MPs vote allows raw sewage in Britain’s rivers and seas

Tory MPs are facing a backlash after voting against amending a bill to stop water companies dumping raw sewage into Britain’s rivers and seas.

Just 22 conservatives rebelled against the government last week by voting for an amendment to the Environment Bill which sought to place a legal duty on water companies not to pump sewage into rivers, according to the Daily Mail.

This comes as figures collected by charity the Rivers Trust show that all of England’s rivers are currently failing to pass cleanliness tests, with 53 per cent of them in a poor state at least partly because of water companies releasing raw and partially-treated sewage.

In England, just 14 per cent of rivers have good ecological status and none have good chemical status because water companies are currently allowed to release raw sewage into rivers and seas as part of a ‘combined sewer overflow’, a legacy of Britain’s Victorian drainage system, The Telegraph says.

This means rainwater and liquid waste are combined in the same tanks and overflows into waterways as an escape valve, rather than backing up into homes and streets.

The defeated amendment, introduced in the House of Lords by the Duke of Wellington, would have also forced water companies and the government to ‘take all reasonable steps’ to avoid using the combined sewer overflows, which regularly release untreated waste into rivers and seas.

He believes the amendment would stimulate investment in improving the systems, which date back decades and are in severe need of upgrades.

Environment Secretary George Eustice recommended MPs reject amendments to the bill, which caused a backlash on social media.

One person questioned: ‘What sort of person votes to allow water companies to pump raw sewage into our water?’

A government source told the MailOnline: “Tory MPs have categorically not voted to allow water companies to dump raw sewage into our rivers and seas. The provisions in the Environment Bill will deliver progressive reductions in the harm caused by storm overflows. The Environment Bill requires us to set a target to drive progress on water quality, and we are already taking significant action to address water quality more widely. Claims to the contrary are simply wrong.”

“Many people have argued that it’s already illegal for water companies to pump out raw sewage, and yes that’s true,” says a Surfers Against Sewage statement. “But is that working? Well clearly not, allowing 400,000 sewage pollution events in a year doesn’t sound like very effective legislation to us. Putting this legal duty on water companies to take steps to reduce their reliance on CSO’s could have made a real difference by forcing water companies to finally tackle their shocking sewage pollution record.”

Hugo Tagholm, CEO of the campaign group continues: “In this most important of environmental decades, it’s shocking that the government recommended that MPs reject progressive and ambitious amendments that would protect water, air and nature.

“Why wouldn’t they want water companies to have a legal obligation not to pollute our rivers and ocean with sewage, for example? It beggars belief and hardly shows a commitment to be the greenest government ever. It’s time for more ambitious thinking and law that builds protected nature back into public ownership rather than leaving it to the ravages of shareholder interests.

“Thanks to all the supporters who contacted their MP – we need your help more than ever in the campaign to End Sewage Pollution.”

The measure is now set to return to the Lords on Tuesday, where peers are expected to send it back to the Commons later next week – possibly on Thursday – and force another vote among MPs.

In April this year, MPs were told that water companies poured raw sewage into rivers for three million hours last year, while paying shareholders billions in dividend payments.

The environmental audit committee heard that the huge Mogden treatment plant sent the equivalent of 400 Olympic swimming pools worth of raw effluent into the Thames over two days last autumn.

Image courtesy of the Rivers Trust.