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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate has been made of the total cost of incidents of pollution of English watercourses in each year for which figures are available.

Recognising the total cost of a water pollution incident would include all assessment and investigation costs, remediation costs and opportunity costs, as well as the natural capital cost. The Environment Agency does not hold all the information to estimate the total cost for water pollution incidents in this way.