I wholeheartedly share the concerns of constituents about the use of storm overflows and, as a passionate conservationist, and keen surfer, need no convincing as to the importance of ensuring clean and healthy rivers. That is why I supported the Rt Hon Phillip Dunne’s Private Member’s Bill, the Sewage (Inland Waters) Bill and the Government has included many of the measures included within this Bill in our landmark Environment Bill
In August 2020, we established the Storm Overflows Taskforce to bring together key stakeholders from the water industry, environmental NGOs, regulators, and government in order to drive progress in reducing sewage discharges. The Taskforce has agreed a long-term goal to eliminate harm from storm overflows.
Between 2020 and 2025, water companies will invest £7.1bn on environmental improvements in England. Of this, £3.1 billion will be invested in in storm overflow improvements specifically.
We have also made our expectations crystal clear in our draft Strategic Policy Statement to Ofwat where, for the first time, the Government will tell the industry’s economic regulator that we expect water companies to take steps to “significantly reduce... storm overflows”, and that we expect funding to be approved for them to do so.
Many people have asked about how I voted last week, about a specific amendment, from the House of Lords, in the recent Environment Bill.
Amendments are often complex and need greater explanation as to why the government cannot support them. The part of the amendment called for a complete ban through the elimination on the use of storm overflows in sewage systems, which in theory we all agree with but in practice our sewage systems work by allowing discharges in extreme rainfall to prevent flooding. This amendment came with no plan as to how this can be delivered and no impact assessment whatsoever.
It was not something that could practically have been delivered. No responsible government could have supported this part of the Amendment, even if the outcome would be desirable.
The practical problem is that across the UK there is just one system of pipes that takes both rainwater and sewerage from homes, rather than separate systems for rainwater and for sewerage. When there are storms, so much rainwater enters the sewerage system that it cannot be contained and needs to flow somewhere. If we didn’t have storm overflows into the rivers, then there would be flooding with raw sewerage, which can be extremely harrowing for households. Preventing the discharge of untreated sewerage during storms is a major change to infrastructure in almost every town and village in the country. Some mitigations such as storm tanks can reduce discharges but do not usually eliminate them.
Some might argue that a plan is not essential, that one can be formulated afterwards. I would be sympathetic to this point of view if we were talking about a simple, inexpensive endeavour. But in eliminating storm overflows, we are talking about transforming a system which has operated since the Victorian era.
Vast swathes of our towns, cities and countryside would need to be dug up including our homes and roads to completely rework our sewerage system. The preliminary cost of which is estimated to be anywhere between £150 billion and £650 billion.
To put those figures in perspective, £150 billion is more than the entire schools, policing and defence budgets put together, and £650 billion is well above what has been spent combatting the Coronavirus pandemic. It would bankrupt most water companies unless consumers or taxpayers contribute. The cost works out at between about £5,000 and £20,000 per household.
The Government’s view was that it would have been irresponsible to have inserted this section in the Bill given that it was not backed by a detailed plan and thorough impact assessment. It would have been the equivalent of signing a blank check on behalf of billpayers.
The Environment Bill, to be clear, will help improve the water quality of our rivers and beaches. The way this vote is being reported on social media suggests that I have voted to make them worse. This is not the case and I also want to be clear that addressing storm overflows is only one part of the picture when it comes to improving water quality.
Even before The Environment Bill has come into force, we are already taking action.
- We have almost doubled funding for the Catchment Sensitive Farming programme with an additional £17m over the next three years.
- The new annual budget will be £30m, up from £16.6m in 2020 / 21. This includes allocating £1.2 million to the Environment Agency to significantly increase the number of inspectors visiting farmers to reduce diffuse water pollution, with 50 additional full time employees recruited for inspections. Taking a catchment wide approach to water management is vital in our more holistic approach to water management.
- Over 3,000 hectares of new woodlands are set to be planted along England’s rivers and watercourses. Planting trees on and around riverbanks, or allowing them to grow naturally, can help to improve water quality by reducing the runoff of pollutants into rivers.
- The Environment Bill reforms elements of abstraction licensing to ensure our rivers can better support precious marine life. The Bill enables the environmental regulator to propose the variation or revocation of abstraction licences without liability for compensation.
- The Environment Bill creates a power to update the lists of substances and their respective standards which are potentially harmful to surface waters and groundwater. This will ensure regulations on water quality are keeping pace with scientific and technical knowledge.
I do appreciate that it is sometimes difficult to understand why I and other MPs do not support something that on the face of it seems desirable and I hope that this detailed explanation will help explain why I was not able to support this section of the amendment.
As legislators, MPs must ensure that the changes to the laws we make are reasonable, responsible, and actionable. This section of the Amendment was not reasonable, responsible, or actionable, even though the spirit behind it was commendable.
I appreciate that opposition politicians, activists and social media, keyboard warriors, want to paint the picture, that in not voting for this, I and every other Conservative MP, who voted with me, do not support the environment and want to see sewerage discharged into our rivers and oceans. This is simply not true, it is purely that improving our environment, our water quality is complicated and requires considerable work and thought.
I take these matters incredibly seriously. I want to pass laws that actually can be enacted rather than ones that may make good headlines but fail to deliver on any of the realistic practicalities.
