: ...outside these very walls. The House has previously debated the fact that London’s sewerage system is operating close to capacity. We are now at a stage at which waste water containing untreated sewage overflows into the Thames between 50 and 60 times a year, involving an average total of 39 million cubic metres a year. The sewage discharges kill fish and leave litter and debris floating...
Caroline Spelman: Let me make a little progress, if I may. We need a solution that prevents sewage from entering the Thames in the first place. Today, the proposed Thames tunnel offers the most timely, comprehensive and cost-effective solution to the combined sewer outflow problems. We are very aware, though, of the impact its construction would have on local communities. Thames Water has just finished its...
Caroline Spelman: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that his party is not in favour of trying to clean up the sewage out of the Thames? He will know that the initial study on the Thames tideway was launched when his party was in power—in 2001—and that a significant amount of time was spent looking at alternatives and carefully assessing with the greatest rigour what the costs of such a complex project might be....
Caroline Spelman: .... A written response to the consultation and an updated version of the impact assessment is also being published on the Department’s website at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/quality/water/sewage/. National policy statements are critical to the new planning system, which will help developers bring forward waste water projects of national significance without facing unnecessary...
Caroline Spelman: ...from a growing population and the effects of climate change, and fulfil our EU obligations. Two projects of potential national significance have been identified through this process: the new sewage treatment works at Deephams in north-east London and a sewerage collection and a transfer scheme along the Thames in London (the Thames tunnel). In line with the Planning Act 2008, the waste...
Caroline Spelman: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what plans are in place to restore electricity supplies in Basra in order that sewage treatment and water pumping can resume.