Kate Osborne: ...budgets, taking £4.3 billion away and leaving hospitals crumbling, leaking and falling apart at the seams. Fifty per cent. of trusts now have structural issues with leaks, collapsing floors, raw sewage and unsafe wards. American news agency CNN said last week: “Britain’s NHS was once idolized. Now its worst-ever crisis is fueling a boom in private health care.” The number of people...
Luke Pollard: ...Minister. I want the Secretary of State to have more grip, control and leadership on this issue. Her responses so far have been complacent. Unless she wants to go down as the Secretary of State for sewage, food shortages and rural poverty, what is her plan to properly address the food shortages we face? This is a serious issue for families across the country.
Jim McMahon: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many Event Duration Monitors have been installed on storm overflows in each year since 2010; and how many of those monitors have been installed on storm overflows that stopped working in each year since 2010.
Sewage Discharges: East Devon
Luke Pollard: ...and join me in the sea, where I can show her not only that incredible piece of water and the expanding access to it—especially for people from poorer communities—but, importantly, the raw sewage pipe that occasionally emits appalling human waste into a special and environmentally important bit of our sea?
Kate Osborne: ...owned by Cayman Islands-registered Hong Kong CK Hutchison Holdings. It underspent its budget for repairs by 48%, yet took profits of £2 billion a year, awarded millions to shareholders and pumped sewage into north-east waterways. Will the Secretary of State commit to fining water companies up to £250 million for dumping sewage?
Baroness Altmann: ...Southern Water was fined £93 million for serious illegal discharges; there were warnings at the time that the fine was too low, and indeed the company was not deterred from continuing to discharge sewage. Does my noble friend think it appropriate for the chair of the Environment Agency to state publicly that a proposed £250 million fine is “crazy”, and does he share my concern that...
Simon Jupp: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that the reporting of storm overflows in real time will be (a) consistent, (b) transparent, (c) accessible and (d) readily understood by the public.
Edward Davey: ...and taken for granted. As ITV showed yesterday, St Helier Hospital in south London is literally crumbling, but there is still no plan to save it, and Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire has sewage leaking into its wards and a roof that could collapse at any moment. Does the Prime Minister agree that no patients, doctors or nurses should have to put up with those conditions? Can he...
Rebecca Pow: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to be clear that where water and sewage companies are found to be breaking the law, there will be substantial penalties. We have increased all our measures on those penalties, and we are looking at whether we will go ahead with the £250-million cap that has been proposed. We will be consulting on that shortly.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb: My Lords, the ongoing emergency of sewage despoliation and the death of our rivers and coastlines is something the Government do not seem to be acting on at all. Last year, on 8 September, the then Secretary of State for the Environment—I cannot even remember which one it was—told water companies to produce a plan within 14 days. It is 165 days later and there is no plan. I gather water...
Emma Lewell-Buck: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Not only have the Government legislated to allow sewage on to our beaches and into our sea, but they are now limiting funds for local authorities to stop historic coastal landfill sites polluting our coast. One of those sites is in gorgeous South Shields. When can we expect the Government to do something about it?
Lord Foster of Bath: To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of raw sewage discharged into rivers (1) annually between 2010 and 2022, and (2) annually up to and including 2030.
Lord Sikka: ...Majesty's Government what plans they have to authorise OFWAT (1) to levy personal fines, and (2) to bring criminal prosecutions, against directors of water companies responsible for discharging raw sewage in rivers and seas above the statutory limits.
Simon Jupp: ...entitled Water Company Performance Report 2021-22, published in December 2022, whether her Department plans to take steps to ensure that underspend is invested by water companies into reducing sewage discharges.
Simon Jupp: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department’s policy paper entitled Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan, published on 26 August 2022, what steps her Department is taking to help reduce combined sewer overflow discharges in (a) inland and (b) coastal waters.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: ...number of regulatory bodies have had their budgets slashed. The Environment Agency’s budget has been slashed by 80% and—surprise, surprise—it does not seem to have kept up with discharges of sewage by water companies. The Charity Commission, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, will know, had its budget severely cut, and that badly affected some of the things it had previously done...
Baroness Parminter: ...we do not know what the process is. There is no guarantee that some of the very powerful protections that the EU has given us over the last 50 years will remain. We may see more people swimming in sewage on British beaches. The Minister may shake his head, but I pick up the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, who asked: why do we say that Europe has done so much for us? Before the...
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering: My Lords, I urge my noble friend to look at outcomes in the water efficiency of new developments. Undoubtedly, building 300,000 houses a year is contributing to sewage outfall from inadequate pipes. Can I instil in my noble friend a degree of urgency in ensuring that the very welcome mandatory requirement to fit all new developments to sustainable sewage systems is brought forward, so that we...
Matt Western: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many sewage discharges were made into the (a) River Leam and (b) River Avon within Warwick and Leamington constituency in (i) 2021, (ii) 2022 and (iii) the period between September and December (A) 2021 and (B) 2022.
