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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the policy paper entitled Storm overflows discharge reduction plan, published by his Department on 26 August 2022, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of (a) accelerating the timescale targets and (b) bringing forward the date of the 2027 review.

HM Government is prioritising action to improve water quality, including action to address storm overflows. Water companies are investing £3.1 billion to improve storm overflows between 2020 and 2025, and we continue to work with them to accelerate progress wherever possible.

The targets in the storm overflows discharge reduction plan are ambitious, and time bound, allowing for the water industry to deliver traditional solutions and bring forward innovative nature-based solutions where appropriate. We want the best solutions with the most benefits to our environment, communities and climate to be taken forward, and these will require careful planning by the industry: HM Government must consider the capacity of the supply chains to deliver in line with our targets and timelines, and the disruption that constructing new infrastructure brings to society as well as our environmental ambitions.

HM Government is committing to review the targets in the plan in 2027. This will occur ahead of the 2029-2034 water company planning cycle (PR29) once new information, including from companies’ business plans, is available. This will allow us to establish if companies can go further and faster to achieve the storm overflow targets in this Plan without having a disproportionate impact on consumers bills. This will also feed into broader reporting mechanisms under the Environment Act 2021, such as through the Environmental Improvement Plan, to monitor and assess how this and other actions are contributing to the broader recovery of river and water habitats.