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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make it her policy to introduce real-time water quality monitoring stations in designated bathing water locations.

During the bathing water season (May to September) the Environment Agency regularly monitors the bathing water quality at every designated site, resulting in the annual classifications. Alongside this the Environment Agency also issues daily pollution risk forecasts and warnings throughout the bathing water season, advising when there is likely to be reduced water quality. Defra will continue to reflect on changes in how and where people use bathing waters, including new evidence and technologies where these exist, to feed into future bathing water policy development.

Under the Environment Act 2021, the Government will require sewerage undertakers wholly or mainly in England to report on discharges from storm overflows in near-real time by spring 2025. Furthermore, in April, we also launched our consultation on Continuous Water Quality Monitoring and Event Duration Monitoring. This outlines the Government’s proposals to enhance the monitoring of storm overflow and final effluent discharges. The Government’s response to this consultation was issued on 14 September 2023. Water companies are now taking forward plans to implement this programme from 2025.