The Environment Bill & Storm Overflows
Patrick Lohlein’s excellent explainer of storm overflows, and the recent votes in the Commons on the Environment Bill.
A number of people have been in touch about the Environment Bill and, specifically, the clauses on storm overflows, so I thought it would be useful to provide a bit of an explainer as to what the Bill actually does, and why I voted the way I did.
Let’s get the basics on the table first: you won’t find a single MP who wants to see sewage being pumped into rivers. The Bill goes a good way towards making it far harder for this to happen. Personally, I think it could go further, and I hope that we will be able to make further amendments as the Bill makes its way through Parliament. You can read more about that below.
I need no convincing as to the importance of ensuring clean and healthy rivers. That is why I have for some time been working with constituents, speaking to United Utilities and the Environment Agency locally, and asking questions in the House about this. Indeed, I was one of the early supporters of Philip Dunne's original Private Members Bill on the subject.
As is often the case, it's worth looking beyond the headlines and at the actual meat and bones of the legislation and its implications.
The Government inserted a range of amendments to the Environment Bill to address the concerns I and other colleagues have raised about the use of storm overflows. I was pleased to vote in support of Amendment (a) to Lords Amendment 45.
Concerns have been raised that section 141A, tabled by the Duke of Wellington in the House of Lords, was removed from Amendment 45. Section 141A sought to place a new duty on sewerage undertakers in England and Wales to demonstrate progressive reductions in the harm caused by discharges of untreated sewage.
This sounds admirable, and is something I support in principle. But the trouble is that the Duke’s amendment came with no plan as to how this can be delivered and no impact assessment whatsoever.
Some might argue that a plan is not essential, and that one could be formulated afterwards. If we were talking about a simple, inexpensive task I might support that. But in eliminating storm overflows, we are talking about transforming a system which has operated since the Victorian Era, the preliminary cost of which is estimated to be anywhere between £150 billion and £650 billion.
It is worth remembering why we discharge into water courses: waste water from rain is channelled into the system alongside waste water and sewage from households and businesses. This runs into plants and is purified before flowing back into the river system. However, when there is heavy rain too much water enters the system and pressure builds. If the pressure reaches a certain level this mixture of rain water and sewage would simply flow back up the pipes and flood people’s houses if it were not discharged.
So, as I state – if we are actually seeking to eliminate storm overflows, we must replace a Victorian network at a cost of between £150 billion and £650 billion.
To put those figures in perspective, £150 billion is more than the entire schools, policing and defence budgets put together, and £650 billion is well above what has been spent combatting the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Government’s view was that it would have been irresponsible to have inserted this section in the Bill given that it was not backed by a plan of any detail whatsoever, and certainly no impact assessment. It would have been the equivalent of signing a blank check on behalf of bill-payers. It would have also essentially outlawed nearly all existing sewer systems overnight, which I hope you will agree is simply unworkable.
However, I was pleased to support of the other amendments to the Environment Bill relating to storm overflows (including the rest of Amendment 45).
One of these amendments places a legal duty on government to publish a plan by 1 September next year to reduce sewage discharges from storm overflows. A separate amendment will also place a duty on government to publish a report on the ‘mechanics’ of eliminating overflows entirely (also due before 1 September next year).
This is absolutely essential, as it will provide Parliament and the public with up-front, clear and comprehensive information on the cost and impact of eliminating storm overflows. Between the Government plan on storm overflows and the new elimination report, we will fully understand precisely how we can best tackle storm overflows.
So, while setting out lofty aspirations is all well and good, what we really need to do is the long, detailed, practical work required to understand how we can deliver on these ambitions. It is not glamorous or headline-grabbing. But it is the effective action we need to deliver for local residents.
Please do not think that the Environment Bill only legislates for the production of plans on tackling storm overflows, however vital these no-doubt are. I was pleased to support amendments to the Bill which take firm and immediate action to tackle storm overflows in the short-term. These include:
A new duty on water companies and the Environment Agency to publish data on storm overflow operation on an annual basis.
A new duty on water companies to publish near real time information (within 1 hour) of the commencement of an overflow, its location and when it ceases.
A new duty on water companies to continuously monitor the water quality upstream and downstream of a storm overflow and of sewage disposal works.
A new duty on water companies to produce comprehensive statutory Drainage and Sewerage Management Plans setting out how the company will manage and develop its networks, and how storm overflows will be addressed through these plans.
Outside of the Bill, Ministers have made their expectations crystal clear in DEFRA’s draft Strategic Policy Statement to Ofwat. For the first time, the Government will be telling the industry’s financial regulator that it expects water companies to take steps to “significantly reduce storm overflows”, and that it expects funding to be approved for them to do so.
Ministers will also undertake a review of legislation which would require Sustainable Drainage Systems to be constructed to ministerial standards on new developments, reducing the pressure on the sewage system.
All of these measures are informed by the work of the Storm Overflows Task Force, which Defra established in August 2020 to bring together key stakeholders from the water industry, environmental NGOs, regulators, and Government in order to drive progress in reducing sewage discharges. The Taskforce has agreed a goal to eliminate harm from storm overflows.
I hope this information is helpful and reassures you that any suggestion that MPs are not taking firm action on storm overflows is false. Parliament voted in favour of taking a range of immediate steps to address storm overflows, together with a legal duty on government to produce detailed and costed plans for reducing and eliminating storm overflows entirely.
As I stated earlier in this note, I do believe that there is scope to go further on this in later legislative stages of the Bill and I shall be pushing for the government to do so.
Locally, I will continue to pressure UU to deliver the urgent infrastructure upgrades which are required from Walney to High Furness, including the replacement of Victorian storm overflows on Walney, improving flood defences, and tackling recurrent flooding in Ulverston.
I do hope that this explains to all genuinely interested in the Bill and water discharges that the issue is more complex than presented on social media. Suggesting MPs ‘voted to pour raw sewage into our rivers’ is unwarranted and unnecessary – instead we made a pragmatic compromise based on facts, while seeking to drive down the very pollution that has energised so many people.
A fortnight ago I held a Climate Summit in Barrow to discuss climate change, to engage people on the topics, and to get a discussion going. Next week I’m visiting Glasgow for COP26. I care passionately about the environment, and this Bill reflects that - every measure (including on storm overflows) will improve our natural environment significantly. Step away from the click bait headlines and I hope you will see that.
The fact that this vote has been jumped on by the usual suspects on Facebook to portray MPs as ‘scum’ - just days after one of our colleagues was murdered and every political party appealed for calmer and kinder debate is not surprising, but it is disappointing.
As ever, please do come to me if you want to know about what is happening in Parliament and the votes we take. Social media is awash with bias, click bait and, dare I suggest it, politically motivated information to discredit - it’s not necessarily the best place to get a fair view of what is going on, or the context for why.
It’s worth noting that I’ve borrowed some of this text from my colleague Robert Courts’ excellent explainer. As flagged at the top of this article, Patrick Lohlein’s tweets on the subject are also a very good (and short!) way of getting to the facts on this.
