Contributions
1,563 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDWater QualityThe Government are serious about holding water companies to account and maintaining high drinking water standards. Just this week, South West Water has rightly been fined £1.85…04 Jun 2026HANSARDClean Waterways: Thames ValleyWe are taking decisive action to clean up waterways in the Thames valley, tackling pollution from water companies, agriculture and urban run-off. The Environment Agency carried…04 Jun 2026HANSARDClean Waterways: Thames ValleyThe hon. Gentleman raises an important point; I would be happy to look at it with the Environment Agency.04 Jun 2026HANSARDClean Waterways: Thames ValleyI thank my hon. Friend for bringing this important issue to the House, and I join him in paying tribute to the Environment Agency, all the emergency responders and everybody who…04 Jun 2026HANSARDTopical QuestionsThe answer is a huge amount. The EA has carried out over 10,000 inspections of water company sites in 2025-26, compared with the 4,000 before Labour came to power, and we have…04 Jun 2026HANSARDTopical QuestionsI am really proud that our country has world-leading drinking water quality—in fact, our PFAS standard of 0.1 micrograms per litre is among the tightest in the whole world. I…04 Jun 2026HANSARDTopical QuestionsI thank the hon. Lady for her question and for her excitement at having the first ever bathing water designation in the city of London. There will obviously be extremely high…04 Jun 2026HANSARDTopical QuestionsFurther to that point of order, Mr Speaker. May I take this opportunity to apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for the lack of response? I will follow it up immediately with the…04 Jun 2026HANSARD South East Water: Disruption of SupplyI totally agree with my hon. Friend. As I have mentioned before, I do not have an issue with bonuses per se; I just think they should be linked to how well people do their jobs.…03 Jun 2026HANSARD South East Water: Disruption of SupplyThat pizza business sounds great, and definitely worth a visit in summer. The hon. Lady is right; when I spoke to South East Water again on Sunday evening, I asked, “What…03 Jun 2026HANSARD South East Water: Disruption of SupplyMy hon. Friend makes a powerful point. As the White Paper set out: “Where a water company might want to transition to a new ownership model, such as a not-for-profit, the…03 Jun 2026HANSARD South East Water: Disruption of SupplyThe short answer is yes. The previous chief executive of South East Water—or rather the current chief executive, who has not gone yet—met members of the water delivery taskforce a…03 Jun 2026HANSARD South East Water: Disruption of SupplySouth East Water is a water only company, not a sewage company, so we can criticise it for many things, but sewage pollution is not one of them. When the Government came to power…03 Jun 2026HANSARD South East Water: Disruption of SupplyThe hon. Lady raises an important point—I remember how powerfully she described the impact on her constituents and businesses when we were last in the Chamber talking about South…03 Jun 2026HANSARD South East Water: Disruption of SupplyI share my hon. Friend’s outrage at the situation. He has been a fantastic champion for his constituents in raising this matter with me a number of times. On the immediate action…03 Jun 2026HANSARD South East Water: Disruption of SupplyI thank the right hon. Gentleman for asking this question. I will update the House on the water supply disruption in Kent, and I want to begin by expressing my sympathy for those…03 Jun 2026HANSARD South East Water: Disruption of SupplyI share the right hon. Gentleman’s outrage at the situation. He is quite right to say that one of the answers is the reservoir, which will take a long time to build, but this is…03 Jun 2026HANSARD South East Water: Disruption of SupplyI thank my hon. Friend and all members of the EFRA Committee for their excellent report, which was forensic in looking into the failures of South East Water. It was a brilliant,…03 Jun 2026HANSARD South East Water: Disruption of SupplyI thank the hon. Lady for her work on the EFRA Committee. She is entirely right: it is unacceptable. I feel that I am a fair-minded person. I know that water companies cannot…03 Jun 2026HANSARD South East Water: Disruption of SupplyOne of the first things we did when we came into government was to look at the guaranteed standards scheme. We have introduced increased compensation payments and new standards.…03 Jun 2026