Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when the Government intends to end the practice of operator self-monitoring for water companies; which agency will take over that monitoring; and what funding will be made available for the delivery of that activity.

In common with other industries and in line with the polluter pays principle, water companies are required to monitor their processes and emissions and report these to the Environment Agency (EA). These include monitoring effluent quality at over 3500 wastewater treatment works, monitoring of total daily flow volumes and reporting any unauthorised discharges.

The Environment Act 2021 placed further monitoring duties directly on water companies to increase transparency and ensure public and regulators can better hold water companies to account. Water companies will now also be required to publish near real time information on the operation of storm overflows, monitor the water quality upstream and downstream of storm overflows, and publish data on storm overflow operation on an annual basis with the EA. By the end of 2023, all storm overflows will be monitored.

The monitoring equipment and processes used by water companies are subject to scrutiny by the EA through inspection and audit and, in the case of flow measurement, by independent and accredited flow experts. These experts are commissioned by the EA to inspect sites and ensure that flow measurements are accurate to exacting quality standards. Where these checks have highlighted breaches in permit conditions, or where evidence of environmental impact is found, the EA has taken strong action resulting in successful prosecutions, including the recent cases against Southern Water and Thames Water.