To match an exact phrase, use quotation marks around the search term. eg. "Parliamentary Estate". Use "OR" or "AND" as link words to form more complex queries.


Keep yourself up-to-date with the latest developments by exploring our subscription options to receive notifications direct to your inbox

Written Question
River Thames: Sewage
Thursday 30th November 2023

Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of sewage discharges into the River Thames on the health of (a) dogs and (b) other pets.

Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Government is clear that the volume of sewage being discharged into our waters in unacceptable. That is why our Plan for Water sets out more investment, stronger regulation, and tougher enforcement to tackle pollution and clean up our water.

Alongside this, our Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan sets clear and specific targets for water companies, regulators and the Government, to work towards the long-term ambition of eliminating ecological harm from storm overflows.

No specific assessment has been undertaken on the impact of sewage discharges on dogs and pets.


Written Question
Swimming
Friday 24th March 2023

Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the evidence required for bathing status designation, how many swimmers are considered adequate to reach the threshold of a large number of people.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Bathing Water Regulations 2013 require the Secretary of State to identify and maintain a list of the surface waters in England where she expects a large number of people to bathe. All applications for bathing water designation are assessed against this criterion and other criterion as set out in the Bathing Water Regulations 2013 and in the guidance available at Bathing waters: apply for designation or de-designation - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).


Written Question
Environment Agency: Finance
Friday 23rd December 2022

Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what funding his Department has made available to the Environment Agency to (a) monitor and (b) classify bathing water in beaches and waterways in each of the last five years.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Environment Agency is allocated Environment Protection Grant in Aid funding in total from Government rather than Grant in Aid by activity. This is then allocated to teams delivering Environment Protection. A range of different teams delivering Environmental Protection contribute towards bathing water quality as well as other core outcomes. This limits breakdown beyond the level set out below, which represents a total of resource and capital funding. However, funding for 2022/23 includes £2.2 million, specifically for water company enforcement activity, including at least 4,000 farm visits per year and 500 sewerage inspections.

£m

18/19

19/20

20/21

21/22

22/23

Environment Protection Grant in Aid funding

70

74

94

127

142


Written Question
Water Companies: Fines
Friday 2nd December 2022

Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make it his policy to introduce additional penalties for water companies that miss pollution incident reduction targets consistently over 5 years.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Ofwat has recently announced financial penalties of almost £150 million applying to 11 water companies. These penalties are the result of missed targets on areas such as water supply interruptions, pollution incidents and internal sewer flooding. This money will be returned to customers through water bills in the next financial year.

Since 2015, the Environment Agency has brought 54 prosecutions against water companies, securing fines of almost £140 million. On 9 July 2021, Southern Water was handed a record £90 million fine after pleading guilty to thousands of illegal discharges of sewage that polluted rivers and coastal waters in Kent, Hampshire and Sussex. The fine will be paid solely from the company's operating profits, not customer bills.


Written Question
Sewage: Environment Protection
Wednesday 30th November 2022

Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many Environmental Information Regulations relating to sewage cases have been submitted to her Department since 1 January 2005; and how many have been rejected on (a) being manifestly unreasonable, (b) relating to unfinished documents or incomplete at date of receiving and (c) protection of environment.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Defra only retains Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) requests for three years. Cases prior to this have been destroyed in line with our retention schedule.

The number of EIR requests managed in Defra with ‘sewage’ in the case title since 2019 is 14.

a) None of those were refused under regulation 12(4)(b) of the EIRs which relates to manifestly unreasonable.

b) None of those were refused as under regulation 12(4)(d) of the EIRs which relates to material which is still in the course of completion, to unfinished documents or to incomplete data.

c) None of those were refused as under regulation 12(5)(g) of the EIRs which relates to the protection of the environment to which the information relates.


Written Question
Water: Standards
Wednesday 30th November 2022

Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she provides additional resources to community groups and water companies in areas with excellent or good bathing water status to help maintain water quality.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Government does not fund water company investment, water companies raise funds through private mechanisms and customer bills which is highly regulated. However the EA works closely with partners to help maintain water quality and deliver bathing water regulations.


Written Question
Water Companies: Fines
Wednesday 30th November 2022

Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the impact of financial penalties on water companies on the behaviour of those companies.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Government believes that financial incentives reinforced by a strong regulatory framework does make a positive impact on water company behaviour. During the 2019 price review (PR19), Ofwat set specific performance commitments for water companies. These commitments set the minimum standards of service that companies are expected to attain. In November 2022, Ofwat announced financial penalties of almost £150 million applying to 11 water companies, as a result of underperformance in areas such as water supply interruptions, pollution incidents and internal sewer flooding. This money will rightly be returned to customers through water bills in the next financial year.

Additionally, where companies have failed to meet their statutory or licence obligations, regulators can take more formal enforcement action. For example, in 2019, Ofwat imposed a £126 million penalty package on Southern Water, following failures in the operation of their wastewater treatment works and misreporting performance information at these sites. This package included a rebate of £123m to customers through their bills and a £3 million fine. Following this, Ofwat has pushed Southern Water to improve financial resilience and outcomes for customers and the environment, which, in September 2021, resulted in a £1 billion injection of equity from Macquarie Asset Management. Macquarie have acknowledged the performance issues of Southern and have committed to delivering a turnaround showing how strong financial regulation can positively impact performance.

On Wednesday 30th November we announced we will be channelling money from water company fines into schemes to improve the environment.


Written Question
Sewage: Pollution
Tuesday 29th November 2022

Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many sewage release incidents took place in the UK in 2021.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Sewage release data is available online: https://environment.data.gov.uk/dataset/21e15f12-0df8-4bfc-b763-45226c16a8ac


Written Question
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Disclosure of Information
Tuesday 22nd November 2022

Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many (a) non-disclosure and (b) other confidentiality agreements relating to (i) employment, (ii) bullying, (iii) misconduct and (iii) harassment cases have been agreed by their Department in each year since 1 January 2010; and how much money from the public purse has been spent on (A) legal costs and (B) financial settlements for such agreements in each year since 1 January 2010.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

No payments for non-disclosure or other confidentiality agreements relating to employment, bullying, misconduct or harassment cases have been agreed by the department since 2019. Information for the years prior to that is not held centrally and to obtain it would incur disproportionate costs.


Written Question
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: EU Law
Monday 11th July 2022

Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of (a) the number of officials in his Department involved in recording retained EU legislation for the purposes of the Retained EU Law Dashboard in the latest period for which figures are available and (b) the cost to the public purse of recording that information.

Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General

Defra has a large body of Retained EU Law (REUL). To ensure as much of this as possible was captured, a central coordinating function was responsible for ensuring completion of the Cabinet Office commission. In addition, numerous officials from across Defra were involved in producing and contributing information for inclusion in the dashboard. This work was carried out as part of officials’ normal business activities, and we did not record the amount of staff time spent specifically on this work.

Since it has not been possible to make an accurate estimate of staff time, we cannot give an accurate estimate of costs. All costs associated with data collection were met as part of Defra’s normal administrative budgets.

There has been no additional non-pay cost to the public purse by creating the dashboard. The process was led by the Cabinet Office, who commissioned Government Departments to find REUL within their legislation and compile an authoritative account of where REUL sits on the UK statute book.

The dashboard itself is made by the Government Strategic Management Office and is hosted on Tableau Public, which is a free platform for hosting public dashboards. The dashboard will continue to be updated at no additional cost.