Newspaper column - November 11 2021 - Latest on the Environment Bill

This past Monday saw MPs vote again on the latest revisions to the Government’s landmark Environment Bill, which is currently passing through Parliament.

A lot has been said in recent weeks about a vote on a particular amendment from the House of Lords that called for the immediate banning of all sewage releases into our rivers from our antiquated water infrastructure. This proposal was completely un-costed and, while the end goal to achieve this is a fine one, realistically it is simply not going to happen overnight.

I was subsequently sorry to see MP’s and their offices who voted for the Government proposals and against the un-costed amendment subject to abuse from people who had either not read or understood the proposed changes, or were purely trying play political games. We were told that we had voted to allow or even increase the dumping of sewage into our waterways, when in fact what we had voted for was for more protection for these vital assets for our country than we have ever seen before.

The Government amendment passed on Monday in fact goes further than the previous Lords Amendments proposed.

On Monday I voted to ensure seeking to ensure there is a legal duty on water companies such as South West Water to progressively reduce the adverse impact of sewage discharges. This is what the amendment provides for, requiring water companies to reduce the impact of sewage discharges on the environment and public health, which will really help surfers and swimmers.

This will combine with the existing provisions in the Environment Bill for each water company to produce a statutory Drainage and Sewerage Management Plan every five years, which will set out how such reduction in sewage discharges will be achieved and funded.  There is also a power of direction for government to direct water companies in relation to actions in those plans if they are not good enough.

Claims that the amendment weakens existing legislation are wrong. The water companies have an existing duty to treat sewage “effectually”, which has existed since 1991, and the new amendment does not replace nor override this duty.

The problem has been that the Environment Agency and OFWAT have failed to use their existing powers (which remain and which provide the enforcement mechanism for this new duty) to enforce that duty over the last 30 years.

The amendment that has passed now means DEFRA will be giving OFWAT an order for water companies to  increase their capital expenditure on water treatment from January 2022.

It also puts, among other things, a new duty on Government to produce a statutory plan to reduce sewage discharges from storm overflows and their adverse impact, and report to Parliament on progress as well as the power for the government to direct water companies in relation to the actions in their Drainage and Sewerage Management Plans. The Government will not hesitate to use this power of direction if plans from the water companies are not good enough.

As a lifelong environmentalist, founding member of the Conservative Environment Network and Deputy Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Ocean Conservation, I take these matters very seriously indeed. It is a shame to see previous attempts to do much good by this bill twisted and attacked by those who seek to misinterpret earlier votes for political gain. However I am clear that what we need is a realistic and achievable plan to get to the clean water goal that we all want to see, and that is what these amendments, and the Environment Bill ultimately, seek to achieve. I look forward to scrutinising progress as part of future water quality enquiries via my work on the Environmental Audit Select Committee.