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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans his Department has to resume sampling of rivers, groundwater and bathing waters to measure water quality.

In line with Government guidelines to reduce the spread of Coronavirus, the Environment Agency (EA) has paused all monitoring activities that are not essential to prevent serious harm to people or the environment, or to support responses to major incidents.

The EA will keep this under review and will restart non-critical activities (including routine environmental monitoring) in due course, in line with Government guidance on lockdown measures.