Labour warned ‘feeble’ plans will not end pollution
A Labour government must do more than promise “feeble gestures”, such as banning bonuses, to force water companies to invest in the sewage systems, campaigners have warned.
Environmental groups argue that Labour’s plans to beef up oversight of pollution should it win the general election do not go far enough, while green Tory MPs argued that the Government needed to do more to tackle the sewage crisis ahead of the local elections.
Labour has pledged to block water company bosses’ bonuses if they fail to meet obligations to reduce sewage dumping, and vowed to hit executives with criminal charges if they oversee repeated sewage spills.
But anti-sewage campaigners have raised doubts over the impact the measures would have.
Nick Measham, chief executive at WildFish, said: “Bonus bans are feeble gestures. We want politicians to enforce the law to force water companies to invest – at their and their shareholder’s expense – and end this off-the-scale law-breaking.”
The group also called for action against executives of the Environment Agency and Ofwat, which had “failed to police water companies”.
Labour has insisted its plans will lead to improvements in the sector.
The shadow Environment Secretary, Steve Reed, said: “The Conservatives
are too weak to get tough with polluting water companies.”
Tory environmentalists said the Government needed to get a grip on the crisis, with the Conservative Environment Network (CEN) warning the party needs a “strong environmental offer to impress voters”.
Kitty Thompson, of the CEN, told i: “Increasing our natural environment’s capacity to absorb rainfall, rather than letting it flow into the pipe network, will be critical to reducing use of storm overflows.” Sienna Somers (inset), nature campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “The real sewage scandal is our Government’s pursuit of deregulation and deep cuts to the Environment Agency, which mean ministers are in the dark about the true extent of water pollution.” Sewage data was branded “disappointing” but “sadly not surprising” by the Environment Agency.
An Ofwat spokesperson said: “We have strengthened rules to allow us to take enforcement action against companies that pay dividends where their environmental performance does not meet our expectations.”
Clean water campaigner Feargal Sharkey called for customers to receive refunds if sewage failings continue, saying: “A question we should be asking is, where’s our money going?”