Sewage — 23 Apr 2025 at 18:50

That this House regrets the persistent scandal of raw sewage being dumped by water companies into rivers, lakes and coastal areas; notes with deep concern that just 14% of rivers and lakes in England are in good ecological health; condemns the previous Government for letting water company bosses get away with the scandal while paying themselves millions of pounds in bonuses; further notes the potential benefits of Blue Flag status in improving responsibility and accountability from water companies, through compliance checks and stringent environmental standards; and calls on the Government to take urgent action to end the sewage scandal, including the introduction of a new Blue Flag status for rivers and chalk streams, to give them greater protection against sewage dumping and ensure the public knows when rivers are clean and safe.

“This step could mean that sites that are deemed too polluted risk being immediately denied this designation, and therefore unable to receive the monitoring and investment needed to make blue spaces cleaner and safer”.

“recognises that the Government inherited a broken water system, with record levels of sewage being pumped into waterways; welcomes the Government’s rapid delivery of its promise to put water companies under tough special measures through the landmark Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, which has introduced new powers to ban the payment of unfair bonuses to water bosses who fail to protect the environment and to bring tough criminal charges against them if they break the law; supports the Government’s work to secure over £100 billion of private sector investment to upgrade the crumbling sewage infrastructure; and backs the largest review of the water sector since privatisation, aimed at tackling inherited systemic issues in order to clean up UK rivers, lakes and seas for good.”

“works and is not fundamentally flawed”.

“Special administration must be a last resort, as it has significant consequences for a company’s investors.”––[Official Report, Water (Special Measures) Public Bill Committee, 14 January 2025; c. 96.]

“Customers should not pay the price for mismanagement by water companies”,

“it falls to this Government…to fix the mess of that failure.”-[Official Report, 24 July 2024; Vol. 752, c. 661.]

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