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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has to stop companies from using biobeads.

Polluting our waterways is unacceptable. It is right that Southern Water has taken responsibility for the incident at Camber Sands, East Sussex, caused by a failure of a screening filter at their Eastbourne Wastewater Treatment Works.

Defra Ministers are in close contact with the Environment Agency, which is now conducting an active investigation into the incident. A decision on the enforcement action will be made in the coming weeks.

The sector must step up to deliver improvements for the benefit of customers and the environment, and we are taking decisive action to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas.

Water companies should take all necessary precautions to ensure all equipment is properly constructed and maintained to prevent the unauthorised or accidental escape of bio-beads from wastewater treatment works into the environment.

The Government is looking into developing new standards for infrastructure resilience which, coupled with robust water company planning through Drainage and Wastewater Management Plans and the new statutory Pollution Incident Reduction Plans, will drive investment to improve wastewater assets and reduce pollution into our environment.

I have written to Water Companies asking them to explain their use of bio-beads in the water industry and alternatives.