Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the relative cost benefit of attenuation ponds compared with repeated flood damage to (a) properties, (b) infrastructure and (c) agricultural land.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Attenuation ponds are deployed by Risk Management Authorities as a flood alleviation measure; they are determined by a range of factors including cost to benefit ratio and the standard of protection that can be achieved. In recent years, the highway sector has been innovative in its use of sustainable drainage and green infrastructure to help manage road flooding.
A new three-year £4.2 billion Flood and Coastal Risk Investment Programme will start in April 2026, where new projects will align with the strategic objectives set out in the Government’s new funding rules announced in October 2025. This means investment goes where it is most needed, accounting for flood risk, value for money, natural flood management opportunity and additional contributions to make Government investment go further. This investment will benefit properties, infrastructure and agriculture.
The Government and the Environment Agency are committed to improving England’s picture of flood and coastal erosion risk, including from surface water. The Environment Agency published its new National Flood Risk Assessment (NaFRA) data in 2025.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help support (a) the older population and (b) pensioners with water poverty.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Water companies are more than doubling social tariff support for vulnerable customers and Government is working with industry to keep their support schemes under review to ensure that vulnerable customers are supported. We are considering ways to drive more consistency across the schemes and increase awareness of the support consumers can access. Defra also expects companies to hold themselves accountable for their public commitment to end water poverty by 2030.
Government has committed to reforming the WaterSure support scheme. We recently consulted on proposals to increase scope and support to low-income households who have higher water usage due to medical needs or three or more children in the household.
We expect all water companies to make sure households are aware of the schemes and measures available to help those struggling to pay their bills and do everything they can to support all customers who are vulnerable, including having regard to the interests of individuals of pensionable age.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to help support households with increases to water bills.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Water companies are more than doubling social tariff support for vulnerable customers and Government is working with industry to keep their support schemes under review to ensure that vulnerable customers are supported. We are considering ways to drive more consistency across the schemes and increase awareness of the support consumers can access. Defra also expects companies to hold themselves accountable for their public commitment to end water poverty by 2030.
Government has committed to reforming the WaterSure support scheme. We recently consulted on proposals to increase scope and support to low-income households who have higher water usage due to medical needs or three or more children in the household.
We expect all water companies to make sure households are aware of the schemes and measures available to help those struggling to pay their bills and do everything they can to support all customers who are vulnerable, including having regard to the interests of individuals of pensionable age.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to ensure businesses affected by the water outage receive suitable compensation in Sussex.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government recognises the disruption that consumers have suffered and takes the need for appropriate compensation to customers seriously. The Government is clear that it is the responsibility of the water company to provide compensation that is commensurate with the scale of the disruption.
The Guaranteed Standards Scheme (GSS) sets the minimum standards of service for all customers of water companies. Where a company fails to meet any of the standards, it is required to make a specified payment to the affected household or business customer. The Government announced a major update to the GSS as part of its initial package of water sector reforms in July 2025. The updates reformed the GSS, improving consumer protections by further protections for customers – increasing the payment values, to double or more, and by expanding the scope to include additional standards. South East Water must make mandatory payments to affected customers in line with the GSS following the water outages in East Grinstead and Uckfield.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that businesses affected by the water outage receive suitable compensation in East Grinstead and Uckfield constituency.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government recognises the disruption that consumers have suffered and takes the need for appropriate compensation to customers seriously. The Government is clear that it is the responsibility of the water company to provide compensation that is commensurate with the scale of the disruption.
The Guaranteed Standards Scheme (GSS) sets the minimum standards of service for all customers of water companies. Where a company fails to meet any of the standards, it is required to make a specified payment to the affected household or business customer. The Government announced a major update to the GSS as part of its initial package of water sector reforms in July 2025. The updates reformed the GSS, improving consumer protections by further protections for customers – increasing the payment values, to double or more, and by expanding the scope to include additional standards. South East Water must make mandatory payments to affected customers in line with the GSS following the water outages in East Grinstead and Uckfield.
Asked by: Natasha Irons (Labour - Croydon East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of local councils in exercising their statutory enforcement powers to protect local waterways from pollution; and whether her Department holds data on enforcement activity by local authorities.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Local authorities do hold limited enforcement responsibilities, primarily through Environmental Health functions, for example, under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010 in relation to certain industrial processes, and powers relating to flooding from ordinary watercourses. However, these are distinct from the regulation of water company discharges.
Enforcement against pollution from water companies is the responsibility of the Environment Agency, which issues discharge permits, monitors compliance, and takes civil or criminal enforcement action where offences occur. Defra sets the overall legislative and policy framework for this system, including recent reforms under the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, which strengthens the ability of regulators to take faster and tougher action, including new criminal liability for company executives.
Asked by: Ben Coleman (Labour - Chelsea and Fulham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has had discussions with the Environment Agency on it registering property owners along the tidal Thames as riparian owners where legal evidence of ownership does not exist.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency does not register landowners in London as riparian owners. A landowner’s responsibility for a tidal flood defence arises under the Metropolis Management (Thames River Prevention of Floods) Amendment Act 1879, which requires flood defences to be created and maintained to a defined height (relative to ordnance datum) in order to protect London from flooding and inundations caused by overflows from the River Thames.
Asked by: Ben Coleman (Labour - Chelsea and Fulham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the Environment Agency is permitted to register property owners along the tidal Thames as riparian owners where legal evidence of ownership does not exist.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency does not register landowners in London as riparian owners. A landowner’s responsibility for a tidal flood defence arises under the Metropolis Management (Thames River Prevention of Floods) Amendment Act 1879, which requires flood defences to be created and maintained to a defined height (relative to ordnance datum) in order to protect London from flooding and inundations caused by overflows from the River Thames.
Asked by: Lisa Smart (Liberal Democrat - Hazel Grove)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has to analyse the forthcoming annual sewage discharge data to identify differences in company performance before and after the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 came into force.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Pollution incidents from the activities of the water industry are unacceptable and can have a devastating impact on our environment. The water industry must do more to reduce pollution and protect our rivers, lakes and seas.
As part of the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, a new duty has been created on water and sewerage undertakers in England and Wales, to produce annual Pollution Incident Reduction Plans (PIRPs).
These statutory plans require water and sewerage undertakers to report on the number and severity of pollution incidents attributable to their networks over the last calendar year and propose actions to reduce that number in the next year.
The first statutory PIRP will be published by 1 April 2026.
Asked by: James Naish (Labour - Rushcliffe)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to enforce restrictions against nuisance light pollution under the The Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has put in place a range of measures to ensure that light pollution is effectively managed through the statutory nuisance regime. Local authorities have a duty to investigate complaints about light emitted from premises which could constitute a nuisance or be harmful to health and have powers to take action where there is a problem.
The Government believes that any mitigating actions to try to reduce light pollution in urban, suburban and rural areas are best taken by local authorities as these are best dealt with at a local level.