Water Companies: Pollution Penalties

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

Tabled by

[The Duke of Wellington]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to reconsider their proposal to increase to £250 million the maximum penalty for serious pollution incidents by water companies; and what assessment they have made of the reported remarks by the chair of the Environment Agency describing the proposal as “crazy”.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, apologises for being absent today as he is on a parliamentary delegation to Madrid. On his behalf, and at his request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

Environmental Improvement Plan 2023

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

As the noble Baroness will know, the Government—whether Ministers or civil servants—do not save soil; farmers do. We want, first, to incentivise them to do the right thing where possible. Secondly, we want to mandate doing the right thing. In our 300-page document on improving and protecting soil—it is not possible to mention everything in it in a Statement—we say that we will

“monitor soil health as part of the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment”

and

“on top of this Defra will … Establish a soil health indicator under the 25 Year Environment Plan Outcome Indicator Framework … Publish a baseline map of soil health for England by 2028 … Support farmers and land managers to establish their own soil health baseline, so they can best manage the health of their soil … Provide a methodology and tools to collect consistent information about the health of the soil under all land uses … Share current guidance and best practice with farmers and land managers to improve their knowledge and work with them on how to improve soil health.”

We will also prevent

“valuable soil resources from being sent to landfill”

and secure

“the integrity of future soil carbon codes”

so that we can unlock the trillions of dollars of ESG money sloshing about in investment in the City and other investment centres to make sure that we are focusing it on our natural environment. Soil health will be fundamental to that. We want to increase organic matter to make soil function as an ecosystem, so that it does not leach what we do not want to see going into our rivers, along with soil itself. Soil is finite natural capital and, after a heavy rain storm, you can often see plumes of soil going into our seas. We want to stop that happening.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister will be pleased that I am not going to ask a question about sewage. One of the targets in this lengthy document—which strikes me as remarkably unambitious—is for water companies to cut leaks by 50% by 2050. Surely we can do better than that.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I refute the idea from the noble Duke that this is not ambitious. I urge him to read all 250 to 300 pages of the document and see the lengths that it goes to to put our natural environment first in a way that we have not done for decades. This really is a moment when we can do this. The noble Duke will remember from the debate on the Environment Act that a crucial part of it says that the targets we have must be achievable. The Secretary of State of the day must believe that they are possible. To an extent, we cannot do more than what the scientists say is achievable and we have set out how we can do this.

On the data on leakage, I assure the noble Duke that it is not just this target that is pushing that goal. We are giving direction and encouragement to Ofwat and our water companies to invest more in preventing leakage. Of course, it is not a single line going to 2050; there will be a dramatic increase in improvements from the investment we are putting in—in the easier-to-target areas first. We will then see that target of 2050 being met, we hope, before that date.

Pollution: Rivers and Beaches

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Yes, we have announced that we will be consulting this year with a view to making an announcement about implementation of the Flood and Water Management Act.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is shameful and indeed embarrassing that a British windsurfer, Sarah Jackson, has had to leave Britain because she cannot train in British waters due to the amount of sewage pollution in so many of our coastal areas? She has had to go to Spain in order to train.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

That is highly regrettable. I am not aware of that case but no doubt the noble Duke will make me aware of it. One of our targets is about bathing waters, and the classification figures for 2022 were that 72.1% of them were in excellent condition, 20.8% good, 4.3% insufficient and 2.9% poor. Either there is a discrepancy in the information individuals hold on where they can swim, or a discrepancy in the statistics the Government are receiving from very eminent sources. However, I am happy to discuss this further with the noble Duke.

Sewage Discharges

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware of some very extensive fines issued to water companies. A £90 million fine was imposed on Southern Water recently. There are 100,000 reports a year to the Environment Agency of allegedly illegal outflows. Those are investigated and action is taken. The Environment Agency has taken severe actions against them. Those fines cannot be dumped on the customer; they have to be paid for out of what would have gone in dividends or indeed in pay.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, although I thank the Minister for his answers and I am pleased that Ofwat appears to be becoming more active, does he share my frustration and that of many others in this House that there has been so little progress since the passing of the Environment Act last year in reducing storm overflows and various other sewage discharges into our rivers? This seems to continue despite the efforts of the Government. We must introduce a greater sense of urgency about this matter.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I assure the noble Duke that there is a great sense of urgency in my department. It is an obsession of Ministers; my wife tells me I talk sewage all the time, but I may have misunderstood the point she was making. There is an absolute determination to resolve this matter. We have to recognise that it is not just water companies. There are point source and diffuse pollution incidents caused by farming, individual households with poor connections, poorly maintained septic tanks and individuals pouring chemicals, paints, oils and greases down drains—which they should not do. It is a much more complex issue than just water company bashing. Ministers are prepared to give water companies a bashing where it is necessary and that is what we are doing, in incentives and enforcement. It is absolutely vital that policymakers are looking right across the piece when it comes to the quality of our waterways.

Water Companies: Pollution

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Enormous amounts of money have been spent on new water infrastructure, but sewage companies are responsible for the maintenance and resilience of drainage and wastewater networks. To address current and future pressures on drainage networks, we are making drainage and wastewater management plans statutory through the Environment Act, so they will be consulted. They have to put these forward as a legal measure to ensure that they take into account the pressure of new housing.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of some analysis done by the Rivers Trust that shows that the monitoring of our rivers by the Environment Agency has much reduced in recent years? It would probably say that it does not have the resource. Could he consider either adding to its resources or at least redirecting its priorities?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We have put more money into the Environment Agency and it has been recruiting more enforcement officers to do precisely that. We are also working with citizen science. I pay tribute to the Rivers Trust and others that are providing people to assist the Environment Agency in assessing the quality of river water.

Environmental Targets

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I would say to the noble Viscount the words “over pay and grade”, but I do appreciate the point he makes.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned storm overflows. I wonder if he shares my and many others’ frustration that the water companies continue to discharge dreadful quantities of sewage into our rivers and the sea, using as an excuse the fact that they are storm overflows. What are the Government going to do about that?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

As the noble Duke knows, the Environment Act places several duties on government and water companies to reduce sewage discharges from storm overflows. The Government have now launched the most ambitious plan to reduce sewage discharges from storm overflows in water company history. Our new strict targets will see the toughest crackdown on sewage spills and will require water companies to secure the largest infrastructure programme in water company history: £56 billion of capital investment over the next 25 years. Our plan will protect biodiversity, the ecology of our rivers and seas, and the public health of our water users for generations to come.

Water Companies: Sewage Discharge Monitoring

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, as the Minister has just said, the Government recently published a draft of what they describe as the storm overflows discharge reduction plan. That draft was published and consultation was invited. In that plan there is a target of reducing discharges of sewage over the next 18 years by only 40%. Does the Minister agree that the public expect a much more ambitious target than that?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The public are right to feel very strongly about this and we try to reflect that in the priority we give to this. The target will be to concentrate on bathing waters and special environmental waterways, such as chalk streams. They will be the Government’s absolute priority and by 2035, under our plans, we will have eliminated nearly all outflows into those waterways.

Wet Wipes: Disposal

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The Government wish to reflect the cross-party support for action on this, and will be moving quickly, following this call for evidence and the analysis of it. We are, in spirit, behind the Bill that the noble Baroness talked about, but we think there are more complications that we want to iron out before we bring forward legislation. If she can be patient with the response to the call for evidence, I think we will all find ourselves on the same page.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, anyone who saw the BBC “Panorama” programme last April about river pollution will remember how much of the riverbed of the Thames was covered in a layer of plastic wet wipes and other domestic products. Have the Government made any assessment of the effect on the health of our rivers from this very unpleasant layer of domestic plastic waste that covers so much of our riverbeds?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Like every Member of this House, I was repulsed by the fatberg found under the streets of London a few months ago, which was largely created out of wet wipes. The Marine Conservation Society says that wet wipes were the third most common type of litter found on beaches in Great Britain in 2020 and that 93% of the material that causes sewer blockages comes from wet wipes, so there is an urgency in dealing with this issue. We really want to get rid of the plastic that exists within wet wipes and to make sure that parent groups’ fears are alleviated, but we also do not want to cause other environmental problems by replacing plastic with other materials that would then be damaging to the environment in how they were harvested. There are complications that we need to deal with, but I share the noble Duke’s concerns.

Agricultural Transition Plan

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

We want to ensure accountability and value for money; we think that the situation has been unduly draconian under previous regimes. This came up with regard to regulatory models in the health and harmony consultation and, indeed, in the Dame Glenys Stacey review. There are key improvements that we can make next year: increasing the use of warning letters instead of resorting always to penalties, introducing a greater range of more proportionate penalties for some breaches, improving inspection experience and simplifying, for instance, the cross-compliance guidance. Of course, all this is predicated on ensuring that there is value for money. We will be consulting on this so that we get the appropriate regulatory regime and can ensure that the taxpayer—and anyone else—realises that not doing the right thing has consequences. However, we think that the previous regime was not proportionate.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB) [V]]

My Lords, as before, I declare my agricultural interests as detailed in the register. I have been most interested by the exchange this evening and, as other noble Lords have done, I commend the Minister for his total commitment to this new government policy.

My concern remains, as it always has been, for the small family livestock farm, and I have not yet heard enough to convince me that this matter is being sufficiently taken into account. In particular, I am not sure how these small farms can be sustained in the intervening period between now and the introduction of the environmental land management schemes in 2024. I am not as confident as the Minister that they will find it easy to adhere to either a widened countryside stewardship scheme or the sustainable farming incentive. And, of course, their income will be cut in 2021 by 5%, rising by 2024 to a cut of 50%, and we should never forget that the small livestock farms depend almost wholly on this taxpayer support.

As the Minister mentioned, they will undoubtedly need a great deal of advice on how to transform their businesses. It is, I fear, an uncomfortable fact that these small livestock farms in England will not be as well treated as their counterparts in Scotland and Wales, where the reduction in the basic payment will come later. I therefore ask the Minister to consult his ministerial colleagues as to whether more cannot be done to support small family farms in the next two to three years, as they are such an important part of so many rural communities in this country.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

I agree with the noble Duke that the small family farm is an intrinsic part of our landscape and our rural culture. That is why it is important, on taxpayer support, that I should quickly run through the opportunities starting next year. Applications for new countryside stewardship agreements will open from February to March 2021. The farm resilience scheme will open in June 2021. The farming investment fund—equipment, technology and transformation—will open in December 2021. I mention those schemes in particular because obviously, as part of the work we want to do to ensure enhanced productivity, all farmers will be able to apply for them next year. With the countryside stewardship and the sustainable farming incentive, I think that upland farmers and small farmers are well placed to join. Further information is coming out on the sustainable farming incentive national pilot in spring 2021.

It is very important that advice and guidance is given, and I said in an earlier reply that that is part of what we will be doing to ensure that there is a vibrant future for small and livestock farms, not only in producing food but in their custodianship of the land, which I think the pastoral system has been very good at.

Agriculture Bill

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 20th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

I now have a list of Members who wish to speak. They are the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, the noble Lords, Lord Trees, Lord McCrea and Lord Empey, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Lords, Lord Carrington and Lord Lansley. I will call them in that order.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my agricultural interests as detailed in the register. I support the new amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Curry, which has just been presented to us so eloquently. I am sure that he was as surprised as everyone else that his original amendment was ruled inadmissible. This one has been carefully drafted so as not to involve a charge on public funds. The earlier amendment, which was carried in this House with a very substantial majority, sought to establish a permanent statutory commission. Interestingly, the Commons reasons for rejecting that amendment refer only to it involving a charge on public funds and offer no further reason. All the other amendments that we are considering were rejected by the Commons for a specific reason. That is rather significant.