"My hon. Friend makes a very important point. We are currently going through a dry spell and seeing hosepipe bans in many parts of the country, yet in the winter it rained very heavily. The reason we have hosepipe bans is that we do not have the reservoirs to catch …..." Steve Reed - View Speech
"The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. Anglers are quite rightly furious about the level of pollution, which is destroying fish and other life in our rivers, but also about the impact of abstractions, particularly from chalk streams, so the new regulator will be engaging with them. Sir …..." Steve Reed - View Speech
"We have to take a rational, not ideological, approach to tackling this problem. Nationalising the water companies would cost £100 billion. Those are not figures, as I have seen my hon. Friend claim, from the water companies; they are provided by officials in my Department under the influence of nobody …..." Steve Reed - View Speech
"A Trent tan is a very alarming and graphic image, but it captures what has gone wrong with our water sector for so long. The changes that we are announcing today will clean up our waterways across the country so that wild swimmers, as well as many other people who …..." Steve Reed - View Speech
"We are increasing monitoring to 100% of all outlets. I note that representatives from the Conservative party will often try to take the credit for increasing monitoring. That is a good thing to have done, but what is not so good is to use it just to wave hello to …..." Steve Reed - View Speech
"The new ombudsman will have statutory powers to provide independent and free support to customers experiencing the kinds of failures that my hon. Friend describes; there are many others, of course. Previously, water was one of the only utilities that did not have that resource available, but it will do …..." Steve Reed - View Speech
"The target for reduction uses as its baseline the 2024 figure, not the 2021 figure used by the previous Government, recognising the extent to which sewage pollution increased between ’21 and ’24. I want to recognise the scale of the problem and then work to solve it from that point. …..." Steve Reed - View Speech
"I agree with the right hon. Member on one point—that we should be cracking down on tax avoidance; it is always worth looking into that. On his earlier point, I am much more interested in the purity of our water than the purity of our ideology. The figure of £100 …..." Steve Reed - View Speech
"I would be more than happy to write to the right hon. Member with the details he is asking for, but as I have said earlier, we are also speeding up the planning process and treating reservoirs as nationally significant infrastructure, meaning that I, as the Secretary of State, will …..." Steve Reed - View Speech
"I agree with my hon. Friend; it is a shame that no Reform Members have turned up, although perhaps it is not surprising because they did not bother mentioning this issue in their manifesto either. We did hear at the weekend that their leader, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel …..." Steve Reed - View Speech