Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to prevent illegal sewage dumping in chalk stream rivers.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Fixing the systemic issues in the water system is essential to addressing the multiple pressures facing chalk streams. Restoring these waterbodies to better ecological health is a core ambition of this Government’s overall programme of work to clean up rivers, lakes, and seas for good. Subject to consultation, we will abolish Ofwat and create a new, powerful, and integrated regulator, including a regional element to ensure greater local involvement in water planning and allow all sources of pollution to be addressed across the river catchment.
Our Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan already categorises chalk streams as high priority sites, ensuring that they are prioritised for improvement as part of the record £11 billion investment to improve nearly 3,000 storm overflows in England and Wales. Additionally, our protections through the Water (Special Measures) Act will hold polluters accountable and ensure these iconic British habitats are preserved for future generations.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help reduce the risks of flooding.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government is investing at least a record £10.5 billion until 2036 – the largest flood programme in history, which is projected to better protect nearly 900,000 properties.
On 14 October, following consultation, the Government announced major changes to its flood and coastal erosion funding policy.
The new funding policy will optimise funding between building new flood projects and maintaining existing defences and will ensure that deprived communities continue to receive vital investment. We will use Government funding to unlock investment from public, private and charitable sources, making every £1 of Government investment go further. We will also invest at least £300 million in natural flood management over ten years – the highest figure to date for the floods programme.
The Government has also set up its Floods Resilience Taskforce to provide oversight of national and local flood resilience and improve preparedness, especially ahead of the autumn and winter flood season.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many and what proportion of pollution incidents did the Environment Agency attend in each of the last three years.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency (EA) responds to approximately 15,000 environmental incidents every year. Environmental incidents include environment management (pollution), waterways, fisheries, and water resources incidents. For each reported incident they assess the risk and likely impact and then respond accordingly.
Not all incidents reported result in site attendance, a response can be provision of advice and guidance remotely. The EA seeks to attend all serious pollution incidents (Category 1 and 2) which pose a significant risk to people or wildlife, and those incidents which could escalate to cause more serious impacts.
For example, in 2024, The EA attended 53 of 74 (72%) category 1 and 2 water industry incidents.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to tackle food price inflation.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra regularly engages with farmers, manufacturers and retailers to monitor the drivers of food price inflation and to encourage efficiency and fairness across the food supply chain.
Alongside this, the department’s food strategy is developing policies to ensure that individuals across the country have access to affordable, nutritious food.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department plans to diversify UK fruit and vegetable supply chains away from climate-vulnerable regions.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
To ensure a consistent supply of food, the UK relies on a combination of strong domestic production from the UK’s agricultural and food manufacturing sectors, and a diverse range of overseas supply sources. Trade supports UK food supply resilience. This is due to the UK having diverse trade routes, strong international supply and purchasing power.
At home, the Government’s recently published Food Strategy identifies priority outcomes for resilient domestic production for a secure supply of healthier food, and also to create conditions for the food sector to thrive and grow sustainably, including investment in innovation and productivity, and fairer more transparent supply chains.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to improve the regulation of water companies.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Independent Water Commission, led by Sir Jon Cunliffe, examined how to strengthen the regulation and delivery of water services to better support long-term water security, sustainable growth, and environmental protection. The Commission's final report was published on 21 July 2025, and the previous Secretary of State provided an Oral Statement to Parliament in response.
As outlined in the statement, the Government is immediately taking forward a number of Sir Jon’s recommendations. This includes establishing a new, powerful and integrated regulator with water functions from Ofwat, the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Drinking Water Inspectorate.
This is not the limit of our ambition. The Government will respond to Sir Jon’s recommendations in full via a White Paper, and a new water reform bill that we will introduce early this Parliament.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that the Environment Agency increases its attendance rate at pollution incidents.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Ministers meet regularly with the Environment Agency Chair and Chief Executive to discuss performance across the Environment Agency’s remit.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department has a set timeline for achieving Good Ecological Status for all waterbodies in England.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), transposed into our law through the Water Environment (Water Framework Directive) (England and Wales) 2017, has an overall goal to aim to achieve Good Ecological Status (GES) for surface water by December 2027, subject to certain exemptions. Applying the exemptions provided for in WFD represents 77% of England’s water bodies to achieve GES. These goals set a very challenging ambition for the UK as WFD does for most European countries.
The Government acknowledged last year in response to the Office of Environmental Protection’s report on Water Framework Directive Regulations that there had not been enough progress towards the Framework's goal over the last 15 years. Since then, the Government launched the Independent Water Commission, to consider how the current regulatory framework could be improved to drive progress and clean up our rivers, lakes and seas. The Government will be setting out its plans to do this in the coming period.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of updating the Environment Agency’s treatment plant discharge permits to account for seasonal low flows.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency (EA) considers seasonal variations, including periods of low river flow, when setting and reviewing environmental permits for water discharge and groundwater activities under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016.
Where evidence shows that changing flow patterns, such as more frequent or prolonged low flows, affect environmental risk, the EA can review and vary permits accordingly.
Defra keeps permitting approaches under review, taking account of evolving hydrological data, climate change projections, and wider environmental objectives to ensure permits remain protective, proportionate, and responsive to changing pressures.
The Storm Overflow Discharge Reduction Plan spill frequency targets for storm overflows (ecological, bathing and rainfall targets) are defined as an average over 10 consecutive years. It is recognised that a 10-year assessment requires significant time to determine permit compliance and therefore, to secure early identification of underperforming storm overflows, the EA may use a shorter-term regulatory compliance assessment.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has considered using multi-year rolling averages to measure progress on reducing storm overflow discharges.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency (EA) considers seasonal variations, including periods of low river flow, when setting and reviewing environmental permits for water discharge and groundwater activities under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016.
Where evidence shows that changing flow patterns, such as more frequent or prolonged low flows, affect environmental risk, the EA can review and vary permits accordingly.
Defra keeps permitting approaches under review, taking account of evolving hydrological data, climate change projections, and wider environmental objectives to ensure permits remain protective, proportionate, and responsive to changing pressures.
The Storm Overflow Discharge Reduction Plan spill frequency targets for storm overflows (ecological, bathing and rainfall targets) are defined as an average over 10 consecutive years. It is recognised that a 10-year assessment requires significant time to determine permit compliance and therefore, to secure early identification of underperforming storm overflows, the EA may use a shorter-term regulatory compliance assessment.