hazylavender/hi huggingface dataset:
Date: 2023-04-25
Rebecca Long-Bailey: According to the Rivers Trust, in Salford alone, our waterways have been littered with thousands of hours-worth of sewage discharges in 2022, and it will take more than the Government's fluffy and toothless targets to fix the problem. The water industry has been regulated ever since it was privatised in 1989, and fining many water companies millions of pounds has demonstrably not affected their behaviour. Certain water companies have actually tried to claim in court that they are not public authorities and should not have to publish data on sewage, and years of chronic underfunding of the Environment Agency and inaction by the regulator, Ofwat, have meant that there has been an inability to enforce even the minimal regulation that is available to us in this country. It is left to individuals and organisations to try to enforce those regulations, but even when they do, they are met with hurdles. Indeed, United Utilities sought a declaration that would effectively bar people from bringing private claims against water companies that dump sewage  into rivers and seas, and it won its case in the Court of Appeal most recently. That has meant that any water company can effectively dump sewage into waterways in England and Wales without fear of being sued in the civil courts by landowners, angling clubs, swimming clubs, wildlife groups, residents, or any other group with an interest in the land. As such, action is needed, and the plan described by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) is sensible and effective. I hope the whole House will support his motion today. Beyond that, I urge all colleagues to examine the bigger picture as to why we are in the situation we are in today, and how we can ensure long-term sustainability of the water sector. Privatisation has meant that water bills have increased by 40% in real terms. We have seen PS72 billion paid out in dividends to shareholders since privatisation, almost half as much as the money the sector has spent on upgrading and maintaining water and sewerage systems. The galling fact is that the private sector paid very little for the companies when it took them on in 1989, and the truth is that privatisation of our water industry was wrong--it has been a complete failure for the British public. If we are serious about tackling this ecological disaster, we need to support the Opposition's motion today, but ultimately, we need to have a serious discussion about bringing our water industry into public ownership for the public good.
Date: 2023-04-25
Gagan Mohindra: I have previously spoken in this House about my beautiful constituency of South West Hertfordshire. We have the River Chess, the Aquadrome and the Grand Union canal, and we are very fortunate to have those beautiful waterways in our constituency. Many constituents have contacted me about this particular issue. Politics being politics, the Opposition have used it as a bit of a political football: Members on the Government Benches will remember the Duke of Wellington's amendment, and how we were pilloried for doing what we thought was best by not agreeing to bankrupt water companies up and down the country, but instead supporting a viable plan. It is incumbent on all of us in this place to make sure that any laws we create are enforceable and implementable. More locally in South West Hertfordshire, I have held regular meetings with Thames Water, which the Government have fined extensively for its discharge of sewage--over PS35 million between 2010 and 2023. I continue to make visits to both Maple Lodge sewage treatment works and the one in Aylesbury, which feeds into my constituency. My residents are rightly angry: they look at this issue and the headlines at a glance, and it is easy to understand why. The Victorian drainage system, as many colleagues have mentioned, is one of the key issues that we need to sort out, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) said earlier, the reason we allow discharge in the first place is to prevent discharge from coming up through people's toilets and into their homes, because that is even worse, unfortunately, than the damage caused by discharge into our rivers. We need to upgrade the waterways, and we will do so. We have a viable water plan put forward by this Government,  which I continue to fully support, because the alternative proposed by Labour at the time was a PS21,000 bill per household. The second debate today will be on the cost of living. When the Secretary of State was in her place, she referred to the hypocrisy--or the irony--of the fact that on the one hand we are talking about increasing household bills and then later today we will be discussing how to support our local residents. We must continue to be honest with our constituents. Unfortunately, we sometimes need to be bearers of bad news, but we also have to be transparent. In my eyes, we should be saying, "These are the things that realistically we can implement." The water plan put forward by the Government is very much that. The Opposition have spoken about increasing numbers of sewage releases, but a lot of that is down to increased and better recording. We should not shy away from the fact that we have better data. I will finish there, because I am conscious of time. Thank you for allowing me to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will continue to support my residents on this important issue.
Date: 2023-04-25
Paula Barker: The River Mersey in the great north-west of England meanders through the heart of the region and connects the great cities of Manchester and Liverpool. For centuries, it was the boundary between the historic counties of Lancashire and Cheshire. I pay tribute to the likes of the Mersey Rivers Trust, which has done so much for so long in the fight to clean up the Mersey. In our part of the world, we take our obligations to look after the Mersey extremely seriously. Recently, our Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram announced plans to make the river sewage-free by 2030. Those plans were backed by Lord Heseltine, who helped first establish the Mersey basin campaign partnership nearly 40 years ago. They both recognised that when it comes to the Mersey, there is no room for complacency. Growing up in Liverpool, my generation and the one before it saw the toll taken on the river and its estuary, yet the bold action set out by our Metro Mayor risks being undermined by those on the Government Benches if they do not urgently get a grip of the issue of sewage being dumped time and time again into our waterways. The excellent reporting by Danny Rigg at the Liverpool Echo has stated the scale of the problem. Sewage flowed into Merseyside rivers for more than 17,000 hours from 10 wastewater treatment sites in 2020, and raw sewage flowed into the river for 11,000 hours from just five Wirral locations upstream of New Brighton in 2021. It was remarked on by the reporter that that was more than the number of hours in the entire year. This modern Conservative party might not value our natural habitats, our precious waterways and our coastal communities, but the British people do. After all, it was this Conservative party that went out of its way to block Labour amendments to the Environment Act 2021 that would have bought an end to this practice. Rather than stand by communities, the Conservatives stood idly by, letting shareholders walk away with billions in dividends and allowing bumper bonuses for water bosses. Those on the Government Benches were belligerent in striking down the Opposition amendments, yet here we are. The Secretary of State is late to the party, no doubt  after her inbox and those of other Government Members filled up with emails from angry constituents wondering why they have consistently refused to stand up for them. It is too little, too late. I am proud that cleaning up our waterways, our rivers and our seas, taking on the water companies for their negligence and supporting our people are priorities for this Opposition. We will take action on these things in government.
Date: 2023-04-25
Selaine Saxby: I am perplexed as to why we need another Bill on this topic, particularly when it is uncosted and would result in a threefold increase in water bills and when we already have the epic Environment Act 2021. What we really need to do is implement what is in that Act. While I fully accept that far more needs to be done, particularly on what is running into our rivers, we also need to acknowledge where progress has been made, especially when our vital tourism economy is so reliant on the quality of our water. South West Water is responsible for 34% of all our bathing waters and for 10 million visitors to that region. We have 100% of those bathing waters now at bathing water quality, up from 90% in 2010. In my beautiful North Devon constituency, I have nine designated bathing waters, all of which are good or excellent. We have already seen a 50% reduction in bathing season storm overflows and a 75% reduction in the duration of spills. The investment by South West Water in the fantastic surf beach of Croyde has now seen its bathing quality rise from good to excellent. Anyone familiar with North Devon's beautiful beaches knows how much better water quality is compared with 20 to 30 years ago. Only 1% of the water pollution we are dealing with is sewage. More than 95% of our storm overflow discharge is rainwater. Anyone watching South West Water's new WaterFit Live app will note that the overflows run after extensive rain, which is completely different from raw sewage being dumped on the beaches, particularly when the alternative is that it gets washed up into people's front rooms. It is only because we are now monitoring the situation that we know what is going on. The crystal clear waters of North Devon are beckoning. We have the first cold-water surf reserve in the world and the first UNESCO biosphere reserve. We pride ourselves on our waters. Indeed, people should come wild swimming in my patch. They will see dolphins playing, and they might see mermaid purses on the beach. The sharks do go past--it is pretty wild out there. We have jellyfish, including ones the size of dustbin lids. With the changing climate, we occasionally get ones that sting these days. We have seals that like to play with the gig rowers. Because of the oars flapping in the water, they jump up to see people. It was a bit hairier than my normal surf companion when I caught one out on the beach. I will be back in my waters this weekend, and I will be proud to be so. I hope that if people have not yet booked their summer holiday, they will consider coming to Croyde. On Friday, the Opposition spoke about the need to ensure that people can access our beaches. I was proud to be at the opening of the country's first adaptive surf centre, and now everyone can access that beach, with its excellent water company.
Date: 2023-04-25
Simon Baynes: I serve on the Welsh Affairs Committee, and we have had two evidence sessions discussing the situation with water companies  in Wales. I have therefore spent a great deal of time recently hearing about what is going on in Wales and, frankly, this afternoon there seems to be virtually no recognition from the Opposition that the Labour party has a big problem to answer for in Wales when it comes to water quality. We have established during this debate that the Welsh Government have legislative competence for all aspects of water quality, water resources and the water industry, so it is very much the Labour party's responsibility in Wales. I thought the speech by the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) was powerful, and it held to account the problems with Dwr Cymru or Welsh Water. Opposition Members have continually made the point about nationalisation--it goes down slightly different lines depending on whether they are Momentum or mainstream Labour Members. In effect, Dwr Cymru is a not-for-profit organisation, so it is not putting money into the hands of shareholders, yet as the hon. Member said, it is a very poor performer. I think that is something the Opposition need to consider. During the Welsh Affairs Committee review of the water industry in Wales, we were very concerned by the evidence we heard about the condition of Welsh rivers and coastal waters. I make no apology for highlighting Labour's appalling performance in Wales on the water industry, and I will give one or two statistics in the time available. There were 83,000 spills in Wales in 2022. In England, there were 23 spills per overflow on average that year, whereas in Wales there were 38 spills per overflow on average, so the performance in Wales is distinctly poorer. The number of sewage spills in Wales accounted for 21% of all discharges across Wales and England, and the top two longest sewage discharges last year were in Wales--in Bridgend, which is the responsibility of Dwr Cymru or Welsh Water. As we have heard, of the top five constituencies across the UK for hours of sewage discharge, three are in Wales: Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, Dwyfor Meirionnydd, and Preseli Pembrokeshire. These are damning statistics, and the point I make to the Opposition is that they should be honest enough to recognise that there is a major problem in the way that Labour runs the water industry in Wales.
Date: 2023-04-25
Andrew Gwynne: It will come as no surprise to Members in the Chamber that I rise to support the Labour Front-Bench motion, because I support the Bill tabled by the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon). The River Tame, which runs through my constituency, has the unfortunate honour of being one of the most polluted waterways in the UK. In detailed, peer-reviewed research, Professor Jamie Woodward and his team from the University of Manchester found that the Tame, which is one of two tributaries forming the River Mersey at Stockport, is heavily contaminated with microplastics, because untreated waste water and sewage are routinely discharged into the river when it is at low flow. Professor Woodward found concentrations of 130,000 microplastic particles per sediment on the riverbed around Denton. This is one of the few accessible green spaces in my constituency, and it is absolutely disgraceful. In 2022, there were 11,000 hours of sewage discharge into the River Tame and the local environment by United Utilities. That pollution, and also the pollution from industrial processes along the river, is having a disastrous impact on the local environment. In a recent interview with Paul Whitehouse on the BBC, Chris Clarke, an angler who works closely with the Friends of the Tame Valley, told of his devastation as he watched raw sewage--not from a UU plant, but from a misconnection into Johnson brook--being pumped into the waterway on the same day that the Environment Agency was replenishing fish stocks. Local people across my constituency are doing their very best to solve this problem. Groups such as the Friends of the Tame Valley, which I am incredibly proud to be a part of, often organise community riverbank cleans, but all too often it feels as though they are fighting an uphill battle. There has also been the formation of the River Tame working group. Spearheaded by the Mersey Rivers Trust, this brings together various community and corporate stakeholders, including United Utilities, to resolve the local operational issues and to help shape local catchment actions plans. In the interest of balance, I should say that UU is investing PS100 million to immediately commence a further programme of works to reduce spill frequency at eight prioritised storm overflows, there are four river rangers and we are training a generation of river guardians. In closing, in 2010 the Tory Prime Minister said that we are "all in it together". I am sure he did not think that, 13 years later, that would mean the sewage in our rivers.
Date: 2023-04-25
James Wild: I am pleased to speak in this debate to make it clear again that the use of storm overflows is unacceptable and needs to end. That is why I supported the Environment Act and new powers to require water companies to tackle this issue and for Ofwat to act, including where water companies seek to pay dividends when their environmental performance is not good enough. North West Norfolk is home to many precious chalk streams, and one of my first visits as an MP was to walk the River Nar in Castle Acre with the Norfolk Rivers Trust, when we looked at work to restore part of the river to get it back to the natural widths, depths and gradients. As a member of the all-party parliamentary group on chalk streams, I have consistently highlighted the unacceptable use of storm overflows and the need to protect these rivers. However, let us be candid about what ending the use of overflows, as some pretend is possible, would mean. It would mean sewage backing up into people's homes. Why do Labour and the Liberal Democrats not put that on their leaflets? Why are they not open with the public about the disgusting consequences of the proposals they have put forward? Rather than misleading claims, I am interested in practical action to make a difference, and that starts with overflows. Looking at the motion, I wonder where Labour has been. We will have 100% of overflows monitored by the end of this year, and real-time data is coming. When Labour was last in government, the figure was 7%. Then there are fines and prosecutions. Having looked at this  area as a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I want to see the Environment Agency take far more robust action. All major water companies are under investigation for illegal sewage discharges, and regulators must use higher fines to focus the minds of chief executives and boards, which is why I support unlimited fines. The third element is investment. There is no cheap way to fix a Victorian system combining rainwater and wastewater. In my constituency, residents suffered sewage coming up through manhole covers and into their homes when there was severe flooding. By challenging Anglian Water, I got it to reline some of the sewer network because there was groundwater infiltration, rather than just inundation of rainwater. As a result, we will see improvements and hopefully we will not see a repetition. But we need major investment, which is why the PS56 billion is going to be required. The motion calls for an impact assessment. That has been done as required by the Environment Act 2021 and the results are not good for either party. Liberal Democrats pretend that they can solve this problem overnight, but that is just wholly impractical, and the Labour plan appears to involve spending PS600 billion in seven years. As my constituents would say, "What a load of squit". Instead, the Conservative party has a plan for 100% more monitoring, requiring record investment and using penalties to tackle this problem. Now water companies and regulators must be held to account to deliver real improvements for our constituents.
Date: 2023-04-25
Matt Western: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild). Let me start with some facts. In 2021, we saw a 67% increase in sewage discharges in my constituency across the River Leam and the River Avon. Of course these are discharges that are sanctioned by this Government. We have heard that there are now discharges every two and a half minutes. Let us also remember that the Conservative Government voted against the Duke of Wellington's amendment 45 to the Environment Bill, which would have put a new duty on sewerage undertakers to improve the sewerage systems and to demonstrate progressive reductions in the harm caused by discharges of untreated sewage. A year on, nothing has changed. The public are extremely disgusted by what they see and hear. In 2022, we had 824 sewage dumps a day across the country. Meanwhile, billions are being paid out in dividends, as we have heard, and the Severn Trent Water CEO's pay is increasing by 25% to 27% locally. Not enough is being invested in the network, in sustainable drainage systems, or in greywater storage. One of the great hits to the situation was the change in the legislation on new builds and new housing--we have problems with rainwater runoff and the storage on those new developments has not been improved. I am seeing and hearing real concerns from the community. I have had 52 letters from the public just in recent months. Concerns have been expressed by leisure users such as Warwick Sea Scouts, the Royal Leamington Spa Canoe Club and Warwick Boat Club, which has rowing teams using the lengths of the rivers. I have also heard from businesses, such as Warwick Boats and Leam Boat Centre, which I contacted and which told  me they are really concerned about damage to the river's ecosystem and about public health. Of course, this has an impact on those businesses. Let us not forget that this also impacts on wildlife. There is a desperate need to take remedial action and focus on river ecologies to protect and preserve plant and animal life. That is why Labour's plan would impose automatic fines, set legal requirements for monitoring stations throughout our rivers and set legally binding targets. After 13 years, it is clear that the Government have failed our rivers, our canals and our beaches. The Government are out of touch with public opinion. That is why the motion is important and why I will be voting for it.
Date: 2023-04-25
Lee Anderson: Another pointless debate from a pointless Opposition--that's what I am thinking today. The last time they did this, obviously, they were telling people that we were voting to dump sewage into our waterways. That was absolute nonsense. As a result of that, we had malicious communications and threats. We had some real nastiness. The party of "kinder, gentler politics" should take note, but it won't. But listen--why would anybody vote to dump sewage in waterways? It is absolute nonsense. No one has ever done that. My friends, my family--we all use our waterways. We use our seas, beaches and rivers. It is just not true. It is a complete lie and Opposition Members should hang their heads in shame. It is important that we put the facts out, rather than score cheap political points. I am not into this divisive dog-whistle politics. It is absolute nonsense--[Laughter.] Even they are laughing. What are storm overflows? They are a relief valve, so that when we have a heavy downpour of rain, sewage does not back up and go on to the streets or back into people's houses--[Interruption.] Labour Members keep saying "13 years", but the Labour party was in power for 13 years. They keep talking about the levers they are going to pull--they did absolutely nothing for 13 years. They should be ashamed--a bunch of hypocrites, the lot of them. Water companies sometimes have to use those overflows. It is not ideal and not always acceptable. The Environment Act, which we introduced, changes that and we are acting on it. We are doing more than the Labour party ever did in its 13 years. Like all its silly ideas, the Labour party no real plan. It is just dog-whistle politics, as I said before. In this great city, the Thames tideway tunnel is currently under construction. [Interruption.] I came to my senses. Somebody is chuntering from a sedentary position to say that I was once a member of the Labour party. I was, but I woke up, my senses came back and then I was elected as a Conservative MP and that shut up the lot of them. The Thames tideway tunnel will cost PS5 billion and take 10 years to complete, but if that lot had their way, we would have seen sewage backing into streets and people's houses for 10 years. The great British public are not stupid. They get it. Just like our ageing Victorian sewers, that lot are full of it.