Henry Smith MP has backed the next stage of the Government’s plan to tackle sewage pollution by further strengthening legal requirements.

The Crawley MP voted for this action in the House of Commons yesterday (Tuesday, 25th April).

Henry said;

“We’re all disgusted by sewage in our rivers and I’ve been clear on this issue: water companies must clean up their act.

“If they don’t, I urge ministers to use the full force of the law, including unlimited penalties.”

In August 2022, the Government set out its plan which requires the largest infrastructure programme in water company history to tackle sewage overflows. The 60 page plan prioritises investments in priority sites including protected habitats and bathing waters. Since then £1.6 billion of investment has been brought forward to speed up vital water infrastructure projects, cutting thousands of overflow spills each year.

Ministers also reconfirmed that they will be unleashing unlimited penalties so that polluters pay for their impact on the environment, with funds now being reinvested into rivers and water bodies. This next step will place the target in the Sewage Overflow Reduction Plan on a statutory footing.

The Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Rt Hon Thérèse Coffey MP, said;

“It was a Conservative government that introduced 100 per cent monitoring of storm overflows. We’ve brought forward stronger regulations, tougher enforcement and the largest water infrastructure programme in history – an expected £56 billion investment – and we will make fines unlimited so that the polluter always pays.”

The Environment Secretary has written to water companies requiring a plan on every overflow on her desk by the end of June. This builds on work to introduce mandatory monitoring, which is up from just 7 per cent in 2010 to 100 per cent by the end of this year.

Thanks to this monitoring, regulators are undertaking the largest investigation into water companies in their history related to illegal sewage dumping, building on record fines of £141 million secured since 2015.

In the House of Commons, the Opposition tabled legislation which directly replicates existing Government policy. This includes;

• Bringing in monitoring, which will already be complete by the end of the year
• Requiring a plan to be published, which the Government already set out last year
• Setting legal targets, which the Government has already committed to do
• Introducing automatic fines, which reduces the fine available to regulators, rather than increasing them to unlimited as the Government will do.