Sewage spills in Oxfordshire raised at first Prime Minister's Questions
Sir Keir Starmer has promised a “tougher regime” of regulation for water companies after an Oxfordshire MP raised concerns about sewage spills.
Liberal Democrat Calum Miller told the prime minister about the amount of sewage being pumped into the River Evenlode in the village of Combe.
Thames Water said it had “clear and deliverable plans to upgrade” its Charlbury and Finstock sewage treatment works to “increase treatment capacity and reduce the number of storm discharges”.
Mr Miller, the MP for Bicester and Woodstock, told the House of Commons: “At Combe, in my constituency, Thames Water has pumped sewage into the River Evenlode for over 2,600 hours in the last year”.
The prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, responds to a question about sewage spills
Mr Miller added: “Thames Water was allowed by [water regulator] Ofwat to withdraw £7 billion in dividends, yet now wants to jack up my constituents' bills.
“I welcome the Water Bill in the King's Speech, but will the prime minister agree with my constituents and me that the system is broken, and will he now commit to scrapping Ofwat and replacing it with a tougher regulator that will finally put people and planet ahead of water company profits?”
It was the first question of Sir Keir Starmer’s inaugural Prime Minister’s Question Time.
The River Evenlode in Oxfordshire, filmed by ITV News on 24 July
In response, Sir Keir said: “I thank him for raising this important issue in relation to water and customers should not pay the price for the mismanagement by water companies.
“And we've already announced immediate steps to put one or two companies under a tougher regime. The minister for water will meet the bosses of failing companies to hold them to account for their performance.”
The prime minister added: “After 14 years of failure with our rivers and beaches, it falls to this government of service to fix the mess of the failure of the last 14 years.”
MPs from across the South react to the first Prime Minister's Questions
The new Government has announced plans to crack down on water firms, including tougher fines for pollution incidents and ensuring money is invested into infrastructure rather than paid out in bonuses.
A Thames Water spokesperson told ITV News: “While all storm discharges are unacceptable, the sewage system was historically designed to work in this way, to prevent sewage backing up into people’s homes.
"We know how much people enjoy and appreciate our rivers, and we are committed to seeing our waterways thrive, but we can’t do it alone. Farming, industry, road runoff, wildlife and increasingly extreme weather also play a role in river health.
"We have clear and deliverable plans to upgrade 250 of our sites across the region, to increase treatment capacity and reduce the number of storm discharges, including at our Charlbury and Finstock sewage treatment works.
"As infrastructure ages and demand on it increases more investment is needed across the entire sector That’s why we’ve asked for increased investment in the next regulatory cycle between 2025-2030.
"We’ve put transparency at the heart of what we do, and we were the first water company to publish a real time data map on our website, which in its first year has been viewed over 350,000 times."