Contributions
1,165 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDSewage PollutionMy right hon. Friend raises an important point. One of the actions that we are requiring water companies to take in some instances will be to use techniques that will disinfect…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionThis issue is linked to a separate but associated challenge around nutrient pollution. We published our proposals to make some changes to deal with this issue on a strategic level…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionI am the first Secretary of State ever to publish a plan such as this. One of my first acts as Secretary of State in 2020 was to instruct officials to change the strategic policy…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionWe also published and laid before the House yesterday a report required under the Act on the feasibility of removing the storm overflows altogether. It is the case that the cost…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionI am afraid that the failure to address storm overflows goes back much further. This is a legacy of the Victorian infrastructure that we have in place, and no Government down the…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionI agree, which is why the Government have changed our legal powers through the Environment Act 2021 to strengthen the regulation, and to require improved monitoring. On the basis…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionMy hon. Friend raises an important point. As I said in my statement, we are now requiring water companies to make available to the Environment Agency all the discharge data from…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionMy hon. Friend highlights an important point: the origin of this problem links back to the Victorian combined sewer system we have, where street drainage systems are linked into…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionMy hon. Friend raises a very important point: we need to have accurate data, which is why we have required new monitoring to be put in place and new disclosures to be made by…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionThe episode that the hon. Gentleman describes is probably linked to a failure somewhere in the sewage infrastructure rather than storm overflows per se, and that is a slightly…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionI hope I have made it clear that we are not content with criminal behaviour, which is precisely why we are bringing record numbers of prosecutions, having discovered a problem as…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionThe Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) has met South West Water to discuss some…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionA number of agencies have a role in the situation that my hon. Friend describes. Typically, local authorities are responsible for most of the street drainage infrastructure and…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionThe hon. Gentleman has raised this issue before and there was a tragic case of large numbers of crabs, in particular, being washed up on beaches in his constituency. We ordered an…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionMy hon. Friend makes an important point. The Department is also working on a new horticulture strategy, and I invite him to write with details of the particular watercress grower…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionMy hon. Friend raises an important point. As I have said, we are bringing a record number of investigations and prosecutions against water companies for potential breaches of…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionThe real challenge is that the Environment Agency was not fully aware that these breaches were occurring. That is why, as I said earlier, the Office for Environmental Protection…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionAs I said earlier, thanks to the evidence that has been gathered as a result of the new monitoring that we required, we are now bringing investigations into around 2,200 sewage…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionThe Environment Act addresses those issues, and this Government and Conservative Members voted for the changes that put in place the legal powers that we need to address this…06 Sept 2022HANSARDSewage PollutionMy hon. Friend raises an important point. As I have said several times, we are taking clear and assertive action in England to tackle the problem. We need the devolved…06 Sept 2022