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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent steps he has taken to ensure that untreated sewage is not discharged into rivers, inland waterways and the sea.

This Government is the first Government to set out our expectation that water companies must take steps to significantly reduce storm overflows. We have gone further and made that position law. The amount of sewage discharge by water companies into our rivers is not acceptable. We have made it crystal clear to water companies that they must up their game. If we do not start to see significant improvements, we will not hesitate to take action.