As the first signs of Spring appear, we know it’s time to get outdoors and enjoy our beautiful British countryside. People love taking advantage of the warmer weather to walk in our stunning landscapes, picnic among the daffodils in the park, or take a dip in the local river.
But these simple pleasures have been ruined by the scandal of our polluted waterways. Our rivers, lakes and seas are awash with raw sewage. Years of Tory inaction has left our sewage system crumbling with leaking pipes, sewage spills and families left worried about letting their kids play in potentially contaminated water.
The figures released by the Environment Agency yesterday showing staggeringly high sewage spills are a disgrace.
They are the result of years of underinvestment and toothless regulation.
No wonder customers are furious about rising water bills given these circumstances. The Conservatives let water companies divert bill-payers’ hard-earned cash into the pockets of their bosses instead of using it to upgrade the sewage and water system. A lack of timely maintenance meant more pipes crumbled into ruin, and now the public have been left to pay the price of Tory failure.
The public are furious. So am I. That’s why I’m leaving no stone unturned to clean up our failing water industry once and for all.
We’ve put failing water companies under tough special measures through our landmark Water Act which became law last month. It creates tough new powers to ban unfair bonuses for polluting water bosses and bring criminal charges against lawbreakers inside the water companies.
In future, money for investment is ringfenced so it can only be spent on upgrading our crumbling infrastructure, not on unjustified bonuses or shareholder payouts as happened under the Conservatives.
And that’s just for starters.
The Government has secured over £100 billion of private-sector funding that will be invested into the water sector over the next five years. That’s the biggest investment into our water sector in history, and the second biggest investment in any part of the economy over the lifetime of this parliament.
This investment will upgrade and build water infrastructure in every region of the country - sewage pipes, water treatment works, clean drinking water supplies, and new reservoirs.
It will clean up our waterways – dramatically cutting sewage spills by 2030 – and ensure a reliable water supply in the years ahead. It will create tens of thousands of jobs around the country, help us build 1.5 million homes, support 150 major infrastructure projects and power new industries such as data centres. This is the regional economic growth the country voted for last year.
I want the public to benefit from this investment as soon as possible. The Water Minister Emma Hardy and I have toured the country to see where and how this investment will be spent, visiting Windermere, the River Wye, and sites across Hampshire, Yorkshire, Suffolk, Northumbria and Somerset.
I want to thank the Telegraph for its clean water campaign. My promise to your readers is this: I will not stop fighting until we have transformed the water sector so we once again have clean rivers, lakes and seas that our children and their children can enjoy for decades to come.
Steve Reed MP is Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs