I have been contacted by a number of constituents who claim I voted to pump raw sewage into our rivers. I did no such thing. This is party political nonsense being pushed into the echo chamber of social media by the Liberal Democrats. The Government are strengthening fines and legally binding environmental targets in this area. The vote referred to was signing off regulations required to enact the Environment Act’s stronger protections on biodiversity, trees, water, marine protected areas, air quality, and resource management. In other words, the very opposite of the tendentious claims of the Liberal Democrats.
Sitting at the heart of the Government’s Environment Act, the targets require the Government to:
- Halt the decline in species populations by 2030, and then increase populations by at least 10% to exceed current levels by 2042
- Restore water bodies to their natural state by cracking down on harmful pollution from sewers and abandoned mines and improving water usage in households
- Deliver our net zero ambitions and boost nature recovery by increasing tree and woodland cover to 16.5% of total land area in England by 2050
- Halve the waste per person that is sent to residual treatment by 2042
- Cut exposure to the most harmful air pollutant to human health – PM2.5
- Restore 70% of designated features in our Marine Protected Areas to a favourable condition by 2042, with the rest in a recovering condition
My voting record can be seen in black and white and shows that I did not, and would not, vote to dump raw sewage into rivers. However, simply pretending that this issue can be solved overnight is to treat people like idiots. The complete solution to storm overflows will require a combination of the digging up of 100,000km of largely Victorian combined piping and replacing it with separated systems, or the construction of 40,000 additional waste water holding tanks each one the size of an Olympic swimming pool, assuming that the water companies can get access to the physical space to construct them. Any party that claims this can be achieved other than over years is treating the public with contempt. This Government has required the water companies to face up to this issue and commit to spending £56Bn to tackle historic infrastructure problems whilst at the same time making sure that any new developments have separated wastewater and drainage systems (SUDS).
My voting record can be found via the Parliamentary website: https://members.parliament.uk/member/4739/voting. On both votes I voted to implement the Draft Environmental Targets (Residual Waste) (England) Regulations 2022 and the Draft Environmental Targets (Water) (England) Regulations 2022, whereas the Liberal Democrats and Labour both voted against.
