Speeches by Hardy.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers, and if I may I will start by wishing everyone a happy new year. I thank members of the Committee for the engagement with the Bill they have shown, and I also thank all the environmental groups, everyone who submitted evidence, and Members in the other place…”

“We expect the commission to report to the Government in June. I reassure the hon. Member that when I respond at the end of every session, I will go through each and every amendment in turn. I turn to Government amendments 1 and 2 to clause 1. The Government have carefully considered all non-Government amendments made i…”

“I have to say that it is slightly disappointing that we do not have a full contingent for such an important Bill Committee, which matters so much to people up and down the country. There could be personal reasons, so let us reserve judgment, but it is a little surprising to me too.”

“I am pleased that we have that on the record. This is an important Bill, and I encourage everyone to attend. I believe, first, that the Lords amendment is duplicative of the work that Ofwat is already doing and, secondly, that it will pre-empt any forthcoming reforms from the water commission.”

“The hon. Gentleman tempts me to look into the future before we have had the water commission. To clarify—just so there is no misunderstanding—the commission will not amend this Bill but will produce another piece of legislation that looks at everything.”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Information will be coming out shortly about how each and every Member across the House can contribute to that review. Government amendment 2 seeks to remove the amendment that requires rules made by Ofwat under clause 1 to be brought into force by statutory instrument within six mon…”

“I am desperately searching for a dental analogy. I have already outlined to the hon. Gentleman that we tabled this amendment to protect the independence of Ofwat, protect investor confidence and ensure that rules under clause 1 are effective and in place as soon as possible. It is therefore necessary to remove Lord Rob…”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his helpful question. Yes, we obviously have regular conversations with Ofwat to ensure that it is capable of delivering everything here. There is an impact assessment on the table in the room, if the hon. Member would like to look at exactly how that all works out. Amendment 18, also tab…”

“I understand the hon. Gentleman’s intention, which fits within the bigger picture of how we change the culture and improve trust in the industry. On these specific points, there is already legislation in place. However, I take his wider point that there is no trust and a lot of anger, and we need to do something around…”

“Before I start my response to this group, I just want to note that there has been considerable discussion on the monitoring of the volume of discharges during this debate. In the interests of time, I will respond to those points when we debate amendment 13 next week, if that is agreeable to everyone. I thank hon. Membe…”

“I thank all hon. Members for their thoughts on this set of amendments. I would also like to pay tribute to all of the citizen scientists—in fact, many Members have paid tribute to them—and the incredible work that they do as volunteers, going out there to discover the true state of many of our rivers, lakes and seas. I…”

“I am very happy to give a breakdown of the numbers that we have worked out. To reiterate the point I made before the intervention, that is why the Government believe that it is the measurement of water quality that is required. Water companies have been instructed to begin installing continuous water quality monitors f…”

“I want to make sure that I am not giving the hon. Gentleman inaccurate information, so I will find out the answer to his question and return to it, if that is okay. I do not want to give him the wrong information. The main point we are making is that it is not the volume that is having the impact; it is the toxicity. W…”

“The hon. Member is pre-empting my responses to the next amendments on transparency, which I am just about to turn to. Before we move on from volume, I re-emphasise the point. This is something that I looked at seriously because a number of colleagues have spoken to me about it, so I really do not want hon. Members to f…”

“I will finish what I am saying. I might answer the hon. Gentleman’s question in my upcoming remarks—who knows? The additional requirement for the rules to be confirmed for affirmative resolution statutory instruments could also risk delaying the introduction of the first set of rules. That is counter to the other aspec…”

“I think the hon. Gentleman is probably moving on to amendment 16 with his point about the speed at which these were being rolled out. We were discussing amendments 13 and 14. That is where the confusion lies in this conversation. I will address the points about speed when we move on to amendment 16 —it is all to come. …”

“I think that might be really helpful. It has been an interesting but slightly muddled conversation. We were going to produce a factsheet to explain the difference between emergency and storm. Maybe we can include as much information as we can for Committee members by the end of Committee or before Report, if that does …”

“I thank the hon. Member for Beaconsfield for tabling amendment 4, which seeks to make a failure to publish discharge data from emergency overflows in near-real time a criminal offence. I wholeheartedly agree that it is vital that regulators have a clear means of ensuring that water companies comply with this duty. Howe…”

“I thank the hon. Member for Beaconsfield for proposing amendment 10, which seeks to make it an offence for sewage undertakers to use an emergency overflow in areas used for aquatic sports. I will mention how much I enjoyed meeting the Clean Water Sports Alliance just last week to hear about its fantastic work to get us…”

“As I say, I wholeheartedly agree with the intention behind the amendment, but I note that later on we will be discussing the importance of chalk streams as well. The amendment would create a hierarchy between what is important and what is not. My argument is that emergency overflows are a problem wherever they are, and…”