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 recent trends in levels of water pollution in England.

Defra publishes an annual suite of indicators that assess progress on protecting and improving the water environment. These reports are publicly available at GOV.UK. The latest report has several trend assessments, each one is useful for understanding different parts of the water environment and for understanding trends from different pressures, such as those from the water industry. One of the trend assessments, covering data from 1990 to 2023, shows a generally improving national situation for many pollutants over that time, though some exceptions remain. The Environment Agency and Defra are working hard with many partners to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas and won’t change our focus until reductions in pollution are observed across the board.