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.
Simon Lightwood: Last month, Labour Councillor Jack Hemingway proposed a successful motion to Wakefield Council calling for urgent action on sewage discharges in our rivers and lakes. He spoke about the River Calder in my constituency, where, on a three-mile stretch from Horbury Bridge to the M1, there have been over 400 sewage and waste water discharges, pouring out the equivalent of 100 whole days a year....
Tobias Ellwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to reduce sewage discharges in Bournemouth East constituency.
Abena Oppong-Asare: ...to see the Government remove them, but we are clear that amendment 4 has not been properly thought through. Nothing in it would do anything to improve water company performance or reduce sewage dumping; on the contrary, it would give water companies an excuse to not undertake the necessary improvement works. We will therefore not support it. Labour has set out a clear plan to end the Tory...
Alex Sobel: ...on promises but little on delivery. The proof is in the pudding, and the Secretary of State’s own appalling environmental track record speaks volumes. As water Minister, she presided over a new sewage spill every four minutes—321 years’ worth of sewage was spilt in just three years; and she cut the resources of regulators that are there to protect the environment by a third. Her...
Matthew Offord: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will bring forward legislative proposals to abolish temporary deemed consent permits which allow raw and untreated sewage to be discharged into waterways by water companies.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle: I want to raise the disastrous Southern Water and its continued spillage of sewage into our seas. Many of my constituents have become ill from sea and river swimming. Southern Water was prosecuted and found guilty of breaching water quality standards and pumping pollution into our rivers and oceans, but in the same year, the chief executive received a six-figure bonus. Clearly, there is...
Bell Ribeiro-Addy: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions she has had with OFWAT on number of leaks, pipe bursts and sewage leaks reported by Thames Water in the past five years.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb: ...used less energy, for example, and therefore polluted less. A target was published in 2005 that this country will not now hit until 2040. That is appalling, isn’t it? It is the same as with the sewage targets: putting everything back a couple of decades means that most of us will not live to see a country where we have clean air and clean water. I have no problem making sacrifices for...
Lord Benyon: ...scheme to improve slurry storage on farms, alongside almost doubling the budget for our catchment-sensitive farming partnership. In August 2022, we also published our £56 billion plan to reduce sewage discharges.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate her Department has made of the number of sewage leaks reported by Thames Water in (a) Streatham constituency, (b) London and (c) England in the last five years.
Robbie Moore: ...across West Yorkshire have made this point in this Chamber before. The site was finished, in the developer’s eyes, yet there were huge snagging issues. The road was not even sorted out; in fact, sewage from the site had to be disposed of by a lorry that came in and emptied the tank, because the connection with Yorkshire Water were not sorted out. How can we ensure more enforcement...
Alistair Carmichael: ...the cause, we proceed according to the precautionary principle. The Minister clearly does not know the cause of this incident. Last year and in the year 2020-21, English water companies discharged sewage into waters containing shellfish on no fewer than 59,079 occasions, lasting more than 432,695 hours. According to the precautionary principle, should we not be stopping that, instead of...
Ellie Reeves: Water companies are dumping sewage into our rivers. They have failed to fix leaks in the summer, when we had a hosepipe ban, and the winter, when the water is turning into hazardous ice on our roads and pavements. Thames Water gave its chief executive a bonus of £720,000 on top of a £2 million salary. May we please have a debate in Government time about whether our water companies are fit...
Andrea Leadsom: ...we not out of this place or making plans to remove ourselves to somewhere else while restoration and renewal carries on? Are we ever going to do it, or are we just going to wait until asbestos, a sewage leak, a fire or some other disaster befalls us?
Sarah Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department is taking steps to help ensure that water companies do not discharge sewage during dry spells.
Edward Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the impact of flooding on sewage overflows.
