Conservative MPs vote to continue to allow sewage discharge with no legal penalties, targets or time frame.

MPs like this apparently.

Conservative MPs have voted to approve a Government amendment that will allow the continued dumping of raw sewage into rivers and sea through CSOs. The bill passed by 283 to 163 with only one Conservative MP voting against.

All coastal Conservative MPs voted to allow sewage to continue to be dumped via CSOs without legal penalty.

They repeated claims put out by Water, the water companies lobbying group, that the clean up would cost £600 billion – a figure that seems to have been plucked from thin air that none of the NGOs or experts think is necessary!

The Storm Water Task force said a plan to reduce spills from storm overflows to an average of ten per year in sensitive areas may only cost between £13.5billion and £21.7billion.

Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron said:

“There are no targets in terms of volume or in terms of timescale, in which case that leaves water companies with the power to continue what they do now.”

Which is dump sewage of course.

“We’re hugely disappointed that the government has decided not to back the tougher Duke of Wellington amendment, which would have given them greater powers in tackling the sewage pollution emergency in our rivers and ocean.’

Said Hugo Tagholm from SAS,

“ The government has failed to seize the opportunity in the most urgent of environmental decades to make an example of water companies to say, ‘If you pollute, you fix it, you pay.

” #PeoplePower forced the government to bring in measures they say will be effective. Let’s now make sure they do what they say. Our fight continues. We must harness this momentum and force the water industry to deliver thriving rivers and seas for people and wildlife.

“Today is just one day in the fight to #EndSewagePollution. Until we see the evidence of action – fewer sewage discharges; our rivers passing ecological standards, our Bathing Waters at the top of league tables; and rivers fit to swim, we will not stay silent.”

The bill which ‘requires’ ‘water companies reduce sewage discharges’ has no targets or penalties and allows dumping to continue for years to come.

Defra backed the MPs but as we all know Defra, Ofwat and the Environment Agency have taken little or no action over the last 30 years to stop CSO discharges. So there is little hope of any chance of them stepping up now.

Only one Conservative MP, Philip Davies, voted against the government plans along with Labour and Liberal Democrats.

Labour’s shadow Environment Secretary Luke Pollard said

“There’s no specific duty on Ofwat or the Environment Agency to ensure compliance – and there should be – and we need to have a focus on reduction on harm rather than adverse impacts. This looks like looking busy without making a real difference.”

Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron said:

“There are no targets in terms of volume or in terms of timescale, in which case that leaves water companies with the power to continue what they do now. This is something to get Conservative backbenchers off the hook rather than to give water companies the direction that they need.”

Private water companies who have paid dividends of over £57 billion to shareholders and pay millions to directors each year have vastly under-invested in CSOs, while Brexit-induced shortages of water treatment chemicals have led the Environment Agency to authorise companies to “discharge effluent without meeting the conditions” of their permits.