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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he plans to support the development of a public-facing data access tool to allow independent verification of water quality alerts issued by South West Water.

It is important that the public have access to reliable information on storm overflow discharges. The Water (Special Measures) Act introduced a duty for water companies to publish data related to discharges from all emergency overflows within one hour of the discharge beginning. This matches the pre-existing duty for storm overflows, which was introduced on 01 January.

To support this, Water UK have launched a central hub that provides discharge data of every storm overflow in England on a single website.

As part of Price Review 2024 (PR24), which runs from 2025–2030, water companies will be delivering record levels of investment. This includes South West Water delivering £764 million of investment to reduce storm overflow spills and £55 million to install real-time monitors at high-priority sites.

Ofwat will hold water companies to account for the decisions set at the Price Review. Ofwat's claw back mechanism ensures that funding for schemes not delivered is returned to customers, by reducing bills.