Tim Farron warmly welcomes bill in King’s Speech to tackle sewage dumping in lakes and rivers

Cumbrian MP Tim Farron has welcomed the inclusion of a new Parliamentary bill in today’s Kings Speech to crackdown on water companies that discharge sewage into lakes and rivers.

The Water (Special Measures) Bill will make the bosses of private water companies personally liable for lawbreaking, and give the water regulator new powers to ban bonuses.

It also establishes a new code of conduct for water companies, allowing customers to summon board members and hold executives to account, and will introduce new powers to bring “automatic and severe” fines for transgressions.

According to data from the Environment Agency, last year sewage was discharged into:

• the River Eea at Cark for 281 days non-stop
• the River Kent at Staveley for 202 days non-stop
• Coniston for 141 days non-stop
• Chapel Beck at Orton for 138 days non-stop
• Grasmere for 106 days non-stop
• the River Petteril at Greystoke for 105 days non-stop
• the River Eden at Winton for 87 days non-stop

Speaking today, Tim said: “After years of the Lib Dems leading the way on ending to sewage scandal, it is really welcome to see the new government introduce a new bill to crackdown on water companies.

“We now have 72 Liberal Democrat MPs in Parliament to make sure this bill is tough enough so that we stop this appalling environmental vandalism of sewage being dumped in our precious lakes and rivers.”