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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of sewage spillages on coastal business in England.

It is the responsibility of the water and sewerage companies to ensure they clean up any sewage following pollution incidents, including in coastal areas. This is enforced by the Environment Agency as part of its standard incident response procedures.

We have not made an impact assessment specifically on the potential impact of sewage spillages on coastal businesses in England. However, our Storm Overflows Evidence Project assessed the impact of sewage discharges on bathing waters and the social impact where knowledge and visibility of storm overflows causes public concern. We used this evidence to inform our Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan, which sets out targets for water companies to improve all storm overflows discharging into or near every designated bathing water by 2035.