As I’ve said often (and the book I published last year starts with this) our area is the ‘sourceplace’ - the headwaters of the three major river systems that water southern England. In the Bristol and Hampshire Avons and the Kennet, and all the rare chalk streams that flow into them, we are responsible for the most precious natural resources in our island. It’s therefore an absolute imperative that we protect them from pollution.
Water quality and river health is rightly an emotive issue. As an MP I frequently visited primary schools where the children and staff were deeply distressed that they could not paddle in their streams, collecting tadpoles or observing the aquatic life. The state of some village roads - I think of Aldbourne and the Ogbournes, Chilton Foliat and other places - during and after the recent floods, with raw excrement on the streets, was appalling and unacceptable.
I have probably spent more time on this issue than any other, visiting communities, liaising with the water companies, Ofwat and the Environment Agency, and I know it’s the same for our Wiltshire councillors representing the affected areas. I am therefore keen to explain what is happening and also to bust some myths about Government policy here.
The rivers are dirty partly because of agricultural chemicals - a declining but still real problem in some places - and partly because of sewage that goes into them when the sewers get full of rainwater. The rain gets in because most of our houses channel it via gutters and downpipes into the same drains as the foul water from the plumbing, and because the sewers themselves are ancient Victorian installations, cracked and leaky, that admit groundwater when the land is very wet. When the sewers are this full the sewage treatment plants can’t cope and some of the dirty rainwater has to be released untreated into the watercourses.
Like all Conservative MPs I have been accused of ‘deliberately’ voting to discharge sewage into the rivers. This was because we voted against a motion which would simply have ‘banned’ discharges. As the explanation above shows, the consequence of stopping the discharges would be to have dirty water backing up into our houses - a messy outcome which I don’t think the keyboard warriors and my political opponents (or their families) would welcome.
Instead, the Government has introduced the toughest-ever regime to reduce the sewage that goes into the rivers. For a start, we and our opponents only know about the problem because of steps Conservative ministers took to ensure that sewage spills are properly monitored. With that information, we are able to hold the water companies to account for their conduct. They are now compelled to progressively reduce the amount of sewage that goes into rivers (with an ambitious but realistic target of a total reduction of 80% by 2030) and will be fined if they fail. I campaigned as an MP for no upper limit to the fines that can be levied, and for the money to be used for local restoration projects in the areas where the pollution occurred rather than going into central Treasury coffers.
This regime is now in place and starting to work. The treatment plant at Fyfield was recently upgraded at a cost of £2 million and consequently the state of the Kennet is improving. Water companies are being successfully prosecuted and fined, and the money is coming to the areas affected.
Because it’s an emotive and important issue it’s not surprising that my opponents in the election are using the rivers as a point of attack on me. But this is a shame as everyone wants the same thing, and in fact the three main parties all have broadly the same policies to get there. We will all ensure that water company bosses receive no bonuses, and shareholders no dividends, if they fail to meet their sewage reduction targets. We all want proper investment in sewage treatment works and in nature-based solutions (not all concrete and plastic, but reed beds to filter dirty water naturally), and will direct Ofwat to ensure this happens.
While I think it’s important to stress the consensus on what needs to be done, I will finish on a political note by rebutting some of the accusations and claims made by my opponents. The Liberal Democrat candidate blames privatisation for the problem. The fact is that the water board was privatised because in the 1970s and 80s England was the ‘dirty man of Europe’, with record pollution in the rivers. With access to the private capital markets, in the ten years after privatisation investment in the system doubled. What’s needed is proper regulation - now in place - to ensure that the companies continue to invest rather than borrowing to pay their shareholders and directors.
National ownership is not the answer. Indeed Ofwat calculate that household bills would have been higher and investment lower if privatisation had not happened. In Scotland, where water is still nationalised, they have more leaks in their system than England. Wales, where the water is managed by a not-for-profit entity, has a terrible investment and performance record. The Lib Dems (whose Water Minister in the coalition government praised privatisation and actually reduced the companies’ obligations to report sewage discharges) have admitted that their plans would harm pension funds, which are major investors in the industry.
As for Labour - who expect to actually be in government - they are wise enough not to promise to renationalise the water system. Behind their exploitation of this issue they know what the Government is doing is right. They remember that the rivers were badly polluted under Labour too - the UK was taken to court by the EU in 2009 because of the levels of sewage in the Thames.
I hope that whoever is elected here, and whoever is in government, the current plans to insist on infrastructure improvement, proper monitoring, fines for breaches, and investment in nature will continue. We also need to design our houses better to stop the rain going into the drains. And I hope for a drier winter this year, so that the sewers don’t fill with groundwater. Then next spring the children will be paddling with the tadpoles again.
