Truss, who was in charge at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) between 2014 and 2016, oversaw “efficiency” plans set out in the 2015 spending review to reduce Environment Agency funding by £235m.
This included a £24m cut from a government grant for environmental protection, including surveillance of water companies to prevent the dumping of raw sewage, between 2014-15 and 2016-17, according to the National Audit Office.
It represents almost a quarter of the funding cut from this area between 2010, when the grant stood at £120m, and 2020, by which time it had fallen to £40m.
Labour analysis of official figures shows that since 2016 raw sewage discharge in England and Wales has more than doubled, from 14.7 spill events an overflow to 29.3 in 2021. Greenpeace said the figures showed Truss had “sewage on her hands”.
The Environment Agency has called for the government to reverse the cuts but campaigners want the next prime minister to go further and also give the body the power to properly monitor water companies over sewage, rather than allowing them to self-report discharges.
It follows the finding that 24% of sewage overflow pipes at popular seaside resorts in England and Wales have monitors that are faulty or do not have monitors at all, meaning people could be swimming in human waste this summer without realising.
Liz Truss has defended her decision to significantly cut government spending on the Environment Agency during her time overseeing the body, despite the recent outrage over raw sewage being dumped into the sea.
The Labour Party has claimed a £235m axe to the arms-length agency’s budget when Truss was environment secretary resulted in “doubled sewage discharge”.
But at a Tory leadership hustings in Birmingham on Tuesday, the frontrunner was in defiant mood as she suggested she had few regrets over the decision.
“I am a great believer in value for money from public services. And believe me, there are plenty of things the Environment Agency were doing that they shouldn’t have been doing,” Truss said.
Whatever the incompetent Truss touches turns to mush …
Pollution warnings are in place for more than 100 British beaches after untreated sewage was discharged into the sea. The warnings appear on the Safer Seas and Rivers Service, run by the charity Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), and are based on water firms’ data.
SAS Chief Executive Hugo Tagholm told the BBC that the discharges came after just the “slightest hint” of rain. He criticised the water companies’ use of combined sewer overflows, which are designed to release sewage and rainwater in times of extreme heavy rain.
“Do they think this is a joke? Do they not realise how much anger there is about their profiteering and pollution?” he said.
In parliament, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas urged the government to “cut the crap” and return the “failing” water industry to public hands.
Over the last 24 hours, one company - Southern Water (SW) - has discharged untreated sewage into almost 30 bathing sites, including the popular resorts of Bognor Regis, Hastings and Cowes.
SW’s data also show it has released untreated water on 95 occasions since the beginning of September. Two storm discharge pipes, at Southsea East and Stokes Bay, were discharging for more than 24 hours.
By law, these kinds of sewage discharges are legal only in “exceptional” circumstances.
This is surely at the point when heads must roll …
If this raw sewage was pumped into the Thames a few miles upstream from Westminster, I suspect the water companies wouldn’t be treated quite so leniently.
Well one might wonder. In reality Thames Water has a legal exception from being fined for dumping raw sewerage into the Thames river. True. There is sewerage treatment facility in Isleworth, not far up from Kew and a few miles upstream from Westminster. When there is heavy rain Thames Water simply lets the rain surplus plus raw sewerage flow into the river. They’ve been doing this for decades.
Of course the raw sewerage causes lots of problems. The drop on oxygen in the river water kills fish. The smell is a bit rich. Of course these visible / noticeable problems can’t be allowed to create issues down Westminster way. Thames Water needed a solution. You and I might think that improving the sewerage treatment plant might be a solution. No, too expensive. So Thames Water have a boat or two that has a sole purpose of pumping oxygen into the river to offset, a bit, the effects of the raw sewerage. One boat is called Vitality. Look it up.
Privatisation of water has been so successful. Not.
