Labour has today published the face of a Bill, which would place
a legal obligation on government and water companies to bring an
end to the systematic dumping of raw sewage into Britain’s
waters.
In response to the continued Tory Government failure and inaction
on sewage dumping, Shadow Environment Secretary has formally presented the
Water Quality (Sewage Discharge) Bill on the floor of the House
of Commons.
The Bill, enacting Labour’s plan to end the Tory sewage scandal
by 2030, seeks to legally underpin four crucial reduction
measures: setting a legal requirement for the monitoring of all
sewage outlets and penalties for failures in adhering to
monitoring requirements; imposing automatic fines for sewage
dumping; implementing a legally binding target to reduce sewage
dumping events; and a requirement for the Secretary of State to
publish a strategy for the reduction of sewage discharges and
regular economic impact assessments.
The publishing of the Bill, in the absence of a government plan,
seeks to force the Conservative to allow for parliamentary time
for its passage, affording Tory MPs another opportunity to vote
to end sewage dumping, having voted down Labour-backed measures
to end sewage dumping during the passage of the Environment Bill.
On Saturday, Labour published analysis of Environment Agency data
which revealed that since 2016, a new sewage dumping event has
taken place an average of every two-and-a-half minutes, with
rivers, lakes, seas, and beaches having faced a
staggering 1,276 years-worth of raw sewage over just a
seven-year period.
The sewage dumping statistics and the news of the Bill come as
Secretary of State continues to face
significant pressure after a troubled start to her new role,
having broken the Government’s own statutory deadline for
publishing water quality targets; announced a 36-year delay to
cleaning-up waterways; told Parliament that meeting polluting
water bosses wasn’t her priority and been heavily criticised for
announcing a storm overflow reduction plan containing no
reduction measures.
At the end of last year, the Labour Party also revealed that
sewage discharges more than doubled from 14.7 per overflow in
2016 to 35.4 in 2019, coinciding with Coffey’s decision to cut
funding for environmental protection.
Last September, during Labour Party Conference, Shadow
Environment Secretary announced that a future Labour
Government would implement measures that would force water
companies to clean up their act and progressively end sewage
dumping and the culture of water companies treating our natural
environment as an open sewer.
OBE MP, Shadow Environment
Secretary said:
“It’s clear that we have a Tory government that has run out of
road, when all it can resort to is regurgitating old
announcements that do nothing to end sewage dumping. That’s why
Labour has brought forward legislation to force the clean-up of
the water industry.
“Tory MPs, having previously blocked Labour-backed measures to
end the Tory sewage scandal, have no excuses for not supporting
this Bill, which puts an end to sewage dumping once and for all.
“The next Labour Government will build a better Britain and end
the Tory sewage scandal, delivering mandatory monitoring on all
sewage outlets, introducing automatic fines for discharges,
setting ambitious targets for stopping systematic sewage dumping
and ensuring that water bosses are held to account for
negligence.”
Notes:
- Face of the Bill attached.
