Targets for reducing sewage dumps to become legally binding
The government has promised to enshrine in law a water company target for effectively ending sewage dumping by 2050, as it moves to calm public frustration over the issue before local elections next week.
There were more than 300,000 sewage spills into rivers and seas from storm overflows across England last year. However, the government has set out a plan to cut the discharges with a series of targets, which are expected to cost the water companies around £56 billion over 25 years. Those goals will now be enshrined in law.
The move is a victory for The Times’s Clean it Up campaign, which has been calling for stronger regulation of the water sector and other polluters.
The step comes as ministers face a vote this afternoon on whether to allow a Labour-backed motion to end what Jim McMahon, the shadow environment secretary, called the “disgraceful images” of pipes dumping raw sewage. McMahon, along with Feargal Sharkey, the water campaigner, has written to Tory MPs urging them to back an opposition day motion that would give parliamentary time to a new sewage bill next week.
With ministers and opposition MPs set to clash in a parliamentary debate over the best solutions for sewage spills this afternoon, the government has moved to make a headline target in the plan to reduce storm overflows discharge legally binding. The target is to allow companies no more than ten “heavy rainfall events” a year by 2050, effectively ending the practice of releasing raw sewage from storm overflows.
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“A clear, credible and costed legally binding target will add to our transparent and determined approach to solve this issue, whilst keeping consumer bills low,” said Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary, in a written ministerial statement.
Other targets, which will not become legally binding, include ensuring 75 per cent of storm overflows near sensitive sites do not spill sewage or cause adverse ecological impacts by 2035. By 2045, that figure must rise to 100 per cent.
It is unclear exactly what fines the water firms will face for missing the legally binding targets. However, the economic regulator Ofwat is able to impose penalties of up to 10 per cent of a water company’s turnover if it breaches its statutory duties.
The step marks an attempt by Coffey to get back on the front foot as the Liberal Democrats and Labour hope to win votes in council elections in England over public anger about the state of rivers.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat environment spokesman, described the vote on a sewage bill as “judgment day” for Tory MPs. “Conservative MPs have spent the past year blocking tough new laws on water companies. They are trying to take the British public for fools with tough talk and no action,” he said.
The Times is demanding faster action to improve the country’s waterways. Find out more about the Clean It Up campaign.
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