Sewage Discharges Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Gagan Mohindra
Main Page: Gagan Mohindra (Conservative - South West Hertfordshire)Department Debates - View all Gagan Mohindra's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under you chairmanship, Ms Elliott. I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) for bring this important debate to the Chamber. Over 1,200 of my constituents responded to the petition—the third highest number from any constituency—but I would argue that that is a drop in the ocean compared with the feeling on the ground.
I welcome the excellent work done by various Ministers and former Ministers; it is this Government who are driving forward this agenda, which for many years has been ignored. As someone who has been closely involved locally in this issue for the last two years, working with the community, Thames Water and the Environment Agency, I know that a lot of people on the ground are willing and able to significantly improve the quality of life of my constituents. I urge the Minister to continue to build on the work of the excellent new Secretary of State by putting the feet of Ofwat and the Environment Agency to the coals to ensure that they understand how important this issue is on both sides of this House and, more importantly, to our communities.
In South West Hertfordshire, I have the Grand Union canal and the River Chess, which are unfortunately frequent flyers in this respect. Comments have been made about illegal sewage treatment releases, but there have consistently been legal sewage treatment releases, which have caused even more offence to my constituents. Hopefully the Minister will appreciate my emotion; all I am doing is sharing what my constituents feed back to me.