River Wye (Cleaning)

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to publish and implement a plan for cleaning and improving the water quality of the River Wye; and for connected purposes.

As shadow Leader of the House, I am rarely allowed to speak on behalf of my constituents from the Back Benches, so this ten-minute rule motion is a priceless opportunity for me to highlight a vital issue of both local and national significance—the plight of the River Wye. The Wye is one of the most beautiful and ecologically significant rivers in the UK. Rising from the slopes of Plynlimon in mid-Wales, it winds its way via Hay-on-Wye and Hereford on to Ross-on-Wye before heading down to Symonds Yat, Monmouth, Tintern and the Severn estuary.

The Wye valley, too, is renowned for its beauty. It is a special area of conservation with two sites of special scientific interest. The river is thus a vital part not only of the local economy in Herefordshire but of our landscape, our culture and our heritage as a nation. Admired since Roman times, the river is one of the birthplaces of British tourism, the origin of the movement known as the picturesque and the inspiration for some of the finest poetry in the English language, yet in recent years it has faced huge environmental pressures, particularly from high phosphate levels, which have harmed water quality and aquatic life.

The rapid growth of certain farming sectors, including poultry, has brought economic benefits but also placed additional strain on the river. As well as agricultural run-off, sewage and waste water discharges and changes in land management have contributed to the problem. Those pressures have been compounded by rises in water temperature and changes to seasonal water flow. Many of those specific problems and their interactions are still not fully understood, so there is a real need for proper research.

Building on the work of Councillor Elissa Swinglehurst and the Wye and Usk Foundation among many others, I first highlighted this issue in September 2020. From the start I pressed the agencies—the Environment Agency, Natural England and Natural Resources Wales—for a collective response and called on them to produce a cross-border, all-catchment long-term action plan.

In June 2021, working with other catchment MPs at the time, I invited the national agencies and the local councils on both sides of the border to a special meeting devoted to the issue. In October 2021, I co-ordinated a letter from Wye catchment MPs to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury calling for a specific spending package devoted to the Wye in the 2021 three-year spending review. The result, notwithstanding lockdowns and other pandemic delays, was the Hereford Shell Store meeting of July 2022 and the setting up of the Wye phosphates working group, whose terms of reference were then adopted—very much with my support—by a phosphates commission established by the four local authorities. All those things helped to bring people and groups together.

In the course of that work, I am pleased to say we also had one major win of substance. I had called for the proceeds of fines on water companies to be ringfenced and devoted to a new national rivers recovery fund. In November 2022, the Government accepted that ringfencing.

In relation to the Wye, it is important to be aware that much good work has been done on the ground. The cross-border nutrient management board has carefully assessed and assembled a range of potentially useful measures. Thanks to detailed assessment work with Welsh Water, it now looks as though local sewage and waste water discharges will be brought within national standards—though only by the early 2030s, which is still far too slow. The community response on both sides of the border has been magnificent, with hundreds of volunteer citizen scientists actively taking weekly water readings under the aegis of the Friends of the Wye and other organisations.

At the national level, I am sorry to say that progress in addressing these issues has been painfully slow. For years, the creation of a high-level catchment-wide plan, essential to managing this cross-border issue, was impeded by political differences between the Welsh and UK Governments. Meanwhile, the regulatory agencies struggled to enforce existing environmental protections effectively. Finally, after three ministerial visits, including one by the then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to Hereford in June 2023, we managed to secure publication of the River Wye action plan last year. That at least covered the English part of the river, and £35 million was reallocated from within existing DEFRA budgets to fund mitigations and the development of an integrated long-term recovery strategy.

The then Government also announced that they had appointed a new river champion, whose job it was to lead the detailed planning work in collaboration with key stakeholders on both sides of the border. The plan for the Wye was by no means perfect, but for the first time it provided a framework, badly needed money to support projects and research, and a named person to help drive things forward on the ground. It was therefore deeply disappointing when the plan was dropped by the new Government after the general election, alongside the idea of the river champion.

It is still more disappointing that the Treasury is also now rowing back on the previous Government’s commitment to ringfence money from fines on water companies and use them for a river restoration fund. That is a massive step backwards. Water companies have paid many tens of millions of pounds in fines since 2022 alone. That money should go back into saving our rivers.

What is to be done? Protecting and restoring the Wye requires a long-term, collaborative approach, as I have highlighted. The UK and Welsh Governments, the agencies, farmers, businesses, local authorities, environmental groups and local people all have a role to play in developing a strategy that balances economic sustainability with environmental responsibility. While I am very glad that my colleague the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) is sponsoring the Bill, it is a great pity that other Wye catchment MPs have chosen not to. Indeed, I do not notice a single Wye catchment MP in the Chamber; a great sadness.

The Bill is clear and simple in its intent. It would for the first time require the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in law to publish and implement a plan for cleaning and improving the water quality of the River Wye. That is a measure that every MP of every constituency inside or outside the Wye catchment should be enthusiastic to support. Solutions must include better land management, improved water treatment, effective incentives for sustainable farming and stronger oversight and enforcement.

The Wye catchment 2025 management plan is designed to cover not just water quality but biodiversity loss and flood and drought vulnerability. The nutrient management board provides an important framework of public accountability in relation to measures affecting nutrients and water quality. In other words, many of the key clean-up measures and mitigations are well understood. What we need now is action. We need an end to delay. We need political leadership from Ministers on both sides of the border, a shared determination to address this vital national issue with the seriousness it deserves, and the funding—the £35 million cut from the plan for the Wye—to make it happen.

The River Wye is a true national treasure. It requires not just short-term measures but a sustained, collective effort led by the UK and Welsh Governments to ensure that this magnificent river is fully restored to health as swiftly as that can be achieved.

That Jesse Norman and Ellie Chowns present the Bill.

Jesse Norman accordingly presented the Bill.