Sewage

I inform the House that the Speaker has selected amendment (a) tabled in the name of the Prime Minister.

I beg to move,

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.

It is an honour to open this debate. For me, serving the people of Westmoreland also means defending its natural beauty and purity, which are important to our national heritage, farming industry and tourism and hospitality economy. Our proposal aims to highlight the scandal of the pollution of our waterways and calls for practical solutions that will make a difference.

The Government’s recent Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 was a step in the right direction after the failure of the last Conservative Government to take meaningful action, yet it was surely also a missed opportunity to bring in the radical transformation of regulation and ownership that is essential if we are to clean up our waterways and clean up the water industry as a whole. Sir Jon Cunliffe’s review gives us hope that a second, more ambitious water Bill might be coming, but there is no guarantee of that, so our job as the constructive Opposition in this place is to hold the Government to account and urge them to make the big changes that Britain voted for last July.

The need for radical action was made all the more clear recently when the figures for sewage spills in 2024 were released. Those figures were horrific: a 106% increase in the duration of spills in our lakes, rivers and seas in just two short years.

Over Easter in Torbay, we had five sewage spills according to the Surfers Against Sewage app. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is extremely disappointing to say the least that, rather than colleagues just getting their cossie and towel to go swimming at their favourite swimming spot, they must now also check the sewage leak app? It is outrageous.

I agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a really good point about his own communities. That is what we are trying to address today by bringing practical solutions to prevent this outrage.

That 106% increase in the duration of sewage spills in just two years has been explained away on the record by water industry bosses as the consequence of climate change, because it rains more than it used to. Yes, that is absolutely true, but it did not rain 106% more in 2024 than it did in 2022—not even in the Lake district. The reality is that the failure of water companies to invest in their infrastructure and the failure of Ofwat to force them to do so mean that the scandal is set to continue despite the Government’s new legislation.

There were 754 spills in my constituency last year alone. We do not want to see those numbers anywhere, but in a constituency that does not have a major waterway, that is absurdly high. Does my hon. Friend agree that if we want to start genuinely holding these water companies to account, a great place to start would be replacing Ofwat?

My hon. Friend anticipates where I am going next, but yes, it takes some doing to have such figures in a constituency lacking in water—certainly lacking in it compared to my neck of the woods.

I confess that I am doing this job not just because my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) asked me; I would volunteer for all this stuff, because for me and my communities water is seriously personal. We are home to much of the English Lake district —Windermere, Ullswater, Coniston water, Grasmere, Rydal water and many more—and to a beautiful stretch of Morecambe bay and some of the most ecologically significant rivers in the UK, including the Kent, the Eden and the Leven. Yet the data for 2024 shows that we are the third hardest hit constituency in England when it comes to the duration of sewage spills, with 55,000-plus hours of spills and 5,500 individual incidents.

The catchment of the River Eden going through Appleby, Kirkby Stephen and many beautiful villages saw over 7,000 hours of spills on 705 occasions. The River Kent catchment saw 5,300 hours of spills on 455 occasions. Windermere alone had 38 spills over 123 hours.

The “constructive Opposition” spokesperson—I do not know what that makes the Conservatives—is making a powerful speech. I look forward to having an opportunity to visit his constituency, because it sounds beautiful. Does he agree that it is disgraceful that while this sewage is being leaked, the chief executive officers of water companies are still paying themselves exorbitant bonuses?

The hon. Member would, of course, be enormously welcome to visit the lakes and the dales. He makes a key point, which I will seek to address, about the injustice of people being paid huge bonuses for failure at the top of these organisations. That is also money leaving the system and the industry that could have been invested in putting some of this right.

I have talked about my patch, but colleagues across the House, from every party and from every corner of the United Kingdom, will have seen the data for their communities too, and they should rightly be outraged.

I am sure my hon. Friend is outraged.

My hon. Friend talks, quite correctly, about a beautiful part of England. I, too, represent a very beautiful part of the world. Here is an unbelievable fact for him—I have written it on my hand: in 2023, there were no fewer than 1,439 sewage spills in the highlands. What a disgrace that none of the Scottish nationalists, the governing party of Scotland, are here today.

My hon. Friend makes an important observation from a constituency vast and rural—my constituency is the second largest in England, but it is bijou and compact compared with his. He makes a good point about the Administration in Scotland.

As the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) alluded to, sewage spills are not the only things that have increased; so too has the money leaking out of the system. Water company bosses received a total combined pay last year of £20 million and more, and the water companies responsible for these failures paid out £1.2 billion in dividends. Surfers Against Sewage, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Steve Darling), has led the way on this issue for many years, since before many others were even talking about it.

Talking about dividends, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is completely wrong that tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, also leak out on high interest on the internal shareholder loans of those who own the water companies?

I will talk later about why privatisation of the water industry was such a colossal mistake, and that is one of the consequences—a predictable consequence. The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point.

Recent research by Surfers Against Sewage covers all the water companies, but I am bound to pick out United Utilities as an example. United Utilities paid out £320 million to investors last year, while its customers—my constituents—will pay 32% more in bills. By the way, 11% of every one of my constituents’ water bills is going to service that company’s debts—debts racked up in part by borrowing money in order to give huge, undeserved paydays to their investors.

In South Devon last year, we had an astonishing 49,904 hours of sewage leaks, or 5.69 years-worth of sewage pouring into the glorious Dart and Avon and into the sea around South Devon. Meanwhile, my constituents write to me about bills that have gone up by as much as 50%. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is an outrage that the privatised water companies are able to carry on increasing bills, increasing dividends to shareholders and paying multimillion-pound salaries to CEOs while this obscenity of sewage pouring into our rivers, seas and lakes continues?

My hon. Friend represents an utterly beautiful part of the country and she fights for it admirably; her constituents are lucky to have her. She makes an important point. I mentioned that 11% of the bills paid by my constituents in the north-west of England goes to service United Utilities’ debt, but that is one of the lowest levels. For many other colleagues on both sides of the House, their local water companies will be using up to 30% of the bills charged just to service their debt. The sewage scandal is an environmental scandal, but it is also a financial one—an affront to justice and fairness, as well as to our ecology.

It is also a health scandal. What water companies are doing by allowing sewage to seep into our coastal waters and rivers means that many people who enjoy that environment for swimming and so on fall ill, and many of them lose days at work. As well as covering the cost to the taxpayer of cleaning up the environment, the water companies should really be making a contribution to the Exchequer to cover sick pay and the costs to the NHS.