CUTE! (Debate)

Tue 13 Apr 2021, 12:07

Clean Up The Evenlode, (& Windrush, Coln, Leach & Glyme, yea even Old Father Thames!)

Thanks to Gareth for the link to the Panorama programme, definitely recommended viewing here:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vk71

Two main questions the programme didn’t address:

1.     How have we got into such a mess? And

2.     Will the government’s proposals deal with it?

1.     As briefly as I can, investment in our water & sewage infrastructure has not kept pace with the demands upon it over several decades (acknowledged even by Robert Courts, 29/03/21) – in favour imho of paying large dividends (to the often foreign) investors who own the water companies.  Climate change I don’t believe has had much to do with this problem – though I may stand to be corrected - but is clearly being used as an excuse for past inaction.  Some companies may now be putting more money in – but why has it taken so long and why can’t it be quicker – this has been going on for years and years?!

Add to that the constant pressure to keep bills down for the voters, sorry, consumers.  Then add the change in about 2011, when the water companies became responsible for reporting on their own performance – like asking poachers to tell the gamekeeper how many pheasants they’ve shot. 

At the same time, the Environment Agency has effectively been emasculated and only prosecuted in 4 cases last year (according to Panorama).  Monitoring and gathering evidence is essential to a proper ‘policing’ of the system – and it’s thanks to groups like WASP and the ECP that it’s now happening and evidence is being brought into the light, including of illegal discharges.

There have been several published investigations, reports and articles on all this in recent times – eg from WWF and Prof Dieter Helm (chair of the Government’s Natural Capital Committee) – so that very brief analysis is not just a rant from an old leftie!  Bottom line – why should we expect the privatised water companies to act in anything other than their perceived financial best interests unless we force them to clean up their act?

2.     Well, we were assured by the Industry rep and the Minister on Panorama that they ‘take the problem very seriously’ – so that’s all right then!!

When I was invited to attend a meeting with Mr Courts early last year, the most telling question came from 2 teenage girls who asked when it would be safe to swim in ‘our’ river again.  Mr Courts now tells us that the government has “recently announced a generational ambition to end pollution from storm overflows”.  So the answer girls, if you’re very lucky, is perhaps by the time you’re old enough to have teenage children of your own!

What they actually propose – according to Mr Courts – is to prepare a plan by September 2022 ‘to reduce (sic)…. overflows’; to report to parliament on its progress and for water companies to publish data on storm overflows on an annual basis (my summary). 

IMHO it’s the classic Tory response: do as little as you can get away with, ‘with co-operation from the industry’;  don’t impose any real sanctions or enforce effectively; and kick the can as far as you can down the road for the next lot to deal with.  Then dress it all up with meaningless blather, like ‘building back greener from the pandemic’ (Mr Courts again).  No doubt this plan will also be ‘world beating’ – hollow laugh.  How do they get away with it, time after time after time??   (OK, that is a rant from an old leftie!).

When I last wrote to Mr Courts, I made 3 basic points.  First that the rules, targets etc affecting all sewage discharges need to be at least as demanding and effective as the EU rules they are to replace (as I seem to remember we were promised).  Second, that the new Office for Environmental Protection needs to be genuinely independent of Government (which he as a lawyer should surely understand where the European mechanisms for holding it to account will no longer apply) - and to which I’d now add that it should be headed by someone competent with no social or financial links to the Conservative party.  And third, that the OEP should be properly resourced (perhaps with a levy on water companies’ profits) and charged with doing its own monitoring and enforcement rather than relying on the water companies’ evidence (which as Panorama has demonstrated, is by no means always reliable).  This is basic governance!

Confess I’m not (yet – still undecided!) up to speed on the present terms of the Environment Bill but am pretty sure it will fail these basic tests.  In fairness, Mr Courts has personally shown a genuine interest in this problem – but as a junior minister he is all but bound to follow the government line.  So dear reader, draw your own conclusions on my second question.