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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has had discussions with (a) local authorities, (b) water companies and (c) Surfers Against Sewage on the terminology they use when issuing sewage alerts, in the context of potential confusion with storm overflows.

The Secretary of State has regular meetings with a wide range of stakeholders. Local authorities use information from the Environment Agency (EA) to issue pollution alerts relating to designated bathing waters in England, and Surfers Against Sewage use information from the EA’s Pollution Risk Forecasting service for bathing waters to inform the alerts they provide, along with information about storm overflow discharges.