South West Water: Performance

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your leadership today, Sir George. Of course, I would like to begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) for bringing the subject of the performance of South West Water to us today. I know that many colleagues have been waiting to express their views, and we have heard them very clearly from Members today. There are others, I know, who could not make it, but who would very much reiterate some of the things that we have heard. I also must thank my hon. Friend for approaching the issue in an incredibly measured way. It is very serious, so I thank him for that.

As hon. Friends and Members will know, I make absolutely no secret about my disappointment with the poor performance of South West Water and the impact that it has had on the environment. It is very serious, and I met with the CEOs of all of our lagging water companies—basically those with poor performance—back in December, and had a specific meeting with the chief executive officer of South West Water in January. I have made it very clear that we need to see rapid improvement in their performance. We have all the data, whether it is about pollution incidents, storm sewage overflows, leakage, and so forth, so, rest assured, I am in really regular contact over this issue, and I do think we are making some progress.

The data is stark. South West Water has been one of the worst-performing water companies due to its high levels of total pollution incidents, which were, as has been pointed out, significantly above the industry average for total pollution incidents in 2021. It is completely unacceptable in this day and age, and I have made it very clear that urgent steps must be taken to tackle that.

I did want to say, though, that, actually, there are some positive actions being taken by South West Water, and indeed all of our water companies. We need them to be effective, and doing the job they are there for, to provide clean and plentiful water. I must say that I welcome South West Water’s steps to deliver its WaterFit project. That is a £45 million shareholder investment launched in April 2022 to reduce storm overflow discharges, alongside its existing £330 million investment in waste water.

I recognise, also, its success in putting in 100% of its event-duration monitors to track storm sewage discharges in the south west. That is something that we have asked all water companies to put in, but it is ahead of the game, so we will know exactly what is happening. Data is all, in this situation.

I would also say that it is all very well for Members of the Labour party to stand up there, and be seen to be more righteous than others, but, in fact, their record on putting in any kind of monitoring was virtually non-existent. Some 5% of monitoring for storm sewage overflows went in place in 2016, started by this Government. It is 90% covered now, and it will be at 100% by the end of this year, so we will really be able to see what is going on, and then action can be taken.

[Ruth Jones]

I thank the Minister for giving way. While we all agree that data is crucial, there is the “So what?”—never mind the Ofwat—question. With all the data, what are the Government doing about it? It is action, not data, that we need.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Lady for that. I was going to mention it later, but what I was going to say was that it is a shame that the Labour party does not actually look at what is going on. It has been referred to by all of our colleagues. In the water industry we have the most significant project and spend that has ever taken place, directed by this Government, to tackle this whole issue once and for all. I am happy to share the very extensive list of things that are taking place and that will set us absolutely on the track we need to be on.

Also, however, I am a little concerned that we do not want to mislead the public. There are some wonderful bathing waters around the south-west and I, too, love swimming off the coast there. Last year, 93% of our bathing waters, which are mostly off the coast, were classed as good and excellent. That is an excellent record, and it has only improved under this Government. We should not forget that. Obviously, we have to make them all perfect, but this Government have a good record.

To go back to the Labour party, it is all very well for Labour Members to spout on about what they would do and what we are not doing, but the EU took the Labour Government to court over the state of water and they still failed to act. We need to look back at others’ records—we are the Government putting things right.

South West Water has now committed to reducing its average number of discharges through overflows to 20 per year by 2025. That is definitely a step in the right direction, but the public clearly want to ensure that that happens, and we will be on its case. I have also been assured that by continuing on its current trajectory, the company will deliver the absolute lowest number of pollution incidents in the sector by the end of this year. Innovative solutions are being brought forward to include drought resilience in the south-west, which has also been touched on. That is clearly very important.

To be clear, we need our water companies to improve in the way that we need them to, and to be successful, because we want them to stand as successful businesses that people want to invest in. We need that huge investment in the industry, so we want to see the companies operating correctly. That is why we have all the strict measures and Ofwat as the competent regulator, which I will get on to in a minute. Where performance does not improve, the Government and the regulators will not hesitate to hold water companies to account, including South West Water.

The Environment Agency is focusing on South West Water permit compliance. It is prioritising high-spilling storm overflows for investigation. South West Water has now installed the event-duration monitoring I mentioned on all its sites, bar six or seven complicated ones, which will be under way. Since 2015, the Environment Agency has brought 56 prosecutions against the water companies more broadly, securing fines of more than £142 million. As the House is aware, following South West Water’s guilty pleas, on 29 March it will be sentenced for 13 criminal offences that took place between 15 July 2016 and August 2020. It is certainly being held to account.

Ofwat, as the economic regulator of the water industry, will play its role in holding companies to account for not meeting their commitments. Rightly, since South West Water has been shown to be such a poor-performing company, Ofwat required it to present its improvement plan setting out steps to improve performance. As touched on today, South West Water will have to return £13.3 million to customers as a result of not meeting water performance commitments, including those on pollution incidents.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) made a blatant comment along the lines of, “Let’s get rid of Ofwat”, but that is too simplistic. As was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), we need to ensure that the regulator, too, is functioning absolutely to its right capacity. Given that, in our strategic policy statement last summer, we put the environment at the top of the agenda, Ofwat has to ensure that clean and plentiful water is provided, and to demonstrate that that is not have an adverse impact on the environment. Customer service is obviously right up there as well.

In 2019, Ofwat asked companies to link executive pay to delivery for customers—yes, we might have thought that that was there already, but it is now. Similarly, Ofwat is exploring ideas and other options relating to dividends and pay. That includes changes to companies’ licences or ensuring that fines for misdemeanours come out of dividends and do not impact customers. I think that is what my hon. Friend was getting at. This is all on the radar, and she is absolutely right that it has to be fully functioning.

[Anthony Mangnall]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister because she is making an excellent speech, but it is worth making this clear for anyone watching from across the south-west. Last year Ofwat and the EA launched what is, I think, the largest criminal inquiry into water companies. Will the Minister reassure me and all our constituents that when fines are issued, they will be clearly presented to the public, people will know exactly where the fines are going, and there will be an uplift in the quantity of those fines?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. That was coming later in my speech, but I will touch on it now because customers are rightly asking those questions. We are determined to improve the water environment, and that is why we announced at the end of November that we would channel future revenues from fines and penalties handed out to water companies that pollute rivers and the sea into projects that will improve the water environment. That seems to be extremely popular, and it is the right thing to do. We will announce further details later in the year. We are also consulting on raising the whole bar to a fine of £250 million and, for the EA, civil sanctions. As has been said, Ofwat already has the power to charge a water company 10% of its turnover, and the EA has unlimited fine powers through the criminal courts for taking action, so strong powers are already there; they just need to be used.

Contrary to what the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton say, this Government are taking crucial steps to improve the whole water landscape, particularly the transparency of storm overflow operations, and to require water companies to make major investments in this area. Last week the Secretary of State asked water companies to get back to her with clear plans for every storm sewage overflow and the upgrades, starting with the ones in bathing water areas and those near our highly protected nature sites, because it is of critical importance that we do not pollute those waters.

I have mentioned that monitors are going in, which will mean we have 100% cover by the end of the year. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon said, we want those monitors to go in, and water companies will have to show clear plans of where they are going and when they are in. The monitors are for what we call event duration. The first ones will show how long the overflows are used, so we will have that data, and there is a requirement to publish near-real-time information about how often they operate, so we will have all that clear information. Water companies will also be required to put in monitors to monitor the water quality both above and below storm sewage overflows. That will determine what is in the water, which is information we need. We will consult on that shortly. You will see, Sir George, the picture I am building of a comprehensive list of work.

I want to be absolutely clear, particularly to the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton, that, as several colleagues have said, nobody in this Government voted to legalise sewage discharges into water courses. In fact, the Government put forward a raft of new laws to reduce the use of storm sewage overflows through our landmark Environment Act 2021. I hope we will get over the misinformation that has been spread, which has genuinely not helped anyone at all.

Independent fact-checkers have shown that a lot of the Liberal Democrat information that has been put out there has been incorrect and has not been credible. In fact, the plans that the Liberal Democrats suggest would not have stopped or banned sewage discharges; would cost up to £20,000 per household, which is absolutely unrealistic; and would take 1,000 years to raise the billions of pounds that they say is needed. I hope I have been clear that that is not credible.

The Government have put in place sensible, costed plans to tackle the issue, including in respect of storm sewage overflows, and we have introduced powers that allow us to direct underperforming water companies. We have in place a really comprehensive package. The improvement of water quality remains an absolute Government priority, and that is backed up by the comprehensive package we have announced.

[Richard Foord]

If the Government are so very keen on holding water companies’ feet to the fire, why did it require a Liberal Democrat amendment to the UK Infrastructure Bank Bill for the development of costed, time-limited plans to be a condition for the lending of Government funding to water companies for investment in infrastructure?

[Rebecca Pow]

That is a bit of a red herring, because all the things I have just outlined involve costed plans and the monitoring of plans. Water companies will now have to produce drainage and sewage management plans. Previously, they had to produce only drainage plans, but now they have to produce sewage plans, so we will know what comprehensive infrastructure is required.

My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) touched on the important issue of housing. We must ensure that the development that we all need and the housing that people want are linked up correctly to our water system. A lot of work has been going on in that respect, and I am sure that my hon. Friend welcomes the fact that what we call sustainable urban drainage systems, or SUDS, will now be mandatory. The right to connect surface water to public sewers will be conditional on companies putting in sustainable urban drainage systems. That will help to separate the storm water so that it does not go down our sewage pipes. That has been talked about for a long time—it was one of my pet subjects when I was a Back Bencher—so I am delighted that the Government are making it a reality.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton read out lots of gruelling letters from his constituents, but it is quite interesting that South West Water has just introduced a scheme called WaterShare+. One in 14 households in the south-west have become shareholders in South West Water, so they will be able to play an active part in holding their water company to account and making sure it is a socially responsible business. I believe South West Water is taking note of what comes its way from its customers. It needs to put it right, and I genuinely hope it will.

All water companies must clean up their act, and the Government have demonstrated that we have the most comprehensive plan in the history of the water industry to make that happen. We will work with the water companies and Ofwat to make sure that happens, but will not hesitate to take action using all the powers now available if we do not see the improvement that we need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

The list of designated bathing waters is updated annually, as I am sure the hon. Member knows. We will give updates for the new list in May.

[Luke Pollard]

As a keen wild swimmer in Devil’s Point and Firestone bay in Plymouth sound, which is the country’s first national marine park, I have been working with Plymouth City Council to declare that really special piece of water a designated bathing water. May I ask the Minister to don her wetsuit and join me in the sea, where I can show her not only that incredible piece of water and the expanding access to it—especially for people from poorer communities—but, importantly, the raw sewage pipe that occasionally emits appalling human waste into a special and environmentally important bit of our sea?

[Rebecca Pow]

I do wear a wetsuit when I go swimming in the sea—I am a bit of a coward, but I love to put my wetsuit on and go swimming in the sea.

As the hon. Gentleman knows, he will have to wait until May to see where we go with that particular designation, but we already have 421 designated bathing sites in England as of last year—that number has gradually been going up. The good news about those sites is that 93% of them are classed as “excellent” and “good”, so their record is extremely good. I will take a rain check on whether I join him for a swim.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Why are there only 421 such sites? People can go wild swimming anywhere in England and other parts of the United Kingdom. Is this whole designation scheme not essentially a rationing scheme? Why do the Government not abandon it and enable people to swim in bathing waters anywhere?

[Rebecca Pow]

To be quite honest, one can swim wherever one wants; it is just that there is a process for what we call designating bathing waters. In the application for that, one has to demonstrate that there is sufficient interest in using that site—that high numbers of people want to use it—and that there are car parking facilities and public facilities, including loos and so forth. That is all part of encouraging designated sites, but it is not to say that people cannot choose, in their own right, to swim wherever they want.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

7. What steps her Department is taking to protect fish stocks.

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[Mr Speaker]

Who wants this one?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

Apologies, Mr Speaker; I was told that the right hon. Gentleman had withdrawn his question.

We have banned single-use plastic straws, cotton buds and stirrers, and have recently announced that additional items will be banned from October 2023, including plastic plates and cutlery and polystyrene food and beverage containers. Through our 25-year environment plan, we are committed to an ambition to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste by 2042.

[Mr Carmichael]

The Minister has a long-standing record in this area; I thought she might be jumping to get to the Dispatch Box to answer my question. We have to accept, though, that although we were making very good progress on reducing and eliminating the use of single-use plastics before covid, the measures that were necessary during lockdown did see a lot of that progress reversed, and there is now a need for a renewed and reinvigorated approach. Unfortunately, in Scotland we have a rather poorly designed deposit return scheme that risks further damage to the cause of reducing single-use plastics, so will the Minister join me and other Members across the House in designing a strategy for the eventual elimination of single-use plastics that can enjoy everyone’s support?

[Rebecca Pow]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I am always very keen to talk about these issues. Frankly, I believe this Government are doing a really great job in setting the direction of travel for reducing our use of plastics and, indeed, pressing on with all of our schemes—not just the individual bans that I have outlined—as well as the extended producer responsibility scheme, the data reporting section of which has already started; the deposit return scheme; and our consistent collections. I am sorry to hear what the right hon. Gentleman says about the Scottish deposit return scheme, but certainly, we in this place are pressing on with all our commitments and targets to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

14. What recent steps she is taking to help tackle plastic pollution.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. On a similar note to my answer to the previous question, the resources and waste strategy sets out our plans to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste by 2042. To do that, we have introduced a range of bans on certain plastic items, as she will know, and the extended producer responsibility scheme, for which data gathering has already started. The deposit return scheme and consistent recycling will also come on board.

[Fleur Anderson]

There is huge support for banning plastic in wet wipes from hon. Members on both sides of the House, retailers, producers and water companies. The Government’s consultation on the issue ended more than a year ago, but it was not included in the recent plastic announcements—the Government’s action on the issue is so slow. Will the Minister support the campaign of Water UK and the water companies to bin the wipe? Will she meet me to talk about when the Government will finally bring in that ban on plastic in wet wipes?

[Rebecca Pow]

I know how passionately the hon. Lady feels about the issue—I do too—but we have to get it right. We are still analysing the responses to that call for evidence. Great care has to be taken when considering something flushable, even if it does not have plastic in it—where does it go, where does it end up and what happens to it?—so we have asked for extra information about that. It is critical for wipes to be flushable, but I urge people not to flush things down the loo, because that is how we get blockages and fatbergs. I recently went to a nursery where they were making homemade wet wipes out of kitchen roll, none of which went down the loo. If hon. Members want to see my video on that, they should go on to my Instagram.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

15. What steps her Department is taking to support farmers through environmental land management schemes.

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[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

T2.   I thank Ministers for their continued support on coastal flooding, including the £10 million allocated to upgrade flood defences in Fylde, which is a low-lying, largely flat coastal peninsula, meaning that even inland areas remain vulnerable to flooding. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), visited Fylde and saw that for herself, but will she join me for a further visit to the affected areas, and commit to producing a long-term plan to relieve the issues?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

I very much enjoyed my educational visit to Fylde to understand the benefits of our flood spending. Even in low-lying areas, there are benefits of protecting the businesses, which felt safer. Tourism and active travel on the great embankment had been strengthened. I would be delighted to come back if my diary permits it to see the further work that is being done to get even more out of the funding that the Government have committed to from our £5.2-billion budget.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

T3. The hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) mentioned the lack of Government support for greenhouse producers. Energy costs are having a great impact on farmers, but they are not included in the new business scheme coming into place at the end of March. Given that we are about to have an urgent question on food shortages, will the Government reconsider that decision?

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[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

It was a pleasure to welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) to Manor Farm in Chearsley last month, to see how farmer Rose Dale, the River Thame Conservation Trust and the Freshwater Habitats Trust have created new floodplain freshwater wetland habitats. Will she congratulate everyone involved in this hugely successful project? What steps are being taken to create further such wetlands?

[Rebecca Pow]

It was the most enjoyable and informative visit that I took part in with my hon. Friend; I ask that he pass on my thanks to Farmer Rose. The visit demonstrated the value of bringing water into the landscape; it has value for habitats and, in many other places, for flood control. Such nature-based solutions are one of the key planks of not just our flood policy but our habitat restoration project.

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[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Why is the deposit return scheme in England not going to include glass bottles, unlike the one in Scotland?

[Rebecca Pow]

As my hon. Friend points out, two different schemes are proposed. We have consulted widely, in particular with industry, and that is why we have taken the decision not to include glass bottles. Glass bottles will remain in the consistent collections from the doorstep. From our consultation and stakeholder engagement, that is considered to be the best way to increase the amount of glass we recycle.

[Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)]

T8. The Government’s 25-year environment plan aims to deliver cleaner water for our communities. However, recent statistics show that the River Calder and the River Aire, which run through the Wakefield district, are the second and third most polluted waterways in England. The Office for Environmental Protection, the Government’s own regulator, has said that progress has fallen far short. After 13 years in power, what steps is the Secretary of State taking to clean up the waterways for the people of Wakefield?

Water Company Performance

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on what measures can be deployed to ensure water companies are performing adequately.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

First, I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) for bringing the matter of ensuring that water companies are performing adequately before this House. I think we all agree that this is an incredibly important and serious issue. I have been clear that water companies’ current performance is totally unacceptable and that they must act urgently to improve to meet Government and customer expectations. The British people expect better and so do this Government.

We have committed to deliver clean and plentiful water, as set out in the environmental improvement plan, and we have set out clearly how water companies must deliver that. First, our strategic policy statement to Ofwat, the water company regulator, sets out four clear priorities for water companies to protect and enhance the environment, deliver a resilient water sector, serve and protect consumers, and use markets to deliver for our customers.

Secondly, we have set new duties, through the Environment Act 2021, on water companies to monitor their overflows and set new legally binding targets to restore our precious water bodies to their natural state by cracking down on harmful pollution from sewers and abandoned mines, and improving water usage and households.

Thirdly, the storm overflow reduction plan, launched back in the summer, requires the largest investment programme in water company history and builds on the existing statutory duties. Water companies already have a statutory duty to provide a supply of wholesome water under the Water Industry Act 1991 and associated water quality regulations. They must ensure the continuation of their water distribution functions during an emergency.

I will begin by addressing my right hon. Friend’s concerns, because she has been in touch. I appreciate the lengths to which she has gone to hold her own water company to account, particularly over the supply interruptions experienced by Southern Water’s customers following multiple emergency incidents back in December 2022. A more recent incident last week led to approximately 15,000 Southern Water customers being off supply for an extended period, as she will know. Although some supply interruptions cannot be avoided, the repeated failure to properly ensure customers’ continued water supply is totally unacceptable. I will be meeting with Southern Water’s chief executive officer to understand how it plans to address its failings.

The Government and their regulators hold water companies to account in a number of ways, particularly through transparent reporting and performance. As the economic regulator for the water industry, Ofwat tracks performance against performance commitments, which are set at the start of the funding cycle.

The current performance commitments were set for the cycle from 2020 to 2024 and include pollution incidents, treatment works compliance and supply interruptions. Ofwat assesses performance against each of those metrics annually and ranks the companies in the water company performance report according to whether the metrics have been achieved. It reported that five water companies were extremely poor. The Secretary of State and I met them to hold them to account and to make it clear that we need further progress—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are now a minute over—we are on four minutes. Can you do the conclusion to help us out? Just pick the last sentence.

[Rebecca Pow]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to be clear that where water and sewage companies are found to be breaking the law, there will be substantial penalties. We have increased all our measures on those penalties, and we are looking at whether we will go ahead with the £250-million cap that has been proposed. We will be consulting on that shortly.

[Caroline Nokes]

Water companies’ performance is not just about finances and Ofwat must not just be an economic regulator. It is about customer satisfaction, consistent supply, treating waste water, investment in networks, and making sure that our constituents have a clean drinking water supply all the time. In addition to compensation, customers need there to be better ways to hold water companies to account for significant outages, such as the three that we have seen in southern Hampshire in just five months, each of which lasted for days.

There is the ignominy of being in the Ofwat category of “lagging behind”, but that does not seem to have improved Southern Water or Thames Water, which have been in that category for two years running—shame does not appear to be effective. There are poor customer satisfaction ratings, but what do they change? There is a requirement to produce an action plan and targeted improvement plans, but by when, and what are the penalties for not delivering on them?

My constituents have gone without water to wash with, to drink, to cook with and to flush the loo with for days on end, with poor and in some instances misleading communications and without access to bottled water stations in my constituency. The only one was accessible on foot only, but water is really heavy to carry. They want significant fines for failure to supply, in the same way that there are significant fines for pollution. They want a requirement for emergency and back-up supplies to be available when parts of the network go down. Is it acceptable that if one part of the Otterbourne water supply works in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) is out of action, there is no provision to bypass the problem and continue supply?

Ofwat has said that it will push the “lagging behind” companies, but how hard, and what is the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs doing to make sure that that happens? What is the penalty for not delivering on improvement plans? Last year, only 68% of the forecast improvement moneys were spent. At what point will DEFRA step in and recognise that the current situation is not working for the companies, the regulator or the poor customer?

We heard last week that there were plans to “water down” excessive fines, but a record £90 million was levied on Southern Water a few years ago, and that was not enough to convey the message. Rather than fines, can we therefore ensure that money is levied to force investment in the network, because current performance suggests that, so far, it simply has not worked?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my right hon. Friend for reiterating the situation that we have just witnessed with Southern Water, which was completely and utterly unacceptable, particularly following the incidents in December. I have communicated with the chief executive and I am asking again for an urgent meeting as a result of the situation last week.

My right hon. Friend raises some pertinent points about holding water companies to account. She knows that there is a system whereby water can be credited back to the billpayers, and I urge that that will be looked at and followed up. She also asked about the action plans for different companies. The Secretary of State and I had the five worst-performing water companies in before Christmas to talk about their failures, including leakages. We are taking swift action against them: they all have to produce an updated action plan to say what they are doing.

We have done a great deal to ensure that there is enforcement, which is critical, because everybody wants water companies to be held to account for what they do. The Environment Agency already has powers to issue unlimited fines through the criminal courts, but that can take a long time, as my right hon. Friend knows. It also needs data, but because of all the monitoring that the Government are doing, we are getting more of that, so we will be able to take more enforcement action. DEFRA is currently consulting on plans to raise the cap on fines and to make it quicker and easier to issue fines when we know things are not working correctly.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on securing this urgent question. She, like many of us, is absolutely sick and tired of the impact that sewage discharges are having on our streams, rivers, seas and local economies. They are devastating whole regions and devastating our coastlines. Frankly, we are here again with the same old excuses and the same old promises for action getting drawn out, but there is no action behind it. The water companies know they can laugh all the way to the bank because the Government will not take action, and the regulators know that the Government will not take action because they have taken away the capacity to take action from the regulators.

All the while, it is local people who are suffering—whether that is people being able to enjoy their local beauty spots and to take a walk down the river, or that is coastal businesses that are reliant on seasonal tourism to provide jobs and livelihoods to people. They are affected, not the Government, and what do we see? This year alone, when the Bank of England and the Government are telling hard-working people to rein it in and stop asking for pay rises, the water bosses are asking for 20% increases in salary. There is not a single thing the Government have said—in the environmental improvement plan or in anything said at the Dispatch Box—that sends out the message that things will be any different, and the water companies know that. They have already banked £66 billion in dividend payments and more will follow.

Labour does not want to sit on the sidelines and witness our country being turned into an open sewer. We set out at the Labour party conference in September a position that would clean up the water industry in this country, deliver value for money for consumers and bill payers, and finally work in the national interest, so when on earth will the Government get on and deliver Labour’s plan?

[Rebecca Pow]

It is so easy to just stand there with no facts and no detailed information, and level an attack. I agree, as does the Secretary of State, that sewage in water, unacceptable leakage and so forth are not to be tolerated, and that is why we have set so many actions in train—more than ever before. We are taking more action than any Government have ever before on the water companies.

Do not forget that, since privatisation, the water companies have made a huge investment—billions of pounds of investment—in improving our water company infrastructure. Because of our new storm overflows discharge reduction plan, they are now committed to £56 billion of investment up to 2050, and £7.1 billion of that is already under way, including the Thames Tideway super sewer. A great deal of enforcement action is already taking place. Just in 2021, £121 million of fines were meted out to water companies. Because of the very detailed investigation now under way by Ofwat, the regulator, and the EA, we have more and more data and information to pinpoint where permits are being contravened and where water companies are not taking the actions they should be, and enforcement will follow. We are now consulting on a potential figure of £250 million to make sure we have a realistic and sensible fine that will really do the job in holding our water companies to account.

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

The Minister knows that the River Mersey flows through the middle of Warrington—she has been to see it for herself—and I was struck recently by the comments of a local resident who reminded me of the pink film that used to exist on top of the river. Much has been done to clear up our rivers. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that it is absolutely right that water company dividends are directly linked to their performance in providing services to their customers and in cleaning up our rivers?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. In 2019, transparency became much more critical in Ofwat’s holding the water companies to account, because it had to agree, in the price review, how much they should be spending on infrastructure to provide clean water and to ensure the supply. Ofwat has now been directed to ensure that water companies can demonstrate that payments to bosses and so forth are linked to environmental performance.

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree with the almost 209,000 voters who have signed a petition started by my constituents, SOS Whitstable, calling on the Government to at least consider renationalisation of the water companies? Profit-driven, largely foreign investors do not prioritise the cleanliness and economy of British beach communities or the way of life in constituencies such as mine? If the companies were answerable directly to the taxpayer, they might start to act at last.

[Rebecca Pow]

The hon. Member forgets that since privatisation £120 billion has been invested by the water companies in the critical infrastructure that we need not only to provide clean and plentiful water but to ensure the supply, so I do not agree with her that we should be renationalising them. What we do need to do is hold them to account where they are doing wrong, but also enable them to continue to invest the £56 billion they are now required to spend to deliver our future water system, with our growing population and the demands of climate change.

[James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

The use of storm overflows is completely unacceptable, but does the Minister agree that the best way to tackle that is through enhanced monitoring, requiring a record £56 billion investment by the water companies, and the use of significant fines and criminal prosecutions? Does she also agree that the water companies should be in no doubt that they are in the last-chance saloon and that they and regulators must be held to account to deliver major improvements for our constituents?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for those sensible points. To be honest, it is because of the monitoring this Government have put in place that we now know what is going on. Under the Labour Government there was virtually no monitoring at all: in 2016, some 5% of storm sewerage overflows were being monitored; that figure is 90% now, and by the end of the year it will be 100%. We will also have to monitor upstream and downstream of every sewerage overflow outlet, so we will know exactly what is going on, and unacceptable behaviour will be acted upon.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Water bosses are actively allowing more pollution, because they know it is cheaper to pay the fines than to put in the investment, mend the leaks and stop the sewage. When will the Minister introduce the higher fines of £250 million that the Environment Secretary has pooh-poohed, and take the Environment Agency’s advice to put directors in jail if they fail? Will she give an undertaking that the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill will not get rid of all the protections from Europe, so that we do not have even more stools in our rivers and on our beaches?

[Rebecca Pow]

If the hon. Gentleman had been listening earlier, he would have heard me say that we are consulting on plans to raise the cap on fines to £250 million, to make it quicker and easier to tackle enforcement. That will be a significant step, along with all the other measures we are taking, which I have clearly outlined, to hold the water companies to account.

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

The Minister knows the importance of water quality for my beautiful constituency of Southend-on-Sea and that the use of storm overflows has been completely unacceptable. I welcome the Government’s actions to ensure executive pay and dividends are linked to environmental performance, but she will know that the chief executive of Anglian Water earned £1.3 million last year, including a bonus of £337,651. I have asked him repeatedly for meetings but have still not got a date; will the Minister meet the CEO of Anglian Water with me so that we can understand his plan to stop storm overflows being used in Southend West?

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend is a tremendous campaigner for Southend and I would be happy to meet with her and the head of Anglian Water to push that forward.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

We have seen £2.8 billion in water company profits, £1 billion in shareholder dividends, and a 20% rise in executive water company pay, 60% of which has been in bonuses—in my book, bonuses are for doing a good job, not a terrible one. Meanwhile in Cumbria, the River Eden at Kirkby Stephen has had 101 days of sewage outflows, Swindale Beck at Brough has had 115 days, the River Eea at Cark and Cartmel has had 252 days, and Windermere lake at the heart of the English Lake district has had 71 days. All of that, outrageously, is legal. When will the Government force the water companies to clean up not only their act, but our lakes and rivers too?

[Rebecca Pow]

If I might say, the hon. Gentleman is a fine one to talk. I believe the water Minister in the coalition was a Liberal Democrat: what exactly did he do? It is this Government who are taking action now on the water companies. This Government introduced the storm overflows reduction plan and, in addition to that plan and all the requirements it puts on the water companies, just this week the Secretary of State has asked that a plan be submitted for every single storm sewerage overflow, with water companies’ proposed actions clearly outlined.

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

Before Christmas, some 20,000 of my constituents were without water—last week, thousands were—and this clearly stems from a chronic lack of investment in infrastructure by South West Water, despite its balance sheet showing an ability to do so. Six weeks later, we have the same issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) has organised a meeting with the chief executive later, but one word not elaborated on is “compensation”. Will the Minister contact the CEO to press that point, and will the Government up their game not by asking water companies to invest in infrastructure but by forcing them to do so?

[Rebecca Pow]

There is a clear compensation scheme, as my hon. Friend will know, and that will be being looked at by his water company. I urge him to press for that. If he wants my involvement in ensuring that that is properly understood and followed, I am happy to do that.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

The same greedy water companies that are dumping sewage into our rivers and increasing people’s bills, ripping the public off, have handed out more than £50 billion to shareholders since privatisation. That is the reality. Is it not time that we had our water back in public ownership, rather than empty words from the Minister?

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

Clearly I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. The water companies have invested billions of pounds since privatisation—£120 billion—and they will invest a further £56 billion up to 2050. That investment has already begun and Ofwat is going through the water companies’ new plans to agree what is necessary in the next price review. We must remember that what comes out of our taps is considered the cleanest water in Europe. We must also be mindful of the cost to bill payers. We have to balance a clean and plentiful supply of water with holding our water companies to account, while enabling customers to be able to afford the bills.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

In Edgware ward in my constituency we have had a large number of new housing developments without a single improvement to the sewerage system. As a consequence, during heavy rain raw sewage comes out of the manhole covers on to the streets. Will my hon. Friend have a word with the planning Minister to ensure that before developments take place sewerage systems are improved to cope with the additional housing?

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend raises an important point about housing supply and the suitability of our water supply system. I have been in close communication with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities about all those related issues, which is why I am delighted that we have agreed that sustainable urban drainage systems will now be mandatory. That will make a great difference to our water system. Similarly, the amendment to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will enable the upgrade to tackle phosphates produced by waste water treatment systems—after all, sewage comes from us—and make sure that what goes back into rivers is clean, so that we can have the clean water that we all deserve.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

People in Lancashire know that we are lucky to live in an area with so many beautiful river walks by the River Wyre and the River Lune, but they are no fools—they can see their water bills going up as are the profits of companies such as United Utilities. At the same time, we are seeing higher discharges into our beautiful rivers. Can the Minister explain why she thinks the current system appears to be working just fine?

[Rebecca Pow]

If the hon. Lady had been listening, I did say that pollution—which is a range, not just sewage but phosphates, nitrates and pollution from old mines—is unacceptable, and that is why we have set all the targets through the new environment improvement plan, with a trajectory for making the changes that we need. It is also why we have signalled through the regulator that performance and payment must be linked to environmental performance.

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

Can my hon. Friend assure me that more will be done to give out accurate information when water companies invest in making improvements and to ensure that campaigners have that information, rather than the Opposition’s fiction? Bathing water quality on beaches in North Devon is improving, following millions of pounds of investment, and our overflow usage halved last year and will continue to improve because of the work the Government are doing through our world-leading Environment Act 2021 and the storm overflows discharge reduction plan.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for that and I could not agree with her more. She is a strident campaigner for the beautiful environment in which she lives, and our bathing water status should be commended—72% of our bathing waters are classed as excellent and 94% as good. It is an extremely good record and we should be proud of it.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Over the course of 2020 and 2021, raw sewage was dumped in Britain’s rivers and seas more than 770,000 times. That is almost 6 million hours of pollution discharge. But, as we have heard, the pay of water company executives increased by a fifth, on average. Will the Minister force water companies to invest those profits into urgently upgrading the outdated sewage infrastructure—not ask them, not require more plans, but force them to do it? Will she look again at bringing the companies into public ownership so that money is properly reinvested, not siphoned off to shareholders? She does not seem to understand why people are so angry when water companies are swimming in cash while the rest of us are swimming in sewage.

[Rebecca Pow]

I have said constantly that it is unacceptable that storm sewerage overflows have been used in contravention of permits. Let us not forget, however, that they were put there for a reason by the Victorians: heavy rainfall and sewage all goes down the same pipe and could back up in our loos, so storm sewerage overflows are there as an emergency precaution. It is clear that they have been relied on too much by water companies, and that is why the Government, having put in the monitors and got more data, can step in. We have launched the storm sewerage overflows reduction plan and the water companies are now committed to so much funding to put all the overflows into the correct operating position, concentrating first on areas near bathing waters and our wonderful protected sites and then all the others. There is now a clear plan of action against which to hold the companies to account.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The River Tame in my constituency is cherished by all the residents who live along it. The Tame valley is the jewel in the crown, but unfortunately the river is subject to regular pollution from several outlets, including chemicals as well as sewage. What more will the Minister do to work with United Utilities and—more importantly—to get the Environment Agency to tackle those companies that use the Tame as an open source to pollute?

[Rebecca Pow]

The hon. Gentleman raises not only the issue of sewage but a whole range of issues. That is why the Environment Agency operates a permit system, why it has powers to take action to enforce, why we are looking at stronger enforcement through increased fines, and why we set targets under the Environment Act to tackle not just sewage but chemicals and the run-off from old and abandoned mines and to clear up whole stretches of rivers. I think—we met about this—that that applies to his particular area. It will take time—we cannot pretend things will happen overnight—but in fairness there is now a clear plan when under other Governments there was not.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

The Minister may be aware that Thames Water is considering plans to draw out water from the river at Teddington in my constituency in times of drought and replace it with treated sewage. That can cause all sorts of havoc with ecosystems if it is not monitored and regulated properly. She will appreciate that my constituents and I have little faith in regulators when Thames Water is currently losing a quarter of its supply every day through leaks and avoiding fines because the targets set for it are just not strong enough. Will she look at strengthening those targets so that companies are more liable to fines and at cracking down on the eye-watering bonuses executives are raking in, which is forcing them to look at these sorts of damaging river abstraction plans when they should be fixing leaks?

[Rebecca Pow]

The issue of leaks is important. We are tackling it and water companies have targets to cut leaks. In the 2019 price review, they had to cut leakage by 16% and reduce bursts by 12%. If they are not seen to be reaching their targets, Ofwat imposes penalties on them. Three companies are currently paying back £150 million because of leaks and supply cuts. So there is already a system in place and it needs to be adhered to. Water is a precious resource and we need all the water we can get, which is why it is so important to tackle leakage and not just tackle environmental performance in terms of bonuses. I agree with the hon. Lady that bonuses should be linked to environmental performance, and that is what we have directed Ofwat to do.

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

As the Minister will know, Cornwall is often at the coalface of the fight against sewage. When we had a leak in St Agnes a few months ago, one issue we found was that the investigation did not take place immediately and there was some ambiguity as to whether it was sewage or run-off. Can the Minister explain to the House what we are doing to ensure that when there is a problem we get the data as quickly as possible so that there is no further ambiguity?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important point. I think the incident she refers to turned out to be one of not sewage but soil. That is another issue we face and we now have targets to reduce soil sediment run-off. We do not want all that soil in our water; we need soil on the land because it is so precious. She is absolutely right about having the right data. Now, because of the increased monitoring that the Government have set under way, every storm sewage overflow will be monitored by the end of this year. It is a phenomenal project that has happened at great speed, ramping up over the last few years. It will provide us with the clear data we need, as well as monitoring upstream and downstream. Real-time monitoring will come into play. That is what we really need, so we can go on to a website, look at our home area and say, “That storm sewage overflow should not be emitting. It is not heavy rain. We have not had a massive downfall. It should not be emitting.” We will be able to go on there and truly hold the water companies to account.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I am sure the Government are well aware that the public are really upset about this issue. In my constituency people are very much disgusted by it and they do not see a market in operation. We had a 67% increase in discharges locally in the River Avon and River Leam. In Worcestershire, there was an increase of 80,000 tonnes of discharge into rivers which led to a £1.5 million fine for Severn Trent Water. Yet the chief executive got a 27% pay increase to £3.9 million. Can the Minister confirm whether chief executive pay is index-linked to discharges?

[Rebecca Pow]

I am not going to disagree with the hon. Gentleman that the discharges are unacceptable, but I would also like to say that it is because of what the Government are doing and because we have made this such a priority that it has come to light—a great deal more than it did under previous Governments. We are taking action. It is now a top priority through all the measures we have in place. The strategic policy statement to Ofwat, the targets in the Environment Act and our storm sewage overflows reduction plan—all that cumulative work—will take us on the trajectory we genuinely want and need. We still have clean and plentiful water coming out of our taps. We should not underestimate the fact that that is what the water companies are also delivering.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

The fact is that every two and a half minutes people can smell sewage and see the sewage in their rivers and on their beaches, yet water companies are laughing all the way to the bank. The best we can get from the Minister is that we now monitor it. It is pathetic, isn’t it, after 13 years of Tory government?

[Rebecca Pow]

I clearly understand the concern among the public. I count myself as one of them. I have said many times, as have other Ministers, that sewage in water is unacceptable. But let us not mislead; let us get our facts straight. As I said earlier, 72% of our bathing water is classed as excellent and 94% is classed as good. That is a tremendous record that has been achieved under this Government. It has improved year on year and will continue to improve. All the actions the Government have put into place will tackle the issues the hon. Gentleman talks about. They will tackle unacceptable pollution all round, and that is what we need. It is about not just sewage but getting the right infrastructure in place—the £56 billion the water companies will be investing, required by this Government, and all the other measures, not least working with farmers on the pollution they cause, through our new slurry infrastructure grants and so on. A comprehensive and holistic programme is now in place, which was not in place under previous Governments.

[Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)]

Labour’s plan to clean up the water industry would include cutting sewage discharges by 90%, mandatory monitoring of outlets and automatic fines for discharges. Will the Minister enact it, for the benefit of Portsmouth people, with immediate effect?

[Rebecca Pow]

There is already a comprehensive system of enforcement. As I said, we are now consulting on the £250 million potential cap and what might be the realistic cap, to really make a difference and put a stop to unacceptable pollution incidents.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

The current arrangements are clearly not working. Last month, I asked the Minister if she thought that water regulation was fit for purpose. She replied:

“Yes…but many tweaks and improvements”

are needed

“to ensure that it is working properly.”—[Official Report, 12 January 2023; Vol. 725, c. 702.]

Let me give her another opportunity to answer the question. Does she really think that the current system of regulation for the water industry is fit for purpose?

[Rebecca Pow]

We have a regulator. Its job is to regulate the water companies. The Government sent a very strong policy statement to Ofwat to direct the water companies on a whole range of measures, not least putting the environment at the top of the agenda but also enabling the supply we need for the future population, so we can all have the clean and plentiful water we deserve. We now have an extremely comprehensive plan in place to deal with that.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

As the Minister knows, Wolvercote Mill Stream in Oxford became the second river in the country to get designated bathing water status. Can she therefore understand our frustration when the official designation for 2022 was poor and over the Christmas period 676 hours—nearly an entire month—of sewage was discharged upstream in Witney? Can she seriously say, in light of that, that she and the Government are doing enough? Why will she not set even stricter targets, especially in areas with bathing water status? Can she give a cast-iron guarantee to our community that we will not lose bathing water status because of lacklustre action by the Government?

[Rebecca Pow]

As the hon. Lady will know, I visited that site, and indeed I even paddled in the water. She knows full well that the system we have introduced will help to clean up bathing water areas such as hers, and the monitoring that we have introduced both upstream and downstream will deliver the change that we need.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am sure that the Minister does not want to mislead the House in any way when she talks about the quality of bathing water, but Yorkshire Water has told me that there is not one river in the United Kingdom that is fit to swim in, and that is a real mess. Have her Government considered—after 13 years—adopting a plan that Labour Members discuss frequently, namely, the introduction of a golden share in these companies with two directors, so that we can actually do something about the dreadful mess that we are in?

[Rebecca Pow]

Talking of misleading the House, I am not sure where the hon. Gentleman gets his data. Let me reiterate what I said earlier: 72% of bathing waters are excellent and 94% are good, so a great many are extremely clean and wonderful to swim in. We now have a comprehensive plan for inland bathing waters, and we have gone out to ask whether people want to present proposals for further bathing waters. There is a strict protocol applying to how they reach the right standards and whether they are classed as fit to swim in. I urge the hon. Gentleman to have a look at the details.

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

The scale of the mismanagement of our nation’s water resources under the stewardship of the private water companies is far greater than that of the appalling disregard for our precious beaches and waters. Sir James Bevan has warned that much of the country is now staring into “the jaws of death”—the point at which we will not have enough water to meet our needs. Last summer demonstrated just how ill-equipped the water companies are to deal with protracted periods of extreme heat. Does the Minister agree that the most effective way of tackling water insecurity is to create an integrated publicly owned water supplier serving the whole of England?

[Rebecca Pow]

The answer is no.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

In July 2021 several hundred properties in my constituency suffered a combination of surface and sewer flooding, some for the third or fourth time in 20 years, despite these being—according to Thames Water—one in 100-year or one in 300-year floods. Last week Thames Water wrote to the affected households saying that if their properties were at low risk, medium risk or even high risk and were subject to surface flooding, they would “not require a solution”. This constitutes appalling complacency and neglect on the part of Thames Water. What is the Minister going to do about it? In the words of my constituent Brendan Smith, Thames Water needs to be “held to account”.

[Rebecca Pow]

The issue of the surface water flooding is serious. It is all related to the ground water table coming up and influencing the whole system. It is a complicated system, and the situation obviously needs to be addressed. Thames Water is investing a great deal in cleaning up its water; as the hon. Gentleman will know, it is the company that is putting in the super sewer. That scheme, which would never have happened without the Government’s support, is a tremendous model which I believe will be copied elsewhere and will make a significant difference. However, where Thames Water has contravened its permit, it will be held to account.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

Earlier this month, along with some other Members, I received an email from Pennon Group, which owns South West Water, stating:

“we wanted to provide you with the most recent information so that you are able to have an informed debate”.

Does the Minister agree that what should inform our debate is the experience of our constituents, who are seeing their bills rise and sewage flood our waterways, and does she agree that water companies should be focusing on delivering a quality service to bill payers rather than quality lobbying of politicians?

[Rebecca Pow]

South West Water is a one-star company. It is one of the worst-performing water companies. I have had its representatives in a number of times to look at its performance, and it has a clear plan of action for its trajectory to improve. We must hold its feet to the fire in that regard. Let me also say, however, that our friends the Liberal Democrats have been spreading an awful lot of misinformation about this issue—particularly in the south-west, where I come from—and independent fact-checkers have often found many of their claims to be false.

[Mr Speaker]

And now, someone who needs no turning on—Jim Shannon.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for her responses to all the questions.

Given the increased pressure on the water system as a result of the increase in the number of power showers and spa-type waterfall showers—as well as the increase in the number of homes, which I consider to be another critical factor in what is happening—it is clear that our current infrastructure is not up to scratch. How will the Minister ensure that we do not sacrifice the balance between quality, as developers who are under financial pressure owing to the cost of living are looking for cheaper options, and the bare minimum where permissible?

[Rebecca Pow]

The hon. Gentleman has broadened the debate by talking about the water supply issue as a whole. The Government are looking closely at the issue of water efficiency, because we must ensure that we use water wisely. We have consulted on mandatory water efficiency labelling. If we use water efficiently in our homes, with the help of the correct gadgets and the correct legislation from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, we will use water better, and there could potentially be a beneficial impact on our bills. We must always think about the costs to bill payers, and about enabling them always to have the clean and plentiful water that they deserve.

Air Pollution: Funding for Local Authorities

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

Today we announced our award of £10.7 million in funding to local authorities in England to help them tackle air pollution in their areas.

Across 44 different projects, we are helping local authorities to improve air quality in their local communities to benefit schools, businesses and residential areas and reduce the impact of air pollution on public health.

The air quality grants have been running since 1997 and since 2010, we have awarded nearly £53 million in funding.

This year’s grant has prioritised three areas:

Projects which reduce air pollutant exceedances especially in those areas that are projected to remain in exceedance of the UK’s legal targets;

Projects to improve knowledge and information about air quality and steps individuals can take to reduce their exposure to air pollution and minimise health risk;

Measures that reduce levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO²), including support for low-emission transport.

Schemes across England being funded include air quality education programmes for healthcare workers; traffic management schemes to reduce congestion and emissions; the funding of an e-cargo bike scheme for businesses to reduce their reliance on more polluting vehicles; and the implementation of a river freight scheme in London.

The air quality grant scheme will reopen for new applications in summer 2023.

Draft Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) Regulations 2023

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) Regulations 2023.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. The draft regulations were laid before the House on 9 January. They form part of a tranche of secondary legislation essential to the implementation of extended producer responsibility for packaging, so there is more to come, folks, but this is the start.

Extended producer responsibility will move the full cost of dealing with packaging waste away from households, local taxpayers and councils, and on to the producer. Producers will pay fees to cover the cost of collecting and treating household packaging waste handled by the local authorities. For the first time, the producers will be responsible for the cost of managing their packaging once it reaches its end of life. That will encourage businesses to think more carefully about how much packaging they use and its design, and their use of easily recyclable, reusable or refillable packaging.

EPR will help to reduce the overall amount of packaging that we put into the market—the amount we currently produce each year is considered unsustainable—and, in turn, to reduce the damaging impact of materials such as plastics on our global environment. These measures will help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 2.2 million tonnes by 2033—equivalent to 5.1 million barrels of oil—by reducing the creation of new packaging using virgin materials and incentivising producers to manage resources more efficiently. That will contribute to climate change mitigation in line with our commitment to decarbonise all sectors of the economy and achieve net zero by 2050.

[Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The Minister talks about incentivising producers. Large producers can probably manage, because of their financial resources, but what sort of incentives will smaller producers have? They might have additional costs, so to what extent are the Government helping them, either by way of transition or with other assistance?

[Rebecca Pow]

The large producers will bear the brunt of the new measures—the brand owners, the people who put the brand on the market, will be responsible. The regulations we are discussing today are just about recording data. There will be two categories: large producers, and smaller ones producing more than a certain tonnage. I will clarify all the details later in my speech. We have consulted twice, and the industry understands and is overwhelmingly in favour of the system. The concerns my right hon. Friend expresses have been addressed in the creation of this draft statutory instrument.

While we are talking about the cost, it is important to note that the measure will shift the cost away from local authorities, which at the moment do the collecting of packaging, funded by taxpayers, and on to producers who put the stuff on the market. It will provide an estimated £1.2 billion of funding to local authorities across the UK each year for managing packaging waste. This is a big part of driving us toward the circular economy we have all been talking about for so long. Councils will get the extra funding to deal with rubbish and recycling, easing pressure on council budgets.

We set out our intention to introduce extended producer responsibility in our 25-year environment plan and in our 2019 manifesto. Working with the devolved Administrations, we have agreed to introduce EPR for packaging at the UK level. The regulations will require packaging producers to collect and report data on the amounts and types of packaging that they supply from March this year. If they already hold the data, which most large producers do, they will have to supply it from January this year, so giving us more information.

On material type, producers will have to collect data on plastic, steel, aluminium, paper and card, wood, glass, fibre and fibre-based composites—basically, fibre-based cups. That is a new thing. They will collect data on the weight and the number of drinks containers, and state whether they come from England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. They will also give some data on the amount of packaging that ends up being binned—trying to reduce littering is an important part of what we are doing. The data is needed to calculate producers’ recycling obligations and the EPR fees that producers will pay to cover the cost of managing household packaging waste from 2024. We have to start getting the data this year to work out those fees, so the system can be up and running next year.

Packaging producers already report data on packaging under the current producer responsibility regulations. The new regulations will refocus the obligations on the producers that have the most influence over what packaging is being used, and require producers to report more information about the type of packaging they produce than they do now. Larger producers will also be required to increase the frequency of their reporting from once a year, which they do now under the packaging note system, to twice a year.

We expect these data reporting regulations to be in force for only one year. After that, they will be revoked and replaced by the new producer responsibility obligations (packaging and packaging waste) regulations, which will be laid later this year. That will be the big statutory instrument, which will contain all the other information that we need, and make similar provisions relating to data collection and reporting.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

The Minister is generous in giving way. It is vital that voices from across the country are heard. The section of the Government’s new environmental improvement plan on implementing EPR for packaging states that the Government are

“engaging with stakeholders to shape the future vision of waste reforms through industry wide sprint events, deep dive sessions and fortnightly forums.”

Will the Minister tell us more about the engagement that has taken place so far, and confirm that the Government are engaging with not just industry stakeholders, but environmental groups?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving me the opportunity to reiterate that two consultations have already been run, and they have been informative. Sprints with businesses and industry have been running for the last couple of months, with thousands of people taking part in them. There has been really good engagement with industry. I have met with the Advisory Committee on Packaging, which gave a lot of advice on the scheme. Its members work with a lot of those working in the industry, many of whom I have met myself.

The hon. Lady makes an important point about non-governmental organisations. We have been working with many of them too, including the Waste and Resources Action Programme, which addresses the consequences of litter. There has been really good engagement on this, including with the devolved Administrations. I met with my equivalents last week to make sure we are all singing from the same hymn sheet. The DAs are bringing their own SIs through as well. I hope that satisfies the hon. Lady and I thank her for her intervention.

As I said, this reporting will only be necessary for one year, and then it will be superseded by the big SI at the end of the year with all the rest of the information. Without these regulations, there would be a gap in the data. These regulations apply to England only but, as I said, similar regulations are being processed in parallel in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I have met my counterparts, and my Department has worked, and will continue to work, closely at official level to develop the legislation.

A full impact assessment for the packaging EPR scheme has been prepared and laid alongside the draft regulations. The impact of the regulations on business is limited to the additional data collection and reporting requirements, and to familiarisation with the new regulations. When the packaging EPR is introduced in 2024, there will be some additional costs for businesses that handle packaging through the EPR fees, but that will result in a net gain for the public sector, as I explained, because the taxpayer will not be paying for collection. The cost will be put on to people putting products on the market. Producers will pay to manage household packaging waste, rather than local authorities.

The measures in the draft regulations are critical to the implementation of the full packaging EPR, which will bring with it all the environmental benefits that I believe we all want to see. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the shadow Minister for indicating that the Opposition will support the draft regulations. She has raised some valid points, so I will summarise what we are trying to do.

The measure is intended to get packaging producers to report data on the amounts and types of packaging that they supply this year, 2023. That data will be used to calculate the producers’ recycling obligations for the EPR fees that the producers will be required to pay local authorities from 2023, to cover their costs of collecting the packaging. Previously, that was all subsidised by the local authorities doing the collecting and therefore the taxpayer. I think the hon. Lady will agree that that is the right direction of travel.

There is no dither or delay—one of the hon. Lady’s favourite statements—going on. We are in fact doing exactly what we said we would do. It was in our manifesto and we are introducing the new system. The fees will be decided from 2024—to be clear about that—so there is no dither or delay. The point of the draft SI is to get on with the system, which means that we need to start gathering the data in advance, so that the calculation can be made about which producer needs to pay what, depending on how much they put on the market. If the material is of poorer quality and requires a great deal more reprocessing to recycle it, they will pay more. If they have gone down the right road, and the material in their packaging is of good quality and already recycled or recyclable, they will pay less.

[Ruth Jones]

The Minister and I agree that data is vital. Will she assure the Committee that she will speaking to industry, as well as NGOs and other stakeholders, to ensure that the data is accurately provided, collected and utilised?

[Rebecca Pow]

Of course, because the whole thing hinges on good data. A new digital system is being created to handle it all, which is critical. A lot of the large companies are already used to collecting data, so the system is not completely new to them; they have been running it and they understand it. However, they will be required to collect more detailed data. I mentioned the kinds of things that they will now have to list. That data will help to inform the entire system.

The hon. Lady is concerned that not all packaging is going to be captured. In fact, all packaging will be subject to the obligation. For producers below the £2 million turnover and 50 tonnes threshold that has been set, the cost obligation will be met by their suppliers, so everything will be captured. That has been carefully thought through with a lot of the producers. It was one of the main points. She suggested a £1 million threshold, which is just a random number out of the air. We set it at £2 million after a great deal of consultation.

The hon. Lady also asked how we will know whether the system is working, and what we will do if we need to change it. Of course, it will be reviewed as it gets up and running and the data starts to come in. There is plenty of scope to do that. She also questioned the number of suppliers. About 7,000 large producers will be involved in capturing and recording the data, which is what we require this year.

[Margaret Greenwood]

I thank the Minister for all the information she is giving. Does she think there will be significant changes in the style of packaging in certain sectors, which will be beneficial to all of us?

[Rebecca Pow]

The change we want to see is that the materials used will become more recyclable and more reusable. We will start to see the whole circle change, with the packaging itself made up of recycled materials. The aim is to avoid packaging going to incineration or landfill, or ending up as litter. This scheme fits with all the others that we are bringing through, including the consistent collection scheme, the deposit return scheme and the food collection scheme. They are all going to dovetail together.

One of the Government’s main commitments is to move in this direction to tackle our emissions and reach net zero. It is a huge part of the commitment made by not just the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but the whole Government. It is genuinely popular with the public as well. People understand and want this change, and I am so proud that this Government are implementing it.

I thank everyone for their comments and the Opposition for their support. The measures are critical for the implementation of the extended producer responsibility scheme for packaging, and they will bring all the benefits that we want and need to see..

Question put and agreed to.

Animal Welfare in Overseas Tourism

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

This is the first time I have had the pleasure of speaking while you have been in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. I know that you, too, are very interested in the subject of animal welfare. I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) for securing this debate, and for sharing a copy of his speech. We have something in common as I, too, was a member of the all-party parliamentary group for animal welfare—I think I co-chaired it. Many Members in this Chamber either have been in that all-party group or are in it now. There is strong cross-party engagement on how we feel about animals and looking after them.

I must thank my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Angela Richardson) for her work in this area. We have heard some gruelling reports of how animals are treated. My hon. Friend the Member for Crawley demonstrated his sympathetic understanding of how we should deal with our fellow wild creatures. He is absolutely right that the way we treat animals reflects on our own values —something we should bear in mind. I express my gratitude to all the campaign groups and organisations that have continued to raise the profile of issues such as those that we are debating.

The Government recognise that a number of tourist activities take place overseas that generate animal welfare concerns and would be illegal here under our own domestic legislation. A 2015 study by Oxford University’s wildlife conservation research unit reported that up to 550,000 animals worldwide suffered due to tourist entertainment in wildlife attractions. We have heard some examples. The tourism industry is a significant contributor to the UK’s economy. Some of that economic activity relates to travel agents here, as we have heard, arranging and selling holidays abroad.

As the tourism industry regenerates following the effects of the covid pandemic, now is the perfect time to build tourism that is responsible and sustainable. As a world leader in animal welfare, the UK Government are keen to work towards improving the welfare of not only animals here in the UK, but those used in the tourism industry across the globe. The Government already carry out a significant amount of work to protect and improve the welfare of animals domestically and worldwide and are determined to do more. That can be seen in our recent support of the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill, which I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley for bringing forward. I was fortunate enough to speak on behalf of the Government on Second Reading on 25 November last year, and I am pleased to see that the Bill will be in Committee tomorrow. I was also delighted to speak last Friday on the Shark Fins Bill, which is another private Member’s Bill that demonstrates the attitude we are taking towards worldwide conservation. I know that many other Members here have contributed towards that.

There are so many pieces of legislation that this Government have recently brought forward to improve animal welfare, including the Glue Traps (Offences) Act 2022, the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022, the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021, the Animal Welfare (Service Animals) Act 2019 and the Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019, and the ivory ban came into force in June 2022. A lot of this work has been underpinned by our action plan for animal welfare, which was published in March 2021 and set out the direction of travel and our commitment to this work on animal welfare both domestically and globally.

The Government are aware of problems involving low-welfare Asian elephant establishments abroad. Asian elephant rides, performances and experiences are often a popular choice among tourists overseas. The campaign group Save the Asian Elephants claims that, of the 2 million UK tourists who visited India and Thailand between 2018 and 2019, one third expressed an interest in having a ride on an elephant. The Association of British Travel Agents is the main industry body that represent travel agents here. Its membership makes up about 90% of our industry, and it issues guidance to its members setting out low-welfare animal practices abroad that it deems unacceptable for travel companies to advertise. Its comprehensive list of such activities includes feeding or contact with big cats, great apes, bears and sloths; bear pits; tiger farms; animal fighting; canned and trophy hunting; and many more. It is impossible to believe that there is such a comprehensive list of all these things, and we have heard some graphic descriptions of those activities tonight. Although ABTA provides clear guidance on these matters, it does not have legislative force and applies only to ABTA members.

Many studies are now concluding that tourists are becoming more reluctant to support low-welfare activities, and I am pleased to say that there is instead a growing demand for sustainable and ethical attractions. We are hopeful that as awareness grows around these issues, ethical tourism will become more prevalent throughout the industry. “Responsible tourism” is an ever-increasing term in the travel industry, and we hope that British travellers will realise this and make the choices for themselves.

Although there is some way to go, there certainly seems to be a shift in many places towards higher-welfare attractions. For example, ChangChill in northern Thailand has become one of the first elephant attractions to transition to an observation-only model. The venue has become a really popular tourist attraction, demonstrating that there is a demand to learn about elephants without having to touch them. Watching animals behave naturally in their natural environment is the right way to go, whether it is rafting up the river in The Gambia looking at birds, or watching whales or elephants from a distance with a good pair of binoculars. The Government are hopeful that the purchasing patterns of tourists from this country will send a strong global statement that we, as a nation, will oppose the unacceptable treatment of animals abroad.

I will conclude, as I think it has all been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley. I thank him and all other Members who have contributed to the debate and who will ensure that, as a nation, we carry on our great work standing up for animal welfare. I wish my hon. Friend well with his Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Shark Fins Bill

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 20th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

I am delighted to be here speaking again on this important subject. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees) for all her great work to introduce this Bill and for navigating it through to this stage. I also thank all Members who have contributed not just today with their perceptive speeches and interventions but on Second Reading and in Committee. It has massive support right across the House. I am delighted that we will continue to assist in every way that we can to ensure swift passage through both Houses so that this important Bill gets on to the statute book.

I normally work so closely with the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), but I was a little concerned about his slight negativity and the shadow he threw over the Bill by asking whether it should be brought forward in some other Bill. We consider this issue so important that we specifically allocated time for it. We want to support this individual issue because it will make such a difference, as we all agree, to protecting this glorious and precious species. It is just another measure to be added to all the other work we are doing as a Government internationally to help with shark conservation.

Sadly, this species has undergone the most immense suffering. One of our Whips was singing the “Jaws” tune before I took to the Dispatch Box, but the other day I heard the director of that film apologise for the fact that he has caused that horrible feeling that we all have about sharks, being scared and fearful of them instead of revering them for the precious and amazing creatures that they are. They play such an important role in their hierarchy in our food chain, because once they go, all the other creatures below them are under threat. They face enough threats as it is with global warming, warming seas, coral reefs changing and, critically, overfishing—a point mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie), who has incredible marine knowledge. We have so many other threats, including plastics. We are working on everything else we can do to help on the international front, but things such as this Bill will be so helpful.

Shark finning is a practice that has been banned in the UK for almost 20 years. We also have a “fins naturally attached” policy, which means that sharks must be landed with all their fins on their bodies. This Bill means that we can go even further and ban the trade in detached fins—that is critical point—and in shark fin products. The Bill outlines our determination that shark finning must stop wherever it takes place. I have already said how irreplaceable these animals are.

The call for evidence that we ran through DEFRA showed how strong the opposition to shark funning is among individuals and all the other marine organisations who worked on this Bill. I must thank them because they played a great role. The sheer grossness of it was outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell), for which I must thank him. My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes) made a sensible input on the stats involved—a very good point. We have widespread backing.

A point that was raised that is worth reiterating is that when we were in the EU it would have been extremely difficult to take action on this issue. Any restrictions on the shark fin trade would have needed agreement from all member states. The great news is that we now have much more freedom to introduce stricter measures and we are demonstrating through this Bill that we are doing exactly that.

I will give a few details about the Bill itself. It will ban the import and export of detached shark fins into and out of Great Britain. The ban applies not only to whole shark fins, but to parts of fins and products made from fins, such as tinned shark soup—we had a lot of discussion about that on Second Reading, but that has been covered. In that context, “shark fins” means,

“any fins or parts of fins of a shark, other than the pectoral fins”,

which are part of skate and ray wings, and “shark” means,

“any fish of the taxon Elasmobranchii”,

as set out in clause 1.

Clause 2 amends the existing shark finning regulation 1185/2003, which forms part of retained EU law and includes the amendments in regulation 605/2013. The amendment in this Bill is to ensure that shark finning is not taking place by any other country’s fishing vessels in UK waters or by any UK vessel wherever it fishes—that is an important point. We remain firmly committed to building on the UK’s strong position on shark conservation.

We have done so much internationally; I wanted to mention that, very positively, even since this Bill was introduced last year almost 100 shark and ray species have been afforded greater protection under the convention on international trade in endangered species at the 19th meeting of the conference of parties in November. That list brings the majority of global trade in shark fins under CITES regulation for the first time. That is an important move and shows how we work globally on this issue and how important our position is in leading the way on conservation, not only on sharks, but on the wider ocean work.

I thank all hon. Friends and hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), who is no longer in her place but who raised the important fact that we are now banning the 20 kg personal allowance for consumption. I was pleased that she mentioned the egg cases—did you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that some sharks lay their eggs in little egg pouches and they wash up on the beach? I thought they were bits of seaweed, but they are actually pouches in which one finds some shark eggs, and they are great to look at.

In winding up, I thank again the hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees) for introducing the Bill and all hon. Members across the House who have taken part in the debate. I wish the Bill all the best on its way and reiterate the Government’s support for it.

South East Water

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir George. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) for bringing the serious matter of what has gone on with South East Water to the Chamber—one of his constituents said, “What on earth is going on?” I must also thank him for his plain speaking. There is no need to beat about the bush here. Similarly, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant). Let us say it as it is. I was very disappointed in the repeated supply issues experienced by South East Water’s customers and the impacts that it has had on them. Some pretty heart-rending examples were given, particularly where they related to health issues such as the diabetes example and the closing of the dialysis unit. Those are really serious knock-on effects; as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells said, and as I say regularly, access to water is a right, and that should not be in question.

I will first explain a bit about the position of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when emergencies such as this arise, particularly in response to the December issue. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells knows, water companies have a statutory duty to provide

“a supply of wholesome water”

under the Water Industry Act 1991, and must ensure the continuation of their water distribution functions during an emergency. Where the scale or complexity of an incident demands central Government co-ordination or support, DEFRA is designated as the lead Government Department for the water sector in England. As the lead Government Department, DEFRA is responsible for the planning, response and recovery phases for major disruption to water supplies, and also sets policy and produces guidance to ensure that water companies have appropriate emergency plans in place.

In December 2022, multiple critical incidents occurred across the country, which—as we have heard—were largely due to the fact that we had had that period of sustained cold weather for nearly two weeks, and a rapid freeze-thaw straight afterwards. The Environment Agency and many water companies gave warnings to consumers that that could happen. It led to an increase in mains bursts across the country throughout December, which increased the rate that water leaving storage areas, such as reservoirs, went through the system—that was part of the problem.

During the incident, DEFRA engaged with water companies in England to obtain accurate and timely updates on the scale, impact and response to those bursts, seeking assurances that the incidents were being resolved as swiftly as possible and impacted customers—particularly vulnerable customers—had access to alternative sources of water, such as bottled water. The prolonged water outages were experienced in Hampshire, East Sussex and Kent. Water supply was fully restored across all companies by 24 December.

Assurance and enforcement of the emergency response is overseen by the regulator, the Drinking Water Inspectorate—also known as the DWI—which has requested that affected water companies submit a follow-up report on their freeze-thaw incidents; those are known as 20-day reports. The DWI will then assess those responses and consider whether action can be taken where it is in its regulatory scope and in line with its enforcement policy. The Government fully support regulators in taking any appropriate action where necessary.

I will get back to South East Water. The data that we have heard about is absolutely stark. In 2021-22, 39,000 South East Water customers were without water for between one hour and 126 hours, and their average interruption in minutes per property is over an hour, at one hour, 12 minutes and 23 seconds. It is all accurately monitored. South East Water’s performance commitment at the start of the price review period was to achieve just six minutes and eight seconds of interruption time, so we can already see that things have gone wildly astray. It is the worst performer in the sector on this metric of supply interruptions.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells went on to refer to a “catalogue of failures”—not just the supply interruptions—and, looking back at the data, I cannot disagree with him. Let me make it really clear: South East Water must act urgently to significantly improve its performance for customers and address the issues that lead to loss of supply. While there may be particular geographical features, such as the lack of rainfall—everybody understands that we had a drought and reservoirs were low over the summer—which present challenges for the company, there is no evidence that South East Water faced worse conditions compared with other companies in the area that performed considerably better. I will not accept excuses for poor performance; trust me, I received some.

In relation to the specific incidents in Tunbridge Wells and East Sussex on 19 December 2022, a major incident was declared with approximately 18,500 properties potentially subject to loss of water supply, including 3,000 in Tunbridge Wells and 15,000 in East Sussex, in East Grinstead, Haywards Heath and Crowborough. We also heard about all of those affected in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald.

I had a great deal of communication with my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells and I thank him for getting in touch with the Minister so swiftly. The DEFRA team was already looking into the incident, but when I was informed I was able to raise other issues, particularly that of communication. On 21 December, I called an urgent meeting with David Hinton, the chief executive officer of South East Water, to discuss the response and to seek his assurances that the company would swiftly resolve the matter. I made it very clear that much better contingency plans had to be in place to prevent such widespread losses happening again.

In line with its responsibility as the economic regulator, Ofwat has written this week to all water companies, including South East Water, to ask them to provide a report by the end of February on their performance during the freeze-thaw period. The letter asks specifically what companies will do to improve the management of such incidents. Ofwat will assess the responses and take further action. That goes some way towards answering the question my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells asked about future plans, but I have also asked for a wash-up meeting with David Hinton to go over what happened, how the incident was managed, future contingency plans and wider performance. That will touch on my right hon. Friend’s question about the future plan.

I assure the House that Government and regulators take water company under-performance extremely seriously. As a result of missing its performance commitment targets between April 2021 and April 2022, Ofwat has directed South East Water to return over £2.8 million to customers in the 2023-24 reporting year, although the latest incident will go into the next year. The Drinking Water Inspectorate is also assessing the five events from November and December and considering whether enforcement action will be necessary.

The issue of compensation was rightly raised. In accordance with the guaranteed standard of service scheme, which is a set framework to assess what compensation should be offered, relevant customers in both constituencies will be paid compensation by South East Water by the end of January. Customers do not have to apply for that compensation, as it will be automatically triggered.

[Greg Clark]

I am grateful to the Minister for her response. I am pleased to hear that this important action by the regulators is taking place and that she has a meeting with the chief executive. In terms of the payments that are provided for under statute, does she agree that they provide a minimum, not a maximum amount? Providing it exceeds the minimum amount, the company is entirely open to make its own assessment. When there is a rolling series of outages over such a length of time, it is essential that not just the letter of the compensation provisions is abided by, but the spirit of them, in order to reflect eight days or more of disruption.

[Rebecca Pow]

I hear what my right hon. Friend says. There is a format for these payments: water companies must make a payment of a minimum of £20 for a household and £50 for a business when supply is not restored within the initial period—typically, 12 hours—and then a minimum of £10 for households and £25 for businesses for each 24-hour period after that. I hear what he says, however, and I hope South East Water has listened to this debate by the time I have my meeting with Mr Hinton. I also took my right hon. Friend’s point about whether water companies should consider some sort of wider community recompense. Obviously, that is for them to consider, but the point was very clearly made.

I have made it clear, and will make it clear again, that South East Water must act urgently to secure a resilient water supply for its customers. It is critical that it adapts its water efficiency programme to target customer demand. Its draft water resources management plan is currently out for consultation. It sets out how the company will provide a reliable and resilient supply of drinking water for the next 50 years. That includes investment of £2.2 billion for new supply infrastructure, and a further £2.1 billion for reducing leaks and customer water use. That consultation closes on 20 February, and I urge all relevant people to take part in it. It includes proposals for a potential reservoir at Broad Oak in Kent, desalination projects and a potential reservoir at Arlington or Broyle Place at Eastbourne in Sussex, so there are lots of proposals in there.

Before I finish, I want to turn to the action the Government are taking more broadly to improve water supply resilience. We have been very clear that water companies have to act to reduce water demand, alongside investing in new infrastructure. To achieve that, RAPID—the Regulators’ Alliance for Progressing Infrastructure Development—was set up by Ofwat in April 2019. It brings together teams from Ofwat, the Environment Agency and the Drinking Water Inspectorate to ensure we have a smooth regulatory path for strategic water resources infrastructure so that we can improve England’s resilience on water supply for the future. The national framework for water resources, which was published in 2020, sets out the detail of how we will improve water resilience in the longer term.

Water companies are investing £469 million in investigating some of these strategic water resources options, including inter-regional water transfers, reservoirs, water recycling and desalination. It is quite unusual that Ofwat, the economic regulator, has allowed them to devote that money to such investigations.

Our landmark Environment Act 2021 proposed new statutory water demand targets for water companies so that the water used per person in England is reduced by 20%. We recently published our consultation on mandatory efficiency labelling on appliances—showers, washing machines and so forth. That will be a really important step in our aim to reduce our personal water consumption to 110 litres per person per day. At the moment, it is about 143 litres, so that is a big change. We will need 25% more water than we are using today by 2050, so we need more infrastructure and we need to reduce the amount we use.

The Government are also working to support broader resilience. We have much higher expectations on water companies to retain their supply, fix leaks and improve performance. Ofwat has set stretching targets for all companies to reduce bursts by 12% and supply interruptions by 41% between 2020 and 2025. It has to be said that South East Water is not doing too well on its supply interruptions. In fact, it is the worst performer.

I hope I have made it very clear that if water companies do not achieve what is expected, the Government and regulators will take action. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells and my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald raised some really important points and have put matters clearly on the agenda. We need to see an improvement.

Question put and agreed to.

Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2023 Ministerial Corrections

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

May I welcome the massive and unprecedented increase in the monitoring of illegal sewage discharges, and in particular the welcome steps taken by some water companies for live monitoring so that people can see in real time where sewage is being put into our rivers illegally?

[Rebecca Pow]

That is yet another measure that has been put in place. There is a requirement now for water companies to report all discharges from storm sewage overflows with dates and deadlines, but some water companies have gone over and above. They already have that in place and some companies, in particular around the coast, are reporting annually.

[Official Report, 12 January 2023, Vol. 725, c. 686.]

Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow).

An error has been identified in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone).

The correct response should have been:

[Rebecca Pow]

That is yet another measure that has been put in place. There is a requirement now for water companies to report all discharges from storm sewage overflows with dates and deadlines, but some water companies have gone over and above. They already have that in place and some companies, in particular around the coast, are reporting daily.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank you, Mr Speaker, and your officers for allowing the time for this very important session; it is appreciated. When we met here in December, I asked the Environment Secretary if she had met water bosses to tackle the Tory sewage scandal that has had turned Britain into an open sewer. We are facing huge water leaks, drought and sewage pumping out across the country, and not a single English river free of pollution. Yet it was not seen as a priority that she clean up her own mess, because as a previous Environment Minister she literally opened the floodgates. Now she has finally met water bosses, can she say what firm commitments have been secured to finally end the Tory sewage scandal?

[Rebecca Pow]

I have been meeting regularly with water companies, as has the Secretary of State. In fact, we had a joint meeting just last week with the five poorest performing water companies. That was a very feisty meeting, as can be imagined. The water companies are being held to account. We now have the data we need, thanks to the monitoring and the programmes that this Government are putting in place, which were not in place under all those years of the Labour Government. It is no good standing up there and scare-mongering. At the end of last week I met South East Water, and this week it is South West Water.

[Official Report, 12 January 2023, Vol. 725, c. 687.]

Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow).

Errors have been identified in my response to the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon).

The correct response should have been:

[Rebecca Pow]

I have been meeting regularly with water companies, as has the Secretary of State. In fact, we had a joint meeting just last month with the five poorest performing water companies. That was a very feisty meeting, as can be imagined. The water companies are being held to account. We now have the data we need, thanks to the monitoring and the programmes that this Government are putting in place, which were not in place under all those years of the Labour Government. It is no good standing up there and scaremongering. Last month I met South East Water, and this week it is South West Water.

Deposit Return Schemes: Digital Technology

[Wera Hobhouse]

I am pleased that the Minister recognises the possible advantages of a digital deposit return scheme, which, according to Resource Futures, could reduce the cost of the current scheme by £3.3 billion. We were promised a response to the latest DRS consultation, but it has still not been published. Will the Minister tell us when we can expect a response?

[Rebecca Pow]

Further details of the deposit return scheme, which will be so important to reducing waste, will be announced and published later this month.

[Official Report, 12 January 2023, Vol. 725, c. 697.]

Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow).

An error has been identified in my response to the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse).

The correct response should have been:

[Rebecca Pow]

Officials are working towards publication this month of further details of the deposit return scheme, which will be so important to reducing waste.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

16. Whether she has made an assessment of the potential effect of a reduction in the Environment Agency’s budget on levels of sewage discharge.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

The volume of sewage discharged by water companies is absolutely unacceptable. Improving water quality is a high priority for the Government, which is why we have launched an ambitious plan to reduce sewage discharges from storm sewage overflows in water companies, the biggest in history. It is also why we have increased our monitoring from 5% in 2016 right up to 19% now. It will be 100% next year. Interestingly, one might want to note that under the Labour party there was no monitoring at all, and that the Environment Agency has received £2.2 million each year for the last three years specifically for water company enforcement to ensure that robust action is taken against illegal breaches.

[Afzal Khan]

I thank the Minister for that explanation. Across the country we are faced with the unprecedented dumping of raw sewage into our waterways, including into the Platt and Gore brooks in my constituency. It is good to hear the Minister’s plans to provide more money, because at the end of the day there needs to be sufficient funds for enforcement so that those who pollute our waters are held to account. What further will she be doing to ensure that that happens?

[Rebecca Pow]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman recognises the plan we have put into operation, because the like of it has never been seen before. I reiterate that it is our increased monitoring that is bringing to light the fact that permits are being contravened and sewage is going into our rivers. That is why we have cracked down and put in the biggest programme ever to tackle it, with our targets on storm sewage overflows and £2.2 million for the Environment Agency over the last three years for enforcement. It is taking cases, and the extra funding it got the last time around has enabled it to do more inspections.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

I have raised previously in the House, and in letters to Ofwat, the Environment Agency and Northumbrian Water, the disastrous impact on waterways in my constituency of the continued pollution by Northumbrian Water. Sewage was dumped every four minutes during the Minister’s years as a junior Minister, with nearly 3 million hours of sewage discharged into waterways and the sea during her tenure as Minister with responsibility for water. As Environment Minister, will she now take action to stop the pollution? When will she publish the clean water and biodiversity targets, as required by the Environment Act 2021?

[Rebecca Pow]

I have made it absolutely clear that sewage going into our waters is totally unacceptable. That is why under my tenure as Environment Minister—actually, it began with the previous Environment Minister, now the Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey)—we set in motion the monitoring that did not happen under Labour, the storm overflows reduction plan, the targets in the Environment Act and the new direction to Ofwat. We are bringing everything together under one hat to tackle this issue once and for all. Because of the work we have done I launched an investigation, which is being undertaken by Ofwat and the EA—the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is working very closely with them. That is uncovering all these incidents. Trust me, we will be clamping down.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

May I welcome the massive and unprecedented increase in the monitoring of illegal sewage discharges, and in particular the welcome steps taken by some water companies for live monitoring so that people can see in real time where sewage is being put into our rivers illegally?

[Rebecca Pow]

That is yet another measure that has been put in place. There is a requirement now for water companies to report all discharges from storm sewage overflows with dates and deadlines, but some water companies have gone over and above. They already have that in place and some companies, in particular around the coast, are reporting annually. That is proving extremely useful for anybody who wants to know the condition of our water. All of this will improve.

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend join me in thanking the Environment Agency for testing the water around our coast? I know she met South West Water earlier this week. Although I recognise that there is work still to be done, on the beaches around my coastline it has significantly reduced the storm overflow. The superb surf beach of Croyde has seen its water quality raised from good to excellent for the first time. It is important to celebrate those successes and to support the businesses that rely on those bathing waters for their futures.

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend is such a strong advocate for her area. I absolutely love going swimming down there. She is right that the latest statistics show that 72% of our bathing waters are classed as excellent, which is brilliant for our tourism industry, particularly in her area.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank you, Mr Speaker, and your officers for allowing the time for this very important session; it is appreciated. When we met here in December, I asked the Environment Secretary if she had met water bosses to tackle the Tory sewage scandal that has had turned Britain into an open sewer. We are facing huge water leaks, drought and sewage pumping out across the country, and not a single English river free of pollution. Yet it was not seen as a priority that she clean up her own mess, because as a previous Environment Minister she literally opened the floodgates. Now she has finally met water bosses, can she say what firm commitments have been secured to finally end the Tory sewage scandal?

[Rebecca Pow]

I have been meeting regularly with water companies, as has the Secretary of State. In fact, we had a joint meeting just last week with the five poorest performing water companies. That was a very feisty meeting, as can be imagined. The water companies are being held to account. We now have the data we need, thanks to the monitoring and the programmes that this Government are putting in place, which were not in place under all those years of the Labour Government. It is no good standing up there and scaremongering. At the end of last week I met South East Water, and this week it is South West Water.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

2. Whether she has made an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of the recommendations of UK100’s clean air net zero report.

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[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

11. What recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of flood defences in the Shipley constituency.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

Bradford Council and the Environment Agency have identified 48 properties at several locations in the Shipley constituency that are at high risk of flooding from the River Aire. An assessment has confirmed that neither upstream storage nor walls or embankments provide viable options to protect those properties, as I am sure my hon. Friend has been made aware. Bradford Council is carrying out some property flood resilience surveys. When the evidence has been gathered, consideration will be given to putting in property flood resilience measures—depending, obviously, on feasibility and funding.

[Philip Davies]

Fifty properties being flooded 10 times is as bad as 500 properties being flooded once. In fact, I would argue that it is even worse, yet the funding for flood defences does not reflect that. When he was Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) introduced the frequently flooded allowance to benefit constituencies such as Shipley, which are regularly flooded but do not have the flood defences that they need to protect residents. When will Shipley benefit from the frequently flooded allowance?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue. We realise the difficulties for those few properties that are frequently flooded: as he says, it can be devastating for people who have to experience it time and again. That is why we opened the new frequently flooded fund. Applications have come in, and I am pleased to say that details of who will be awarded funds—I know that Shipley has applied—will be announced at the end of this month.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

12. Whether she is taking steps to help ensure the availability of affordable locally produced food in Newcastle upon Tyne Central constituency.

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[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

13. If her Department will take steps to support trials of digital deposit return scheme technologies.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

We recognise the benefits of a digital DRS. Many trials are being run; I am very encouraged by the results, and my officials and I will be looking closely at them. Once a deposit management organisation has been appointed to run the DRS alongside industry, it will be decided whether to introduce digital solutions to the scheme in future. We will be watching with a weather eye.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I am pleased that the Minister recognises the possible advantages of a digital deposit return scheme, which, according to Resource Futures, could reduce the cost of the current scheme by £3.3 billion. We were promised a response to the latest DRS consultation, but it has still not been published. Will the Minister tell us when we can expect a response?

[Rebecca Pow]

Further details of the deposit return scheme, which will be so important to reducing waste, will be announced and published later this month.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

14. What discussions she has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on temporarily reducing VAT on pet food in the context of increases in the cost of living.

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[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

15. What steps her Department is taking to protect communities at risk of flooding.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

We are investing a record £5.2 billion to deliver about 2,000 flood schemes benefiting every region in England. More than 349,000 properties have already been protected since 2015, and, as my hon. Friend probably knows, the Environment Agency has erected demountable flood barriers in view of recent flood alerts. Flood defences and barriers have also been deployed at other locations along the River Severn, including Ironbridge, Bewdley and Upton upon Severn, and, along with the agency, we will be monitoring the situation closely.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Flooding has become an annual occurrence in Shrewsbury, with devastating consequences. I chair the caucus of 40 Conservative Members of Parliament who have the River Severn, Britain’s longest river, flowing through their constituencies. I am extremely grateful for the £40 million secured from DEFRA as seed investment for the River Severn Partnership, a consortium of councils representing communities all the way down the river which is trying to find a holistic solution for the management of Britain’s longest river. Last year Treasury officials came to Shrewsbury to see for themselves the potential uplift in gross value added for our region if a holistic solution is found. What more can the Minister do to help us to secure—finally—that solution?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for all the work he has been doing in his constituency. Since I have been the water Minister, he has done nothing but bend my ear about Shrewsbury and the flood situation. As I have said, flood barriers have been erected, and we are listening: Shrewsbury has already received money for various projects. I also thank my hon. Friend for his work in the River Severn caucus, which brings together Members of Parliament up and down that important region. The River Severn Partnership has already benefited from significant funding for the development of schemes and some very useful pilots, and we will be working closely with it.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

17. What progress she has made on establishing an independent panel of experts to investigate the crustacean deaths on the north-east coast in 2021.

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[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

T6. The Government require local authorities to assess local air quality, but they only expect and request air quality action plans to be reviewed every five years. Many of those plans are seriously out of date, so will the Government please get a bit tougher with local authorities to make sure that those plans are up to date and are doing what they are supposed to do?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important point, which highlights not only the role of local authorities in air quality, but ensuring that these action plans are reviewed and delivered on time. We have recently updated our local air quality management policy guidance, with a new escalation process for local authorities that do not have an up-to-date plan.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

T7. The River Severn and the River Vyrnwy are in flood again, and the Minister will know that this is the fourth year in a row we have seen flooding, with record flooding over the past three years. Obviously, that water originates upstream in Wales. Will she update me as to the conversations she has had with her Welsh colleagues about managing the upper Severn catchment?

[Rebecca Pow]

The hon. Lady raises the important point that the whole catchment is involved in flooding; this is about not just where the flooding occurs at the bottom, but where it comes from. Not long ago, I visited the Vyrnwy reservoir. Apparently, that was the first time a Minister had ever been there. I held a roundtable with the Welsh equivalent of the Environment Agency and all sorts of other bodies, but the Labour Welsh Environment Minister declined to join us.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

Two days before Christmas, thousands of my constituents were left without any mains water after the perfect storm of the big freeze followed by the big thaw and a deluge of water into the Testwood and Otterbourne water supply works. Does the Minister agree that Southern Water, which I met last week, needs to get its explanation, with details of compensation, out to residents this month? Will she place on record her thanks to Winchester scouts, who did amazing work with the local resilience forum in getting bottled water to affected residents?

[Rebecca Pow]

Yes. I also thank my hon. Friend for his work as the local MP; all our local MPs got involved in this, as did DEFRA’s emergency team. I met the chief executive officer of South East Water to talk about how it had to put up better water stations and improve its communications—all the things that he is mentioning. Its feet will be held to the fire to get its comms out to everybody to explain what happened and to improve the situation in future.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

Untreated sewage was released from storm overflows for more than 2.6 million hours in 2021, according to The Rivers Trust, and now, according to the Competition and Markets Authority, customers are paying on average 20% of their water bills on servicing debt and rewarding share- holders. That is billions of pounds that could be spent clearing up our waterways and investing in infrastructure. Does the Minister really think that the current system of regulation is fit for purpose?

[Rebecca Pow]

Yes, the Minister does think that the current regulation is fit for purpose, but many tweaks and improvements are made to ensure that it is working properly. That is why, under the Environment Act 2021, powers were given to Ofwat to alter the licences, so that what it pays out reflects whether it is improving the environment. That will be a critical step forward, as will our strategic policy statement that we gave it to put tackling storm overflows and improving the environment at the top of the agenda.

[Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

Sadly, the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian influenza has been confirmed this week on a poultry premises in Eden in my constituency. My thoughts and prayers are with those affected there and across the country as well. Will my right hon. Friend join me in thanking everyone on the frontline, including vets and Animal and Plant Health Agency officials, involved in tackling this crisis? Will the Government reassure farmers and producers that they are keeping the avian influenza support and compensation measures constantly under review as we navigate this crisis?

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[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)]

Blackpool’s historic piers are showing signs of significant deterioration due to sand erosion beneath them. Although the Department is providing £12 million to prevent coastal erosion along my constituency, the measures that we need around the piers are not included within those plans. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how they can be amended to make sure that we have the money to do this within the package that the Government are providing?

[Rebecca Pow]

Within our budgets, we have the coastal erosion fund, of which my hon. Friend is aware. The pier is a very specific case. Of course, I would be happy to meet him to discuss this.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

Research by Material Focus found that at least 1.3 million disposable vapes are thrown away every week. That is two vapes every second, and that includes precious metals such as lithium being improperly disposed of as well as a litter nightmare. Material Focus called for clear recycling advice and for manufacturers and retailers to install collection points in shops. What is the Secretary of State doing to support that, and what work is being done to prevent the huge waste problem that we are currently experiencing?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. We had a recent debate on this subject. It is astounding that these disposable vapes are being literally littered. Measures include our extended producer responsibility scheme, which puts the onus on the manufacturer and the seller of the product to deal with their safe disposal. Repair, restore and recycle will eventually take in all these different sectors that we are having to deal with, and we are starting with packaging.

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

What steps is my hon. Friend taking to support the planting of hedgerows to increase hedgerow coverage by 40% by 2040?