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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the impact of sewage discharges into waterways on wildlife in those waterways between 2019 and 2024.

The Environment Agency monitors the water environment all year round, collecting tens of thousands of samples from source to sea.

The Environment Agency produces a full set of water body classifications covering every water body in England every six years, with the last full assessment in 2019. To supplement this, last year the Environment Agency published a limited data set which assessed data from 2019 to 2022 to help inform delivery. The next full assessment will be produced in 2025.

Environment Agency data shows that the pollutants that harm wildlife discharged by sewage treatment works are greatly reduced. For example, there is now 85% less ammonia and 80% less phosphorus in the water environment than there was in 1990.

However, the Government is clear that the sector needs to go further and faster to tackle sewage discharges and the harm they cause. The government's Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan will eliminate ecological harm from all storm sewage discharges by 2050. It will protect biodiversity, the ecology of our rivers and seas, and the public health of our water users for generations to come.