Written questions by Cane.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to improve water quality in rivers.

Cleaning up England’s rivers, lakes and seas is a priority for the Government. The Government has taken immediate and substantial action to address the performance of water companies who are not delivering for the environment or their customers. For example, we are placing water companies under special measures through the Water (Special Measures) Bill. This includes giving Ofwat the power to ban bonuses for executives when companies fail to meet standards on environmental performance, financial resilience, customer outcomes or criminal liability, and enabling severe and automatic fines for wrongdoing. The Bill will also introduce new, statutory reporting requirements for emergency overflows and pollution incidents. In addition, for Price Review 2024, which runs from 2025 – 2030, water companies will be delivering record levels of investment: £104 billion over the next five years. This gives the sector the opportunity for transformation, delivering better outcomes for customers and the environment In October 2024, the Secretary of State, in conjunction with the Welsh Government, also launched an Independent Commission on the water sector regulatory system. This is a wide-ranging review to fundamentally transform how our water system works and clean up our rivers, lakes and seas for good.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to support people who become ill from sewage discharge.

For too long, water companies have discharged record levels of sewage into our rivers, lakes and seas. The Government is committed to holding water companies to account. The Water (Special Measures) Bill will drive meaningful improvements in the performance and culture of the water industry as a first important step in enabling wider, transformative change across the water sector. The Storm Overflow Discharge Reduction Plan sets the stretching public health target that water companies must significantly reduce harmful pathogens from storm overflows discharging near designated bathing waters to meet Environment Agency (EA) spill standards by 2035. To support this, as part of one of the most ambitious investment cycles since privatisation, investment is going in to improving storm overflows to reduce spills prioritising those affecting the most sensitive sites, including bathing waters. Furthermore, during the bathing water season, designated sites benefit from water quality monitoring by the Environment Agency, enabling the public to make informed decisions about where to swim: Swimfo bathing waters website Throughout the bathing season, the EA also makes daily pollution risk forecasts for a number of bathing waters where water quality may be temporarily reduced, notifying bathers of these changes.