River Habitats: Protection and Restoration

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Thursday 29th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Hardy)]

It is a pleasure, Ms Butler, to serve under your chairwomanship in Westminster Hall for the first time.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton) for securing this debate and for all the passion, care and interest that he has consistently shown in this issue. I share his excitement about the wild beaver release. I was quite jealous that my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry East (Mary Creagh), the Minister for nature, got to be there at the beaver release and I could not—I could not wangle an invite—but it was an incredible moment to see and truly exciting.

I agree with so much of what my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset said about how protecting and restoring our river habitats is one of the most urgent environmental challenges we face. I loved the imagery given by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) about seeing rivers as the lifeblood and living veins of our country. That is a wonderful, poetic way of explaining why they matter so much. I completely agree that they are not drains; they are places that are full of nature and full of life—but I would say that, of course, living near the River Humber. I know how important rivers are.

However, communities see the problems that rivers face every day, through reduced water quality, declining biodiversity and rivers that are no longer the thriving ecosystems that they should be. Rivers are under pressure from multiple sources, as has been mentioned, including business activity, agriculture, waste water treatment, urban development, recreation, transport and, of course, the growing impacts of climate change, which have quite rightly been mentioned. These combined pressures have directly contributed to declining water quality and the loss of freshwater biodiversity across many catchments.

That is why we are committed to delivering the most ambitious programme of water reform in decades, including by strengthening regulation, which will definitely be done. Indeed, I can assure the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox), the Opposition spokesman, that he will definitely see the transition plan, not just this year but, I can even say, early this year.

In addition to strengthening regulation, we will improve oversight of the water system and ensure action across every source of pollution. That is all set out in the White Paper, which was published earlier this month. As has been mentioned, among key measures, we are establishing a single empowered regulator for the entire water industry, backed by a chief engineer—it is astounding that the water industry did not have a chief engineer before, but it has one now—to drive long-term planning, improve performance and, importantly, prevent problems before they occur.

We have also committed to delivering an enhanced, better, joined-up regional water planning function, to help to identify lower-cost and high-impact solutions to improve water quality and supply, considering opportunities across the sectors. It was really interesting that my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West talked about catchment measures, looking at the entire river basin, and looking at how it is all interconnected. That is exactly my vision for the regional water planning function: to look at all the different impacts on that water body.

I could not agree more about how important nature-based solutions are and what they can deliver. We have already had a change-around in how we address flooding, through the change in the flood funding formula— I would really like us to embrace that—but we have to be honest: if we are embracing nature-based solutions, we are also embracing an element of risk. They do not carry the same certainty as adding chemicals to something, which makes it possible to predict a certain outcome. Nature is not like that, but nature is powerful, and I want to see it used more.

It was really interesting to listen to so many Members talk about the way that rivers have been engineered. I visited a beautiful chalk stream not too far from where I live, to see how it was done. These rivers were straightened, as has been said, and this is our industrial heritage. Many were straightened to power the mills that ground corn, or for navigation, and that is why they wanted to create straight channels. Let me say to the hon. Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) that I love the word “rewiggling”—it is a great word. When we look at where we can rewiggle them, the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns) was right that they can hold more water when they are rewiggled. They can literally create more space and protect more communities.

On that point, I thank all the emergency services and everybody who has been involved in the response to Storm Chandra. My sympathy and support goes out to everyone who has been impacted. The latest update that I have had from the team is that the overall flood risk remains at “medium”. That means that rivers impact is probable in parts of south-west England today. I really hope that does not result in properties being flooded, although I accept that the impact on the farming community has already been huge.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) always makes me smile. I love the fact that he is constantly championing his constituency and wants to protect and look after the people there who have faced such awful flooding, and he is quite right to call out poor behaviour wherever he sees it. I liked hearing about all the different schools. I love an eco-council group—they are just fantastic. Any Member who ever feels slightly jaded by politics—which, of course, would never, ever happen—should go and spend time with primary children. They will come away feeling so uplifted, because primary children are so passionate and they care so greatly, so good on all of them. I ask my hon. Friend to pass on my congratulations; I hope that they continue to challenge us, as we take all our work forward.

As we have mentioned, we are also accelerating nature-based solutions, looking at where we can restore wetlands, reconnect floodplains and improve river corridors—that came up a lot, and quite rightly so: how do we make river corridors to create healthier, more resilient catchments? That work is happening alongside the reform of regulatory powers, cracking down on poor performance, improving transparency and ensuring that the polluter pays.

For the first time, our river systems will be managed in a fully integrated way, ensuring that every sector, including agriculture, plays its part in restoring the health of our waterways—I also welcome the hon. Member for Bridgwater to his place. That work builds on some of the work we have done through the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025. Our revised environmental improvement plan has been mentioned, and that has ambitious Environment Act biodiversity targets, including to

“restore or create more than 500,000 hectares…of wildlife-rich habitat outside protected sites by 2042”.

Creating and restoring river habitats and wetlands will be vital to achieving that.

I really enjoyed the launch of Making Space for Water, which I thought was a fantastic event. There was so much passion and willingness to collaborate in that room. Making Space for Water calls for incentives for land managers to help to create nature-friendly river corridors through the ELM scheme, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West mentioned—I will get him a response from the Minister for farming on some of the more specific details.

Through those schemes, we include specific actions in the sustainable farming initiative, which pays farmers for establishing and managing buffer strips beside watercourses. We also agree with Making Space for Water that it is important to reconnect rivers to floodplains, restoring natural processes and enhancing biodiversity. There are two pilot rounds in the landscape recovery scheme that we are looking at, and we have provided 56 projects with development grants to support farmers, landowners and environmental organisations in developing strategies for long-term nature recovery. Collectively, these projects aim to restore 600 km of rivers, helping to reconnect rivers to their floodplains.

The hon. Member for North Herefordshire speaks with passion and knowledge about agriculture pollution. She is quite right that it is one of the most significant contributors to pollution in our rivers, affecting over 40% of our water bodies. Agriculture pollution, including nitrogen, nutrients and soil or sediment run-off, has a profound impact on the health of freshwater environments and the biodiversity that depends on them. Under the Environment Act, we have set a clear long-term target to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment from agriculture entering the water environment by 40% by 2038.

There are various means by which we want to achieve that. We committed in the White Paper to simplifying and improving the regulatory framework for agriculture, developing a single robust, England-wide regulation and, where necessary, strengthening standards. We are doubling funding for the Environment Agency’s farm inspection and enforcement team, enabling at least 6,000 inspections a year by 2029, and we are strengthening local advice through our catchment-sensitive farming, as well as through the new £30 million farmer collaboration fund, which we announced earlier this month at the Oxford farming conference.

Just this week—in fact, just yesterday; I am losing track of which day is which—I held a roundtable with farming representatives, not just the NFU but people from different farming sectors, alongside environmental organisations and water company representatives, to talk about the problem of agricultural pollution. The reason I wanted everyone in the same room is not just that I wanted everyone to hear the message I was giving, but that I wanted everybody to hear from everybody else: the water companies could hear from the environmentalists and the farmers; the farmers could hear from the environmentalists; and the environmentalists could hear from the farmers. Everyone could gain an understanding of one another’s points of view and how we are going to work on this together.

During that meeting, I announced that we had launched the consultation on reform of how sewage sludge is regulated in agriculture. The consultation document, which went live this week, looks at the option of an environmental permitting regime, as recommended by the Independent Water Commission. That group of people has been working together on the issue of agriculture pollution. We brought together different stakeholders, and there was much consensus and much willingness to tackle the issue. It is far better that we try to do something collectively; farmers, environmentalists and water companies working together is the best way to tackle this. That work continues.

[Dr Chowns]

I thank the Minister very much for the update, and I agree that working together is important. I have written to the Minister to request a meeting between her, me and other MPs across the parties—Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem—in the Wye catchment. In that spirit of working together, will she commit to having that meeting soon?

[Emma Hardy]

I have seen the hon. Lady’s letter. I will get told off by officials for saying this, but I am basically looking at whether I can come back to the Wye and do something there with everybody. If not, we can do something in Parliament. I went to the Wye last year, and we announced our £1 million research fund to look at what is happening in the Wye. It would be quite nice to go back and see what has been happening. It is on my radar, and I will get her a proper answer in writing.

As Making Space for Water highlights, it is crucial to connect river habitats at the catchment scale. I emphasise the importance of catchment partnerships to improving water quality and restoring natural processes. The partnerships are well established and effective in co-ordinating local collaboration and delivering projects with multiple benefits. They include the Dorset Catchment Partnerships, which is leading work on the River Wey and other Dorset rivers to improve water quality, reduce run-off and restore natural flows.

This is why, earlier this month, we announced that we are investing £29 million from water company fines into local projects that clean up our environment, including doubling our funding for catchment partnerships, providing them with an extra £1.7 million per year over the next two years. As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) said, it is essential that we support and pay tribute to the growing number of grassroots organisations and the work they do to protect our natural environment. Doubling funding for catchment partnerships should help them to continue to do that work.

That is part of the Government’s commitment to giving communities greater influence over water environment planning and decision making. Fundamentally, communities know their water areas the best. Through our increased funding, we expect to support more than 100 projects that will improve 450 km of rivers, restore 650 acres of natural habitats and plant 100,000 new trees. The additional funding is expected to attract at least a further £11 million from private sector investment, resulting in even greater benefit for local communities in all hon. Members’ constituencies.

Restoring chalk streams—another of my favourites—is a core ambition of our water reforms. We are home to 85% of the world’s chalk streams. As the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Minehead, said, we are one of the only places that has so many of them. They are home to some of our rarest, and keystone, species, such as the Atlantic salmon. As the Making Space for Water campaign rightly highlights, protecting keystone species is key to healthy rivers and streams. I could say so much more, but I am conscious that I have been talking for 14 minutes, so I will move on.

[Chris Hinchliff]

I am afraid the Minister has slightly walked into this. Previously in this Chamber, I extended an invitation to her to come and visit RevIvel in my constituency. That is a campaign to restore the Ivel chalk stream. It has a pilot project looking at taking the Chalk Streams First approach, which would potentially restore that aquifer, and not just help the Ivel but see the return of chalk streams that have completely ceased to flow. It would be really exciting to talk to my hon. Friend about that and some of the challenges that people are experiencing with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs water restoration fund. I just put that back on her agenda.

[Emma Hardy]

I did walk into that, didn’t I? I thank my hon. Friend. If he wants to send that through to me, I will of course take a serious look at it. I am very keen to be getting out and about when it is a bit less wet—but rain should be what I am used to.

Restoring the health of our rivers is fundamental to safeguarding nature, supporting resilient communities and securing our water environment for generations to come. The Labour Government are committed to delivering the most comprehensive programme of reform ever undertaken. It involves strengthening regulation, boosting enforcement, investing in innovation, supporting local partnerships and empowering farmers, land managers and water companies to play their part. From national action on agricultural pollution and chalk stream protections, to ambitious local projects in South Dorset, we are driving real, long-term improvements. Together, those measures demonstrate our unwavering commitment to cleaner water, thriving habitats and a healthier natural environment across England.