"As I said, we have brought many prosecutions since 2015 and levied fines of about £140 million on the industry. In one case, that precipitated a change in ownership of a water company. The right thing to do is bring prosecutions where a company is in breach of its permits, …..." George Eustice - View Speech
"I absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. Our discharge reduction plan absolutely prioritises bathing waters in those near-term investments...." George Eustice - View Speech
"I hope I have made it clear that we are not content with criminal behaviour, which is precisely why we are bringing record numbers of prosecutions, having discovered a problem as a result of the monitoring that the Government required. The hon. Lady mentions dividends. As I said earlier, the …..." George Eustice - View Speech
"My hon. Friend raises an important point. As I said in my statement, we are now requiring water companies to make available to the Environment Agency all the discharge data from storm overflows, and to publish it in near real time for the public. We shall continue to bring prosecutions …..." George Eustice - View Speech
"I am the first Secretary of State ever to publish a plan such as this. One of my first acts as Secretary of State in 2020 was to instruct officials to change the strategic policy statement for Ofwat, which for the first time prioritised reduction of storm overflows...." George Eustice - View Speech
"My right hon. Friend raises an important point. One of the actions that we are requiring water companies to take in some instances will be to use techniques that will disinfect water to prevent E. coli counts in the way that he describes, which can indeed affect shellfish sectors in …..." George Eustice - View Speech
"The original vision of water privatisation was that we would have publicly listed companies on the London stock exchange and that water bill payers would also be shareholders. In the early 2000s, most of the water companies fell into the hands of private equity operators, and that was a change. …..." George Eustice - View Speech
"I am a great believer in the role of Parliament and always have been. It has been a team effort. When I became Secretary of State, I prioritised this long before it was an issue in the media and long before people realised it was an issue. Many Members, including …..." George Eustice - View Speech
"I agree, which is why the Government have changed our legal powers through the Environment Act 2021 to strengthen the regulation, and to require improved monitoring. On the basis of that monitoring and the evidence that it has revealed, we are now bringing record numbers of prosecutions. So the hon. …..." George Eustice - View Speech
"This issue is linked to a separate but associated challenge around nutrient pollution. We published our proposals to make some changes to deal with this issue on a strategic level before the summer recess, and we may well indeed need some legislative changes as the challenges that he highlights are …..." George Eustice - View Speech