Parliament News
House of Commons Hansard
Degraded Chalk Stream Environments
22 July 2019
Volume 663
Motion
made, and
Question proposed,
That this House do now adjourn. (Jeremy Quin.)
7.47 pm
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me for my Adjournment debate this evening. I am
delighted that I did
not try your patience with a spurious point of order, as that really would have been naughty. If
I had tried your
patience with a spurious point of order, it would have been on an environmental matter, and I
would have just wanted
to know how I could bring to the attention of this House the fact that, on Friday afternoon, the
Secretary of State
refused a planning application by Veolia to build a massive incinerator in my constituency. I
was delighted with the
refusal, and I now hope, as do all my constituents, that Veolia will give up its plans to put
the incinerator in my
constituency, give up trying to put one in Hertfordshire and disappear. If I had made a spurious
and bogus point of
order, that would have been it.
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
rose
Mr
Walker
I will give way on that point, but I would like to get to the
substantive part of my
speech.
Sir Oliver Heald
Does my hon. Friend agree that mine was not a spurious point
of order? I
have seven chalk streams and I want to make a speech.
Mr Walker
Of course, and there was nothing
spurious about my delight at Veolia failing to get its application through-it was just that I
wanted to bring it to
the attention of a wider audience.
Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
My point of
order was not a spurious one. I wanted to inquire whether the Secretary of State for Transport
had indicated that he
was going to make a statement on the escalating costs of HS2, which will damage the chalk
streams in my area, as my
hon. Friend well knows.
Mr Walker
I thank my right hon. Friend for alerting the House to that very
important point. HS2 does pose a risk to chalk stream and riverine environments. No doubt if
time allows, my right
hon. Friend will bring her concerns to the attention of the House.
Sir Oliver Heald
I had
miscounted; I have eight chalk streams in my constituency.
Mr Walker
My right hon. and learned
Friend is such an honest and decent man. He could have misled the House that there were seven
chalk streams in his
area, but he has corrected the record without being summoned back-in fact there are
eight.
Let us now get to
the serious part of this debate, because this is a very serious matter that causes a great many
colleagues on both
sides of the House a huge amount of concern. The Colne; the Beane; the Mimram; the Gade; the
Ver; the Chess; the
Misbourne; the Wye; the Rib; the Hamble; the Bulbourne; the Quin; the Hogsmill; and the Wandle.
The list could go
on, but these are all chalk stream rivers that are degraded or dying around my constituency in
Hertfordshire and the
constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) in
Buckinghamshire. This country has over 85% of the world's chalk streams, and these streams are a
unique
habitat.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The hon. Gentleman and I share many loves of the
countryside-particularly a love of country sports, but also a love of the environment. Does he
agree that there is a
delicate balance to be struck to ensure that companies can continue to operate as they attempt
to find alternative
sources of water rather than chalk streams? What more does he feel can be done as a matter of
urgency to protect
these environmental treasures, because treasures is what they are?
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend is
very perspicacious in his observations. I shall come to the matter later in my speech. He is
absolutely right to
raise that point and I hope that both the Minister and I will be able to address it, as I know
other colleagues
share his concerns.
The degradation of our chalk streams is one the two greatest
environmental scandals of
the late 20th century and the start of the 21st century. Of course, the other great
environmental scandal is the
destruction of the marine environment off the west coast of Scotland through salmon farming-an
industry that has
laid waste to numerous sea lochs off the west coast of Scotland and has destroyed the native
fish runs in many of
the rivers that feed those sea lochs.
It is important that I put the situation in
context. As I said a moment
ago, we have 85% of the world's chalk streams and most of them are highly degraded. I find it
extraordinary, given
our own poor environmental record, that colleagues in this House lecture Indonesia and Brazil so
freely on their
responsibility to the rain forests. Of course, those two countries have a huge responsibility to
the rain forests,
but if we cannot save the chalk streams that are literally in our own backyard, what are we
doing lecturing other
countries on their environmental responsibilities? Saving the world does not start with the rest
of the world.
Saving the world starts right here, right now, doing our bit locally with our chalk
streams-think locally, act
globally.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has just pointed out,
our chalk streams
are literally being abstracted to death. Parts of the streams that I named at the start of my
speech do not flow. In
fact, a few of them barely flow at all from their source to where they join a bigger river. That
is our record and
it is one that none of us should take any pride in-and it is getting worse. We have had three
dry years in a row.
There is this myth that we live in a wet country. Certainly, parts of our country are wet but
the east and the
south-east are actually dry, and they are getting drier. The aquifers are not being replenished
by rainfall and they
are getting more abstracted, so even less water is going into our rivers.
Let me give an
example from the
constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham. In the last 10 years
alone, there have
been five dry events in the Upper Chess-the most stunning river, which I have the great
privilege of visiting once a
year as a guest of Paul Jennings and my right hon. Friend.
Dame Cheryl Gillan
It is always
a great pleasure to welcome my hon. Friend to Chesham and Amersham, particularly at the
invitation of Paul Jennings.
Does he agree that Paul Jennings is one of the most outstanding advocates for chalk streams and
our environment, and
that he should be praised for all the efforts that he and the River Chess Association put into
trying to maintain
and preserve this chalk stream for our children and our children's children?
Mr Walker
I entirely
agree. I know Paul Jennings well; he is one of the greatest friends any chalk stream could have.
He is a
conservationist of the highest order, and he deserves our full congratulations and respect for
the tenacity that he
has shown in ensuring that the issues that afflict so many of our chalk streams are kept
somewhat in abeyance on the
Chess. However, I am afraid that even he would admit that he has not always been successful in
doing that.
As
I was saying, in the past 10 years there have been five dry events in the Upper Chess. In the 20
years prior to
that, there were three. Drier years mean more abstraction, and things are only going to get
worse. Affinity Water
serves the home counties north of London, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and
Amersham and my right
hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) will know.
Affinity has no
reservoirs. It only abstracts waters from the chalk aquifers-that is the only place it can get
its water from. As we
know, the aquifers it abstracts from are those that feed the rivers that are currently dying.
Affinity currently
serves 3.6 million people. In 20 years' time that number will be nearer to 4.5 million people.
Where on earth is the
water going to come from? If we go on as we are now, the water will come out of the aquifers and
we will not have a
single chalk stream running in Hertfordshire or Buckinghamshire. That is not an exaggeration;
that is where we are
at.
Affinity has tried, within the constraints that it is operating under-bearing in mind
that it has no
reservoir. It reduced pumping at one pumping station on the River Beane by 90%, which was
actually a very brave
thing to do. Yet that part of the river has not started flowing again because the long-term
damage to aquifers that
have been used and abused for the past 30, 40 or 50 years is so extreme that it may take decades
to
recover.
It is not just abstraction that kills rivers; it is also what happens after the
abstraction. If
companies are abstracting water from chalk streams, they either dry them out-and that does kill
them-or they reduce
the flow. When there is low flow in a river, it cannot get rid of pollutants; pollutants
concentrate. A river that
is flowing well can move pollutants on down it, dilute them and dissolve them. This does not
happen when a river is
being extracted to death. So what is the next consequence of extraction? We get topsoil run-off,
which just sinks to
the bottom of rivers and depletes them of oxygen. It sticks to the chalk at the bottom,
destroying any oxygen that
can get into the chalk for the small invertebrates that live in it. Then there is phosphorus
from agriculture and
sewage works, which causes oxygen depletion from algal blooms and eutrophication. Basically, we
have environments
that cannot support life, or which support limited life, because there is no oxygen.
Agricultural pesticides wash in
off the fields, destroying biodiversity and wiping out invertebrates and the fly life that comes
from them. Then
there are the many septic tanks up and down the country that are unregulated and leaking into
groundwater that finds
its way into rivers. The challenge is immense.
As I said, this is an environmental crisis
of a monumental
scale that we are failing to address. Fundamentally, we need to reduce abstraction now. Thames
Water, which I have
worked closely with at times, has done that on the River Chess and the River Cray, but it wants
to do more-and quite
frankly it needs to do more. So what is Thames Water doing? It is making efforts to reduce
leakage, and those are to
be welcomed and applauded. It can introduce metering, promote water efficiency, and go into
schools to educate
children as to the importance of water, but, at most, these efforts will reduce consumption in
the area it serves
from 142 litres per day to 136 litres per day. That is just not a significant decrease. It is an
important amount of
water, but at 3.5% it is not going to save the day. Thames Water estimates that by 2045 there
will be a shortfall of
350 million litres of water a day between the amount of water available and the amount
needed.
There is only
one game-changing solution to this crisis, and that is to create more storage capacity, which we
do by building more
reservoirs. I think that the last major reservoir we built was the Queen Mother reservoir for
the east and
south-east of England in 1974, so we have grown the population by millions but we have not put
in any additional
water storage. If we want to save our chalk stream rivers, of which we have 85% of the world's
resource, then we
really have to build reservoirs. The spade-ready reservoir that has been on the books for 12
years but has been
blocked by a well-organised group of 20 people is the Abingdon reservoir in Oxfordshire. That is
a game changer. If
we get the Abingdon reservoir built, that starts to create the capacity we need, but at the rate
the population of
London and the south-east is growing, we will need more than one Abingdon-we will need two or
three Abingdons. Until
we start capturing water at the times of plenty and using it during dry periods like we are
experiencing now, we
will remain in trouble. We will be in a position where our own environmental record falls well
short of where it
should be, and we will limit our ability to change the way that other countries handle their
natural resources,
because they can look at us and say, "What on earth are you doing? You are in no position to
lecture us."
I
could go on at great length, but I am not going to. In fact, I may have already gone on at great
length, but this
subject warrants some exploration. Finally, I would like to thank the Angling Trust,
particularly Martin Salter-a
former Member here-and Stuart Singleton-White, for the amazing document they have published,
"Chalk Streams in
Crisis". It really is an extremely good, but somewhat depressing and sad, read. It is a call to
arms. If we are to
be taken seriously, we have to make changes to the way in which we approach our valuable and
precious ecosystems.
One of the most valuable and precious is our chalk streams, and, as I said, we have a lamentable
record in this
area.
8.03 pm
Jon Cruddas (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for
Broxbourne (Mr Walker) on his thorough, wide-ranging and very informative speech. I, too, was
exercised to come to
this debate having read the report by Martin Salter that he referred to. It is a fantastic piece
of work that all
Members should have a look at.
The hon. Gentleman is a passionate and long-term defender
of our river system.
I simply want to make a couple of technical points. To clarify, by contrast to him, I am not and
I cannot
self-identify as a fisherman. I have stood by a few chalk streams with him occasionally, but
that does not make me a
fisherman. However, just like him, I am worried about how we preserve the unique biodiversity
and international
reputation of our threatened chalk streams. My chief concern is the degradation of our river
systems due to water
abstraction and what this tells us about some wider public policy concerns that we should all
share in this House,
irrespective of whether we are advocates of fly fishing in chalk streams.
It seems to me
that the basic issue
is quite simple: how can we protect our natural environment and chalk streams without making
alternative sources of
water available? The fundamental issue is how we can make more water available. As has been
said, we have unique
resources in this country. England has 160 of a total of 210 chalk streams in the world, and
southern England has
several of the greatest chalk streams on the planet. Yet today many of them are in an appalling
state. As the hon.
Gentleman mentioned, no water is moving through them-there is no flow-and year on year the
situation is getting
worse. It is literally happening in front of our eyes: our unique river system is dying through
a lack of water. I
recently saw some data that suggested that only 14% of the rivers across England are now
considered to reach good
ecological standards. That is an environmental catastrophe, as the hon. Gentleman
said.
The question is, why
is it happening? Without doubt, our climate is changing, but this crisis is not about drier
winters, hotter summers
and drought: that does not give the whole picture. That is why this seemingly narrow
conversation about chalk
streams has much greater significance in terms of wider public policy issues and concerns. How
do we achieve the
provision of new water? The supply, distribution and quality of new homes is a central issue, as
are the role of the
water companies and patterns of regulation. These are all issues that-dare I say?-flow out of
this debate about
chalk streams. The demand for water, especially through new house building in the south east,
has dramatically
increased. For example, it is estimated that in my part of east London-in Barking, Dagenham and
parts of
Havering-there will be some 50,000 new units in the next 10 to 12 years. That is an awful lot of
house building, and
the question is, where will the water come from? Nationally, we seem to be moving towards a
consensus of at least
300,000 extra units a year, which returns us to the question where the water will come
from.
I, too, read the
Thames Water briefing that was sent out at the back end of last week. It said-I think the hon.
Gentleman mentioned
these figures, which caught my eye-that accounting for climate change, population growth and
environmental
regulations, there will be a daily shortfall of some 350 million litres a day by 2045, and that
will, in turn,
double in the following 50 years. So this is an environmental catastrophe that is being played
out day to day across
the country.
A failure to provide new water means that water companies extract water from
our rivers, which
cannot cope and subsequently die. That appears to be the basic reality. The rivers are further
undermined when
excess sewage is discharged into them, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Time and again, the
water companies have
been fined, but they just take the hit. The point that he did not make is on how the water
companies free-ride their
ecological responsibilities. For example, last week it was brought to my attention in The
Guardian that Ofwat has
reduced the fines on Southern Water from £37.7 million to just £3 million for thousands of
pollution spills, wilful
misreporting of data and cover-ups. How will this type of leniency and-dare I say?-criminality
be changed in terms
of their behaviour, which is degrading our river systems?
Objectively, it seems clear to
me that we need new
water infrastructure, leakage reductions, smart metering, education and desalination-those all
have their place-but
the reality is that we do not have enough reservoirs. I think that the hon. Gentleman said that
the last one was
built in 1975. He can correct me if I am wrong, but I thought it was 42 years since we built a
reservoir in this
country. If we join the dots, the policy does not add up. How can we satisfy growth in London
and the south-east
without such new infrastructure? If this is not confronted, the current crisis that our rivers
face will intensify
and they will never recover.
As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, Thames Water has announced
plans to bring
forward the Abingdon reservoir, with construction starting in 2025, but I gather that this has
been beset by
problems. It would be good to hear where we are with that project and any other proposed
infrastructure projects,
not least because the responsibility lies with several different authorities: the Environment
Agency, the National
Rivers Authority, the Government and the water companies. I will end on that point, but I repeat
that tonight's
short and apparently narrow debate has great significance, not just for those who fish in our
unique chalk streams,
but for everyone who is interested in how we will meet the demands of a growing population
without further degrading
our river systems and wider environment. That is something that should be beyond party politics,
and something on
which we might all agree.
8.10 pm
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
I pay
tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) for his remarkable and important
efforts in this
area.
In my constituency, we have eight chalk streams: the Upper Rhee, the Rib, the Ash,
the Quin, the Beane,
the Mimram, the Lea-near Bayford, where I think my hon. Friend fishes-and the Ivel. There has
been some progress
with the Beane and the Mimram following the WWF campaign "Rivers on the Edge", of which Martin
Salter was a strong
supporter and about which we had debates in this House. There has been a 90% reduction in
abstraction at Whitehall
pumping station near Watton-at-Stone, and the Fulling Mill pumping station at Welwyn Garden City
was completely
decommissioned; that represented some success.
As my hon. Friend said, however, the
condition of the northern
part of the rivers is very dry. The Upper Rhee is dry, and there is a lot of concern about the
Rib in the Standon
area and north of Standon. The situation is similar with the Ash and the Quin. The Beane at
Walkern, north of
Watton-at-Stone, is short of water. There is a campaign in the constituency of my hon. Friend
the Member for Hitchin
and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) about the Mimram. The Lea is low, and the Ivel springs in Baldock
are so dry that people
regularly write to me to express their concern.
It is worth thinking about what the
unique chalk stream
environment is like. My constituency has small hills, between which are the chalk streams, and
they create a unique
environment with unique flora and fauna. Nestling in the environment provided by these
ecosystems are flowers such
as saxifrage, as well as small English crustaceans and the water vole. Tewinbury nature reserve
is a very good place
to measure the activity of flies and little creatures, and that is a remarkable thing to do. I
pay tribute to the
Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, which does so much to support that.
Mr Charles Walker
I am
sorry to cut my right hon. and learned Friend off as he is paying tribute to the Herts and
Middlesex Wildlife Trust,
but I want to pay tribute to it as well. Jeremy Paxman recently wrote that we no longer have to
clean our
windscreens, because there are now no insects splattered on them. There are so few insects
because our rivers-and,
in our part of our world, our chalk streams-have been so degraded that insects can no longer
live there. Without
insects, we have no fish and no kingfishers; the whole ecosystem and food chain begin to
collapse. My right hon. and
learned Friend is entirely right to raise that concern.
Sir Oliver Heald
I am grateful to my hon.
Friend for that intervention. People such as Jeremy Paxman, Feargal Sharkey-he used to be a pop
star but now spends
his time campaigning on this issue-Charles Rangeley-Wilson, who my hon. Friend will know, and
Martin Salter, on the
angling side, are dedicating their lives to trying to make people realise that this environment
is as precious as
the Brazilian rainforest. We have a major part of a unique environment. The water that comes
up-or should do-from
the aquifer is so pure, and that is a wonderful thing.
As my hon. Friend said, the
problem is a mixture of
abstraction; climate change, which means that in the next 25 years we will have 20% less water
than we do now; and
growth in housing, which means that we are trying to do more with less water. Some of the
predictions that house
builders and developers make in planning applications-they say that they will be able to get
people to use no more
than 100 or 120 litres of water a day-are just not in the real world. In my constituency, the
average is about 175
litres a day. The first thing that people do in a water-efficient house is to put in a power
shower, spoiling the
good work of the designers. My hon. Friend is right to say that those predictions do not add
up.
Soil erosion
is a big issue, on which I have campaigned with WWF; it recently ran a campaign about the
subject. As has been said,
one of the effects of not having strong rivers is that they end up with soil in them,
particularly if farming
techniques are not respectful of the surrounding environment. In an area such as ours with hills
that have chalk and
soil on top, it makes a lot of sense to go for no-till farming, so that the soil is not blown
off the tops of hills
and into rivers. There is a lot that can be done.
I pay tribute to the societies in my
constituency-including
the Friends of the Mimram, the River Beane Restoration Association and the new organisation for
the River Rib-which
are trying hard to highlight the plight of the rivers. Despite the campaigns, the work that has
been done and the
reports in this House going back some years, we have made only a little bit of progress against
a background of
deterioration. It is a question of one step forward and two steps back. I am grateful to my hon.
Friend for raising
this issue and giving us a chance to highlight the importance of this environment and
ecoculture. Much more needs to
be done.
On the Abingdon reservoir, I came into this House in 1992, and Thames Water was
lobbying us then
about building the Abingdon reservoir. Here we are 27 years later, and it has still not been
built; it is still a
few years away. We need to get on and do this. The background is against us, and action is
needed.
8.16
pm
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the
right hon. and
learned Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald). I congratulate the hon. Member
for Broxbourne (Mr
Walker) on his speech, to which I listened increasingly intently as I sat on the Front Bench
earlier. As someone who
grew up in the area that he talked about, I am very familiar with much of the Hertfordshire
geography and many of
the wonderful landscapes that he described so passionately and fondly. It would have been very
easy for me to leave
the Chamber, but the threat of the loss of those habitats moved me to feel compelled to speak,
and I thank him for
that.
I will keep my comments brief. It is interesting that we often talk about the
environmental crisis and
climate emergency in various other manifestations, but we rarely talk about the threat that
water shortages pose to
our existence. I think we agree that climate change, as we face it, threatens us in many ways.
We are experiencing a
changing climate and changing weather events of a new severity. We grew up with wet Aprils, and
perhaps even wet
Mays, but we no longer experience them.
The climate in our country is changing, as it is
across the world. We
must think about how we address the challenges, whether it is by creating large reservoirs, as
has been described,
or by changing our housing planning policy that governs estates and new builds. We must insist
on the attenuation of
water on industrial and business parks and in our housing. There is so much potential to capture
and re-use water
with grey water harvesting systems, and all new houses must be built with them. I am proud to
say that 10 years ago,
I installed one, and it makes a dramatic difference to my water consumption.
These are
the sorts of things we
can do immediately. As has been described, we must of course build more capacity through
reservoirs. I remember the
Queen Mary reservoir from my youth and from driving around it, and there is such a need, as has
been described.
However, we can do this in addition by building capacity, on a very local basis, with our new
homes. That will make
a significant difference in reducing abstraction. May I again thank the hon. Member for
Broxbourne? I welcome the
debate, and I congratulate him on it.
8.20 pm
Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western). When I
was growing up
politically, one of my great mentors was Sir Keith Joseph. He said that one of the greatest
challenges we were going
to face in the future of the world was water shortages and the resulting movement of populations
around the world,
and I think that is starting to come very true today. My mother was always very keen on saving
water. I do not know
how many hon. Members will remember doing so, but she used to put a brick in the cistern to make
sure that she did
not use too much water when flushing the lavatory.
Aside from that, may I congratulate my
hon. Friend the
Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) on obtaining this debate? It would be fair to say that he and
I have spent many a
happy hour, with Paul Jennings, sitting beside one of the purest and clearest chalk streams, the
River Chess, just
outside London. It is not even at the end of the Metropolitan line; it runs alongside the
Metropolitan line. It is
accessible to the public, and it is one of those wonderful habitats and environments that can
really bring people
peace and tranquillity. People can leave this world behind as they sit there and, in the case of
my hon. Friend, try
to attract a trout to the end of his line.
Mr Charles Walker
The great sadness is that, to the
uninitiated eye, the river looks beautiful-and it is beautiful-but as Paul Jennings would say,
it is clinging on by
its fingertips. Its flow is a fraction of what it should be; although it remains beautiful, its
ability to support
life is just draining away.
Dame Cheryl Gillan
I am afraid my hon. Friend is right. I came into
the House at the same time as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East
Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver
Heald), in 1992. That reservoir is not overdue, but long overdue and should have been built many
years
ago.
May I also pay tribute to the authors of "Chalk Streams in Crisis"? Four of the
organisations that
contributed are closely associated with my constituency. The Chilterns chalk streams project-a
fantastic project
started in 1997, prompted by the low flows in the 1990s-was expanded in 2000 to include all the
rivers. It is led by
the Chilterns Conservation Board, with the River Chess Association and the Berkshire,
Buckinghamshire and
Oxfordshire wildlife trusts. All these organisations work constantly and tirelessly to try to
protect our
environment.
Sir Oliver Heald
In my constituency, there are people who can remember swimming
in
the River Beane north of Watton-at-Stone when they were very young; now it is completely dry.
Does my right hon.
Friend have constituents with such recollections about the Chess?
Dame Cheryl Gillan
Yes, very
much so. Both the Chess and the Misbourne, at times in the past, flowed really well and invited
people in during the
hot weather, such as we are going to experience this week, in safety. Safety is very important,
because although
there is now the amazing rough swimming movement, it is important to remember that rough
swimming must be carried
out in safety. People need to think about how they are getting into the water and how they are
getting out. I fear
there will be plenty of people diving into the water later this week, as the temperatures
soar.
Vicky Ford
(Chelmsford) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for letting me join this brief
debate on chalk
streams. I am going to spend the first Saturday of my recess canoeing down the River Chelmer in
Chelmsford. I
believe all our rivers are potentially in crisis and need protection. Does she agree?
Dame Cheryl
Gillan
I think the points made by colleagues across the House have been very
accurate in that we
are
busy lecturing other people around the world about how they should save their environment, but
we are not actually
looking over our shoulders at our own backyard, which is deteriorating.
The point that we
have 85% of the
world's chalk streams is not lost, particularly in the south-east, because about a fifth of
those are in the Thames
Water region. The combination we have talked about-the climate and the geology of where these
chalk streams
are-means that they have the most amazing characteristics. They support special wildlife
habitats and species,
including things such as the brown trout and the water vole. Chalk streams are really important
not just for
angling, but because they are fed by groundwater aquifers. That means the water is clear, pure
and inviting, which
is of course why the water companies always wants to take water from them.
The hon.
Member for Dagenham and
Rainham (Jon Cruddas) spoke about the Thames Water briefing that was put out. He said he was
struck by the predicted
shortfall of 350 million litres of water a day between the amount of water available and the
amount we will need by
2045. Population growth, climate change and environmental regulations will dramatically affect
our demand and need
for water. I echo the call made by the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington, because unless we
build in safeguards
and build in the reuse of water, we are going to find ourselves in a desert and in a drought
like no drought we have
ever seen. We take water for granted in this country; it is such a shame that we have that
attitude. We will have to
change it if we are going to preserve our environment, particularly our chalk streams.
Mr Charles
Walker
I hear what my right hon. Friend says, and she is absolutely right.
There is nothing more
irritating than to hear weather forecasters on the BBC, ITV or radio programmes such as on Radio
4 going, "Good
news, it's going to be a dry week", or "Good news, it's going to be a dry weekend". This country
needs rainfall. We
do not have it in abundance-and when we are not having it, we really do suffer.
Dame Cheryl Gillan
The point is well and emphatically made: that is absolutely right.
Matt Western
The right hon.
Lady is being very generous in giving way yet again. I would just add that so much of our
culture has been steeped
in this green and pleasant land, as it is oft described, but it is becoming increasingly
parched. There is one point
I want to raise with her. Does she share with me a slight concern that, with HS2, there will be
some sort of
disruption to the watersheds in her constituency and potentially to those in my own in
Warwickshire?
Dame Cheryl Gillan
I like the cut of the hon. Gentleman's jib, as they say.
I am going to get on to HS2-I tried to get on to HS2 earlier, but I was admonished-because it is
important.
I
want to make a couple of points, particularly about my own constituency. In the Chilterns area
of outstanding
natural beauty, we have nine chalk streams. The River Chess and the River Misbourne sit within
my own constituency,
and I am afraid the problems are identical for both. When we talk about the term
"over-abstraction", I think that is
to use the phrase quite mildly. To put this crisis into context for the Chilterns specifically,
the average person
there uses about 173 litres of water a day, which is 32 litres above the national average. In
the Chilterns, we are
also facing unprecedented levels of infrastructure development.
Being at the end of the
Metropolitan line, we
are obviously a popular place for people to live out of London, and we now have the arc of
innovation joining Oxford
to Cambridge. We will face housing pressure down from the north of the county and across the
middle, which will
bring hundreds of thousands of houses and more pressure on our precious environment. London and
Slough are also
expanding, so we have more and more demand coming up from the south of the county for housing
and therefore water.
The Chilterns AONB is being squeezed in the middle, yet it is the lungs of London. It is the
nearest easily
accessible area where people can enjoy the pleasures of walking in the hills and by the chalk
streams, watching the
red kites soar above, yet we will lose all that unless we try to protect it.
The Chess
and the Misbourne are
unique in finding themselves in the unfortunate position of being in the HS2 route and therefore
part of what was a
£55.7 billion taxpayer crisis-what I gather is now more likely to be an £85 billion crisis,
according to the
chairman's internal review, if the rumours are correct. I believe the figure will be even
higher. This is not just
about the financial cost of HS2, but about the damage done to our chalk streams, which will
cause a loss of
environment and habitat that is irreplaceable.
For years my constituents have sent me
pictures of the Chess
and the Misbourne when the flows are low. They come back, but one day they will not. The River
Chess in particular
is one of the most important areas of wildlife. I have mentioned the brown trout and the water
voles, but we also
have stream water-crowfoot there. We get fishermen, photographers and the wildlife enthusiasts
coming out. The Chess
is also an important educational asset as a chalk stream, and we get universities gathering data
and people coming
to study there. It used to be very active, with amazing water mills, but that would not be
possible today. The Chess
was a productive river; we could not find that today. Those water mills are now private houses.
The weather and the
climate becoming drier, interspersed with some very wet periods, has done the chalk streams no
good at all. The
river also faces other threats, including from invasive species such as the mink and Japanese
knotweed, and that is
on top of the extraction for public water supply and the pollution that results from the
concentration as the flows
become lower.
I very much hope that this debate, which was called by my hon. Friend the
Member for
Broxbourne, will stimulate a greater interest in these chalk streams and a greater will on the
part of the
Government to protect them. We are pleased to see that Thames Water and Affinity Water are
planning to work together
on a new reservoir project near Oxford, which now features strongly in both their new water
resource management
plans and in Thames Water's revised business plan for 2020 to 2025. The south-east region of the
UK is one of the
driest and most populated corners of the country and has the highest demand for water. If we do
not increase our
reservoir capacity, it will become the desert of the United Kingdom.
This excellent
report, which we have all
had the opportunity to read, contained a number of recommendations and actions. I will not read
them out, but I
recommend that the Minister reads them carefully and studies what could be an important way
forward in giving vital
protections to this part of our environment. It is unique, and the status of these chalk streams
is important not
just to the environment in the United Kingdom, but to the world. Once we have lost them, we will
never ever get them
back. If there is a climate change crisis, there is certainly an even bigger crisis in the state
of our chalk
streams.
8.33 pm
Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)
I refer hon. Members to my entry in the
register.
I have the honour and privilege to represent a large part of the Berkshire
downs, which feed the
chalk streams of the Kennet, the Dun, the Lambourn and the Pang. These are very special riverine
ecosystems. As was
said by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), whom I congratulate on calling
this debate, chalk
streams are hugely important not just for the area where the river flows, but for the entire
catchment. They are
extraordinary features of our natural world. Areas such as the Berkshire downs, and others that
hon. Members have
spoken about so eloquently, are the water towers of communities such as London, where we sit
tonight, and they are
under threat as never before.
In a brief moment of relevance in my parliamentary career,
I held
responsibilities not dissimilar to those held by my hon. Friend the Minister. We had had a
number of years of
drought, and that year we faced the Olympics and the Queen's jubilee. The fifth largest economy
in the world was
literally at risk of having people in the south and south-east of England filling their water
from standpipes in the
street-an extraordinary moment. We were on the point of having Cobra meetings. The then Prime
Minister, David
Cameron, said to me in the Lobby, "Just make it rain." That gave me powers of the divine,
because you will remember,
Madam Deputy Speaker, that, as the Queen and Prince Philip stood by the Thames, the heavens
opened.
I do not
take any responsibility for that, but the problem was not that it rained-that was very
welcome-but that it rained
for three years. All the work we had been doing in the Department for Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs on drought
management, fantastic work across a whole range of different trade bodies, other organisations
and agencies of
Government, was subsumed by having to deal with too much water. We have terribly short memories
in this place and in
Government. I hope that what is happening now is starting to cause real concern, because if we
have another dry
winter my hon. Friend the Minister and her colleagues will be contemplating a real
emergency.
Mention has
been made this evening of the great naturalist and broadcaster, Jeremy Paxman. In his foreword
to the river fly
census, produced by Salmon & Trout Conservation, he mentions what my right hon. and learned
Friend the Member for
North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) referred to: insect armageddon, the really quite
staggering reduction of
insect life in this country. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne made the point clearly
that we have to
understand where those insects come from and what they depend on. Jeremy Paxman says in his
foreword:
"No-one
much cares about it, because creepy crawlies find it harder to make allies than do soft and
cuddlies. Ludicrously,
even pests like grey squirrels have more friends."
We in this House have to be a friend
to the insects. Some
80% of species on our planet are invertebrates and the foundations of food webs.
The
river fly census shows
some alarming facts. Species loss in any environment indicates ecosystem distress. Across 12
chalk streams in
England there has been a 75% decline in caddisfly species, a 54% decline in stonefly species, a
44% decline in
dragonfly and damselfly species, and a 40% decline in mayfly species. A river in my
constituency, the Lambourn, a
most beautiful and precious river with overlaying European designations-a site of special
scientific interest, an
area of outstanding natural beauty and every conceivable designation one can think of-is
effectively in
crisis.
My contribution tonight is really this: the management of our rivers,
particularly the fragile
ecosystems that are chalk streams, needs to be perfect. There is no margin for error in how we
manage chalk streams.
I am therefore concerned when I read that a salad washing company in the upper Itchen, Bakkavor
Salad Washing, has
found itself in difficulties with the Environment Agency over its own sewage works. I gather
that it has now
addressed them, following discharges that were reported to the Environment Agency. The EA's
investigation, however,
also exposed a potential pesticide threat. The EA has not been able to rule out damage caused by
traces of pesticide
present on the salad leaves used by Bakkavor, which were subsequently being washed into the
upper Itchen. I
understand that the EA is monitoring the situation, but that cannot be allowed to happen. In an
ecosystem as
precious as this, which is suffering from really low flows, there is no justification whatever
for a company to be
polluting an environment as rare as this.
Vicky Ford
I have heard stories from fishermen about
salad washing. They tell me that the salad is not even grown in the UK, but has been brought to
the UK for washing
in our rivers and then packaging. If that is true, that is even more shocking, but maybe it is a
fisherman's
tale.
Richard Benyon
I have heard similar stories, and I do not know the
circumstances of this. I
wrote to the company before this debate asking for it to give its side of the argument, but I
did not hear back. I
am not necessarily criticising the company, as I approached it only at the end of last
week.
My point is
this: in our management of these rare systems, we need not just to be getting the sort of thing
I was just
discussing right, but to be looking at agriculture. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member
for North East
Hertfordshire was so correct in what he said about that. Min-till-minimum tillage-agricultural
systems are vital,
not least because of the worms that are allowed to prosper in the soil, which affects the
permeability of that soil
crust so that water goes through to the aquifer, rather than running off and taking with it a
lot of the topsoil. We
have a wonderful, rare and special opportunity that we can now deliver through the Agriculture
Bill and the
environment Bill. We are talking about changes that can make sure we are incentivising farmers
and working with them
right across a catchment to deliver extraordinary benefits.
Sir Oliver Heald
I wonder whether my
right hon. Friend would wish to comment on the state of the River Kennet, which is a precious
chalk stream close to
him. Where does he think the Kennet is going-is it improving? Some attempts were made to improve
its condition.
Secondly, when he was preparing the water White Paper, I think he was hoping that it would be
possible for water
companies to move water more easily from one area to another. Has he any take on how that has
been
going?
Richard Benyon
One of the most enjoyable things I did in government was writing
the water
White Paper, and I refer my right hon. and learned Friend to page 35-I think that was the one.
It showed a scene of
good farming on one side of a river and bad farming on another, so that figuratively laid out
before us was what we
needed to see more of and what we had to stop happening. I bored my civil servants with that and
I bore most of my
family, with my wife referring to the River Pang as my mid-life crisis, but the River Kennet is
in such trouble. A
few years ago, someone spilled about an egg cup-worth of Chlorpyrifos into the system somewhere
and it effectively
killed several miles of life. That shows us just how extraordinarily vulnerable these ecosystems
are.
We can
debate great matters of state in this place, and we often do, but rivers are about people's
sense of place. As has
been said, we can hold our heads high internationally if we are getting it right on rivers and
we cannot if we are
getting it wrong. What is shaming is that, while 85% of the chalk streams in the world are in
the UK, we are getting
it wrong. Wonderful things are done by organisations such as Action for the River Kennet and
many of the other
organisations that hon. Members in all parts of the House have talked about, but I believe the
recommendations at
the end of the river fly census are really worth reading.
In the context of the water
framework directive,
which we are transposing, correctly and with more ambition than exists in that directive as it
stands, we should
have a special designation for chalk streams. We should also look at the impact of phosphorus
spikes and recognise
that after we leave the European Union the world is our oyster and we do not have to be stuck by
the same rules that
govern rivers in southern France and northern Spain. This is our ecosystem, and we have to get
it right.
Dame
Cheryl Gillan
rose-
Richard Benyon
I will give way for a final time, then I will
conclude.
Dame Cheryl Gillan
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. We are currently
reviewing the position on national parks and the designations that we make around the country. I
have asked for the
Chilterns AONB to have a stronger designation in order to give it protection. Does he agree that
we should see
whether the chalk streams in our country could get a higher designation for protection? Does he
agree that this
would be a golden opportunity to lift that level of protection, particularly for this rare
habitat and
environment?
Richard Benyon
My right hon. Friend is right. We look forward with interest to
what
the Glover review will deliver, because it is an opportunity to look at our most precious
landscapes and to see
whether we are protecting them in the right way. We have an enormous number of designatory tools
at our disposal,
but they do not seem to stop the problems happening or result in our Environment Agency and
other organisations
cracking down on wrongdoing as much as they should. This is an opportunity to stand up for what
we believe in on the
natural environment and say, "Here is something really special, and we are going to get it
right."
Jim
Shannon
The hon. Gentleman, I and many others in the Chamber agree on and
appreciate the wonderful
work of the National Farmers Union and the Northern Irish Ulster Farmers Union on habitat,
climate change, their
commitment to carbon zero and many things. Should we not have on record in this debate the good
work of the NFU and
farmers who are committed to changes to make things better and preserve the environment for the
future, which he and
I believe in?
Richard Benyon
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Perhaps I can conclude by
entirely endorsing what the farming unions of these islands have agreed, and Minette Batters'
very brave and clear
statement about moving to net zero considerably before the rest of the country and making sure
that agriculture
fulfils its responsibilities. Part of that is about looking at catchments and saying, "How can
we lock up more
carbon?" The clear, easy way of doing that is to have a more broken-up mosaic of land use, which
includes grass as
part of the rotations. With encouragement for minimum tillage, not only can we start to see more
carbon being locked
up, but our rivers will be protected from many of the things that are causing problems at the
moment.
8.46
pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr
Thèrése
Coffey)
I genuinely apologise to the House for not being here at the start of
this important
debate,
because I know how passionate right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken about this issue are.
One of the joys of
being the Minister responsible for the Environment Agency is seeing that the environment matters
to so many people
in different ways and seeing the important role of the Environment Agency. I hope, by the end of
the debate, that I
will have been able to persuade hon. Members and those still watching-there were four people in
the Public Gallery
at the start of it-on this matter, including Feargal Sharkey who is a great advocate of what we
need to do to
support chalk streams. The Environment Agency also has other roles and I was stopped on the way
here to talk about
Grenfell and some of the situations in which we are involved there. I apologise to the Chamber
for that.
I
have had three years in this very special role as Minister for the environment. I am very
fortunate that, by and
large, neither an official drought nor an official flood has been declared. I am conscious of
the work of my hon.
Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) on what happened recently in Wainfleet;
I visited his
constituency to discuss floods. The issues that have been raised about drought worry many of our
farmers around the
country, who are also considering the impacts of abstraction reform. I am very conscious that my
constituency of
Suffolk Coastal is one of the driest in the country. That said, at the Latitude festival, which
was held this
weekend in my constituency, they had a hailstorm, in the middle of July. Who would have thought
that in Suffolk,
when we are all having a heatwave? It just shows how important it is that we look after the
habitat that is special
to our country and to our world, while the impacts of climate change do what they do.
I
will come to my hon.
Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) shortly, but I want first to refer also to my hon.
Friend the Member
for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), who was in the Chamber for much of the debate, because
he has one of the
most special chalk streams in his constituency-the River Test, which many people have mentioned
and in fact fished
in, including my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). The Test is
regarded as one of the
most special chalk streams in the country, as right hon. and hon. Members will recognise. I used
to live in
Whitchurch, which is 2 miles from the source of the river, so I am well aware how special it
is.
I
congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne on securing today's debate. It is well
known in the House that
he is an active champion of chalk streams and that he recognises their importance for nature and
for good fishing. I
will never forget the day after the 2017 election, when I was not sure if I would be reappointed
to this role, when
I joined him in Hampshire on the River Itchen. He had a good day's fishing and I had a good day
being shown around
by the WWF and being told about the importance of chalk streams. Having lived in Hampshire, I
was aware of this, but
it brought to my attention some of the particular challenges that the Environment Agency
regularly faces from water
companies wanting to abstract more water further upstream, which has a damaging impact on the
environment and the
flow, as others have mentioned, as well as on the quality of fishing. That is when I met the
hon. Member for
Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas), who was also very passionate on this topic, which is why he
contributed to the
debate on 12 December 2018 on the Thames Water reservoir in Abingdon and why he strongly
supported that
measure.
On this matter, I have been given a very strong message by my civil servants,
who are in the Box and
provide excellent advice, and I am conscious that the water resource management process has not
yet been finalised,
but I can genuinely say, even though the Secretary of State has not yet agreed the plans, that I
believe that Thames
Water and Affinity Water, both of which are promoting the reservoir in their preferred plans,
will receive a very
warm welcome when they are put forward, so that, as many others have mentioned, we can finally
get on with the
Abingdon reservoir, which will do a lot of good for the people of south-east England. I am
conscious that when
speaking in the House I have some leeway with parliamentary privilege and that my comments will
not prejudice any
quasi-judicial decision that the Secretary of State might take in the future.
I return to
the main topic of
the debate. While chalk streams contribute to our health and wellbeing, they are principally
unique habitats
supporting a diverse range of invertebrate and fish species and have long been held in high
regard for the quality
of the fisheries they support. Only 200 chalk rivers are known globally, and it is amazing to
think that 85% of them
are found in the UK in the southern and eastern parts of England. It is well recognised,
however, that our water
resources are under pressure and that this pressure is growing as the climate changes and the
demand for water
increases from a growing population and greater housing need. As my hon. Friend outlined, our
chalk streams are
facing an unprecedented challenge, having been heavily affected by human activity, including
abstraction, pollution
and historic modification.
Mr Charles Walker
The role of Ofwat has not been mentioned yet. It has
no duty to have any environmental regard. Its only interest is in driving down bills, but it
should take a great
deal more interest in the environment. I think we have all had enough of Ofwat in this place. I
hope the Minister
will take that on board.
Dr Coffey
I hear what my hon. Friend says. Ofwat is a champion of the
consumer, and I hope that in its recent interventions with the water companies he will recognise
some of the
progress it has made, but I hear what he says. The Environment Agency challenged Ofwat in its
initial 2019 price
review over the fact that it and some of the companies that had come up with particular plans
and made some good
progress were none the less not fulling their environmental obligations. I am pleased therefore
that my right hon.
Friend the Secretary of State last week met the water companies and challenged them by saying
that, while we
recognised the strength of the investment they had brought to the water industry in the last 25
years, they must not
forget the environment and we would continue to press them on that point. I am pleased that the
Environment Agency
is pressing the case with Ofwat so strongly. I hope that the next Government, to be formed this
week, will proceed
with the environment Bill, which will strengthen Ofwat's powers. Who knows? There may be
opportunities for even
further consideration of a duty relating to the environment.
Mr Charles Walker
It is really
important for there to be people in Ofwat who share the Minister's passion for the environment
and the passion
displayed by so many colleagues here, not only in this debate but in others.
Dr Coffey
I entirely
agree, and I hope that that will happen. I think that the term of the current chair of Ofwat,
who is a doughty
defender of the consumer, is due for a short extension until 2020. I also genuinely believe that
any future holder
of the great office of Secretary of State-if that person is not our excellent right hon. Friend
the Member for
Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who has done so much for the environment and, indeed, so much in
challenging water
companies-will take that point into account.
Jim Shannon
No one has mentioned one issue so far
tonight, but it is important for it to be on the record in Hansard. I refer to the issue of
water leakages. If there
is a demand for more water-which clearly there is-water companies need to address the issue.
Will the Minister make
that a priority, so that water is not wasted as it clearly is being wasted now, and we can use
that precious
resource much better?
Dr Coffey
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. For several years there
has been an economic calculation about the cost of repairing the causes of leakages rather than
doing something else
to keep water flowing. I will not say that the price of repairs is irrelevant, but it is not
only the only factor
under consideration. Water users struggle. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and
Amersham (Dame Cheryl
Gillan) spoke extensively about the water consumption of residents, and the need for us to
consume less. If the
water companies are allowed not to take the issue quite as seriously as they have been, why
should the end user make
a difference? I think that the situation is changing, but we need to recognise that the
economics do not always add
up.
As the hon. Gentleman will know, this matter is devolved. Our 25-year environment
plan for England, which
concerns reserved matters, sets out our commitment to protect our water environment and how we
will do that, to
ensure that there is enough water for the environment as well as for homes and
businesses.
Our abstraction
reform plan, launched in 2017, explains how we will ensure that abstractors can access the water
that they need, and
that there is enough water in our rivers, and groundwater, to maintain habitats and water
quality. That includes
reducing the damaging abstraction of water from rivers and groundwater, so that by 2021 the
proportion of water
bodies with enough water to support environmental standards will increase from 82% to 90% for
surface water bodies,
and from 72% to 77% for groundwater bodies. Earlier this year we published our abstraction
reform progress report to
Parliament, which shows that the Environment Agency is on track to meet those
targets.
The Environment Agency
has already reviewed thousands of abstraction licences, and has changed many of the most
damaging. Seventy-one
abstraction licences on 15 chalk streams across England have now been changed. Those changes
will return 16 million
cubic metres of water per year to the chalk streams, and will remove the risk of another 8
million cubic metres per
year being taken. This is equivalent to the average annual domestic water use of approximately
200,000 people, the
approximate population of Oxford.
Developing a stronger catchment focus is a key aspect
of abstraction
reform. The Environment Agency is now testing innovative solutions to protect the environment
and improve access to
water in priority catchments. The Cam and Ely Ouse and East Suffolk priority catchments both
contain rivers that are
fed by chalk groundwater. In these priority catchments, there are now stakeholder groups, which
are made up of a
wide variety of abstractors with an Environment Agency co-ordinator, who are working together to
develop and trial
new solutions to address sustainability issues. I look forward to the Environment Agency
launching more of these
water resource catchments later this year.
The River Bulbourne in Hertfordshire is
impacted by the Canal and
River Trust operations including groundwater abstractions. The Environment Agency is presently
negotiating delivery
of recommended solutions with the trust. Affinity Water has also completed an investigation for
the River Bulbourne
and as a result will implement river restoration projects in the catchment by 2025, subject to
its business plan
being approved by Ofwat, and I see no reason why Ofwat will reject it. The Environment Agency's
chalk stream
partnership "Bringing Back the Bulbourne" has been an award-winning success
story.
Turning to the River
Kennet in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), the
Environment Agency,
working with Thames Water, has changed abstraction licences that impact the Kennet, Wye and
Hughenden stream. This
includes reducing Thames Water's licence at Axford to restrict groundwater abstraction when
flows are low, revoking
its Ogbourne licence, and investing in a £30 million pipeline that prevents up to 10 million
litres of groundwater
from being abstracted when river levels are low.
Turning to parts of north London and an
issue not directly
in the constituency of the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham but close to the heart of
Feargal Sharkey, the River
Lee below Ware weir lock splits between the old River Lee and the Lee navigation. The Loop was
the original course
of the River Lee and is the site of two fisheries clubs. Flows in the loop are influenced by the
volumes abstracted
upstream from the Lee by Thames Water and by navigation activities. The Environment Agency seeks
to manage flows on
the Lee between Thames Water, the Canal and River Trust and the Amwell Magna loop. Thames Water
operates under a
voluntary flow trigger to reduce its abstraction volumes. This assists with downstream flows but
its abstraction is
still a significant volume of the available flow. Thames Water has invested in habitat
enhancement improvements in
the loop, working with the fisheries and the Environment Agency.
Several contributors to
the debate talked
about the impact of dry weather on chalk streams. Some of our chalk streams are currently
showing flow impacts that
could be attributed to the prolonged dry weather we have experienced over the last couple of
years. Impacts are
visible in chalk streams in Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, north London,
Lincolnshire and Northampton,
but I have to admit that the national picture is variable.
The impacts we are seeing in
chalk streams include
changes to fish movement, a decline in the numbers of invertebrates and an increase in algae.
The Environment
Agency's current actions include leading and co-ordinating the National Drought Group, which
brings together a wide
range of stakeholders responsible for water and for those who need the water. This partnership
includes water
companies, the Government and non-governmental organisations, including the National Farmers
Union, environmental
groups and business groups. The Environment Agency also collates and monitors evidence of
impacts of dry weather on
chalk streams and actions undertaken to protect the streams.
If required, the Environment
Agency will
implement abstraction restrictions to protect the environment. For example, as we have heard,
the Environment Agency
is likely to implement restrictions in a number of places, including the River Stour catchment
in Essex, which is a
chalk stream. That will affect 16 abstraction licences, and there will be a reduction of 25% to
their weekly
abstraction limit. The Environment Agency is discussing these matters with individual
abstraction licence holders in
other parts of the country, particularly Hertfordshire, Berkshire and Herefordshire.
My
right hon. Friend the
Member for Chesham and Amersham referred to the designation of sites. The Government have
designated 11 high
priority chalk rivers as sites of special scientific interest to protect them from the pressures
they are under and
to begin work to restore them. Each of those 11 designated chalk rivers that has been assessed
to be in an
unfavourable condition has a river restoration plan. For the record, those rivers are the
Kennet, the Nar, the Test,
the Frome, the Hull headwaters, the Lambourn, the Itchen, the Wensum, the Bere streams, the
Moors rivers system and
the Avon system. By implementing these action plans, we have enhanced more than 40 miles of
priority chalk river
habitat through 60 projects since 2011.
Chalk rivers are protected from harmful effluent
discharges by a
rigorous permitting process. When an operator seeks to discharge effluent, they must first get a
licence from the
Environment Agency. In consultation with Natural England, civil society and the public, the
agency will then grant
the permit to discharge into a priority chalk stream only if the environmental risk is low. I am
conscious of the
example that was used earlier, and I will draw it to the attention of the Environment Agency so
that it can
investigate further the concerns about discharges.
Natural England has been delivering
catchment-sensitive
farming, offering a combination of grants and advice to help to reduce pollution from farms
within priority
catchments, including chalk streams, across the country. There is clear evidence that this
advice has led to
improvements in water quality and a reduction in serious water pollution incidents, and
ecological communities have
responded positively to the reductions in sediment pressure. However, it is important to stress
that all water
companies also have a significant role to play in protecting the environment. A large proportion
of companies look
after the chalk aquifer, which is the major aquifer of southern and eastern England. These
companies include Thames,
Affinity, Southern and Anglian. Apparently, South East is also included, as is Yorkshire, for
some reason. This just
goes to show how far the power of Yorkshire stretches, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk
and Malton will
know.
There are good examples of partnership work in action. The Environment Agency's
work with Affinity
Water to reduce abstractions at 11 pumping stations across seven chalk streams means that 70
million litres of water
a day will be kept in the environment by 2025, and they have reduced abstraction from the River
Mimram and the River
Beane by over 40%. In the north London and Hertfordshire area alone, the Environment Agency is
working to improve
more than 150 miles of chalk streams by 2025. The agency also hopes to remove or bypass 50 weirs
or other structures
to improve fish passage and habitats in the north London area.
Sir Oliver Heald
When I
spoke earlier, I made the point that builders and developers have suggested that it is possible
for new homes to
achieve water use of perhaps 120 litres per person per day. At the moment, in my constituency
and others, the figure
is about 175 litres. What does the Minister make of that? Does she think that such a reduction
is
realistic?
Dr Coffey
It is entirely realistic. Indeed, we want to go further and get the
figure
down to 110 litres. We believe that that is entirely possible, and I will address that further
in my contribution,
especially as the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) referred to it as
well.
Work has also
been done by water companies to improve the water quality of chalk streams, which my hon. Friend
the Member for
Broxbourne also identified as an issue. More than £3.4 billion has been invested between 2010
and 2015 to support
the achievement of the water framework directive environmental objectives. I shall repeat that
figure: £3.4 billion
has been invested by the water companies. This has contributed to substantial reductions in
phosphate pollution, to
which chalk streams are particularly sensitive, and additional investment is proposed to secure
further
improvements. Water companies are also engaged in research to overcome technical limitations on
phosphorus
reduction. Additionally, 650 sewage treatment works across England, serving 24 million people,
have phosphate
removal in place, and many of them are on chalk streams.
The Government expect to see a
multi-sector approach
to managing water resources and want water companies to continue to engage in the catchment that
they serve. We want
them to take the lead on developing local catchment solutions to address the needs of all water
users in their
region. We are already seeing how this can work. I am particularly proud of Anglian Water, as
Water Resources East
is taking an innovative cross-sector approach and making important links to improve water
abstraction
management.
As my hon. Friend said, a large proportion of the water that is abstracted is
for public
supplies. Reducing the pressure on such supplies will also help to protect the environment. To
do this, we need a
twin-track approach of reducing demand for water, including driving down leakages, while
increasing supply. That is
why we recently launched a consultation, to which I hope my right hon. and hon. Friends will
contribute, to
understand by how much we can reduce personal water use by 2050 and the measures we need to
implement to get there,
including tightening building regulations, the labelling of water-using products and metering.
This autumn, we plan
to lay our national policy statement for water resources infrastructure, which will streamline
the planning process
for nationally significant water resource infrastructure projects, helping to increase water
supplies.
I hope
my hon. Friend will appreciate that Thames Water and Affinity Water are still developing their
water resources
management plans. They recently referred their statement of responses to their consultations to
DEFRA, which the
Department and the Environment Agency are assessing. That process is ongoing, and that
assessment includes the
proposed reservoir near Abingdon. The evidence from the National Infrastructure Commission is
clear that new water
infrastructure is required alongside a reduction in leakage, and I welcome the proposals from
Thames Water, Affinity
Water and others to develop regional strategic solutions for the south-east.
We want to
see water companies
taking more of a regional approach to water resource planning. They will need to make an
assessment of the needs of
different water users, including the owners of new homes, and the needs of the environment. That
will be informed by
the Environment Agency's national framework, which is due to be published at the end of this
year and will
illustrate the regional and national challenge of water availability, as well as the needs of
different water using
sectors.
I am pleased to say that we have also consulted on legislative improvements to
ensure that water
companies' plans are informed by effective collaboration, taking into account the plans of
regional groups. We also
recently consulted on a number of additional legislative measures regarding abstraction. Ofwat,
the Environment
Agency, and the Drinking Water Inspectorate all recognise the importance of a regional approach,
which is why they
set up the water Regulators Alliance for Progressing Infrastructure Development-water RAPID-team
to ensure a smooth
regulatory path for strategic water transfers and joint infrastructure projects.
My right
hon. and learned
Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) mentioned several streams in
his constituency, and
he is a champion on this matter. Anyone who looks at his website will see the long list of
actions that he has
taken, and he is right to praise the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust for its important work.
I have already
referred to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire and the fact that I grew up in
Whitchurch, so I know
about the importance of the River Test. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham
referred to the
important Ox-Cam issue, and my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire is the Minister
for that project and
is aware of the importance not only of environmental issue, but of the water needs of households
in that
area.
My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne started to talk about windscreens, insects
and so on, and the
IPBES report recognises the biodiversity challenge that we face. The main problem is with
habitats and the change in
land use. Rivers also face challenges, and my hon. Friend is right to stress that. As my right
hon. Friend the
Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) pointed out, 80% of species under threat of extinction are
invertebrates, which
is why we must cherish habitats such as chalk streams.
I should also point out to my
right hon. and learned
Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire that the aerodynamics of modern cars also
contribute to our seeing
fewer dead insects on our windscreens, but we are also driving somewhat slower because we are
complying with speed
limits when compared with what we might have got away with in the past-not "we"; I should not
attribute that comment
to any person in this House. He also talked about soil erosion and no-till farming, and I
completely agree with him
and the others who made this point. They should be champions for no-till farming, but they also
need to be champions
for glyphosate, as the people who advocate no-till farming rely on glyphosate. Indeed, its
existence is under threat
from 2022.
Sir Oliver Heald
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Dr Coffey
I am
afraid that I will not give way on that point, because I am still trying to answer the points
raised by other hon.
Members. We may still have time at the end of this debate, but I feel there is another time for
another debate on
the glory of glyphosate-I am sure that I will be slandered on social media tonight for having
said those
words.
My right hon. and learned Friend mentioned how long it has taken to get a new
Thames reservoir, and I
genuinely hope we will see the plan come forward soon.
The hon. Member for Warwick and
Leamington referred to
his childhood roots, and in this House it is always important to recognise that, although we
represent very special
parts of the country, we sometimes have our roots elsewhere, which I think makes us better
politicians. I appreciate
that he has stayed here to talk about the impacts. He also mentioned grey water resources and
how they might help
water consumption. Indeed, there is a theory that the consumer is not keen on grey water, and we
might need to do
more work to promote the use of grey water resources in the water challenge of new homes, which
I am sure he will
recognise are important to his constituency, as they are in other parts of the
country.
My right hon. Friend
the Member for Chesham and Amersham also talked about water consumption, and I hope she will
participate in the
consultation. Importantly, she mentioned the challenges faced by the River Chess and the River
Misbourne. It is
astonishing to hear that the average consumption is 173 litres, which we need to change. I am
sure she will be an
active champion on that matter, as we already know she is an active champion on behalf of her
constituents when it
comes to High Speed 2. She referred to a number of different issues, but I am conscious that her
work on the
possible impacts on Ox Cam will not have been lost on the Housing Minister, who was present for
the majority of the
debate-he had the wisdom perhaps to leave for my contribution.
My hon. Friend the Member
for Chelmsford
(Vicky Ford) told us of her intention to go up the River Chelmer on a canoe, and I hope she
returns with a paddle.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury, who I am delighted to say is leading a review on
highly protected
marine areas, does not forget the rivers and streams in his own constituency. Indeed, he
referred to a number of
them, including the River Lambourn.
On the number of years of drought-just make it
rain-it is perhaps of some
comfort to the Prime Minister that, in her three years in office, she has never had to worry
about a flood or a
drought. Who knows how long that luck can last?
My right hon. Friend the Member for
Newbury highlighted that
80% of species are invertebrates, which get ignored in our debate on the environment, and I am
glad he is here
today. He also talked about chemicals going into the water. That is important, and in the
development of our
chemical strategy over the next year, the Government will take account of how we get the balance
right on chemicals,
which produce much magic for our everyday lives, but we need to be very conscious of the impact
they can have. Of
course, he also referred to the River Kennet and to water transfer.
A number of issues
have been raised about
how we need to preserve these habitats, and I fully agree. The habitats in our country are so
special. They are
quite a small part of our British Isles, but they are so important to the world, which is why
this Government will
continue, in the 25-year plan, to make sure we pass on an environment that is in a better state
than this generation
inherited. We will do that domestically and internationally.
I thank the House. I know
this has been a long
debate, but one of the special things about this Chamber is that something that might seem quite
parochial has huge
global significance, and I am delighted to have shared this debate with so many right hon. and
hon. Members
tonight.
Mr Charles Walker
That was a great debate.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame
Eleanor
Laing)
Indeed it was. Very informative indeed.
Question put and agreed
to.
9.19
pm
House adjourned.