Rishi Sunak facing Tory rebellion over sewage in UK rivers
Rishi Sunak is facing a defeat in the House of Lords over his bid to scrap clean water regulations that protect swimmers and wildlife as part of his post-Brexit bonfire of European Union red tape.
Peers are preparing to block Government plans to ditch both the Bathing Water Regulations and Water Framework Directive under the new Retained EU Law Bill, which is making its way through Parliament.
The legislation aims to remove around 4,000 pieces of EU law from the British statute by the end of the year, in a bid to ensure rules inherited from Brussels do not become an “ageing relic dragging down the UK”.
A Lords amendment has been tabled to the Bill to ensure the two clean water regulations, which were introduced by Brussels when the UK was still an EU member, are exempt from the wider cull of European laws.
It follows the launch of a campaign, Save Britain’s Rivers, by i and sister publication New Scientist to rescue the country’s waterways from the effects of pollution.
The Government was forced to back down over the amount of raw sewage that water companies can pump into the waterways after a similar rebellion in the Lords in 2021 over the Environment Bill, led by the Duke of Wellington.
A Tory peer told i that the depth of feeling within the House of Lords towards the issue of pollution in rivers meant the Prime Minister was likely to face a serious rebellion.
“Given the support the Duke of Wellington had for his amendment a while ago on river pollution – and the Government lost that battle – then the whips are going to be concerned,” the Conservative said.
Should the Government be defeated in the Lords, ministers would have to seek to overturn it in the Commons.
This would heighten the threat of a Tory rebellion there, with many of the rivers impacted by sewage running through Conservative constituencies being targeted by the Liberal Democrats over waterway pollution.
One Tory MP told i several Conservatives were worried the issue of water pollution could see them losing votes at the next election, after they were accused by opposition parties of voting to allow sewage to be dumped into rivers on the Environment Bill.
“I get very angry when I am told I made the situation worse, when what we were trying to do was make a bad situation much better,” the backbencher said.
Earlier this month, ministers caved into accepting an amendment to the UK Infrastructure Bank Bill, which prevented taxpayers’ money going to water companies unless they produced a fully costed and timed plan to stop discharging sewage into rivers.
Liberal Democrat Peer Baroness Bakewell, who tabled the amendments, said: “The Conservative Government’s decision to scrap these regulations will create a sewage dumpers’ charter. This is short-sighted politics at its worst, putting political posturing above the well-being of our rivers, lakes and swimmers.
“Risking these regulations is reckless and irresponsible.”
The Water Framework Directive has been the main law for water protection in Europe since 2000 and covers all inland and coastal waters by setting regulatory standards, which each member state is required to meet.
Similarly, the Bathing Water Regulations require councils to display information on the cleanliness of designated bathing sites.
Ministers are coming under intense pressure to do more to stop the millions of litres of sewage being pumped by the water companies into the UK’s rivers and seas each year.
Environment Secretary, Thérèse Coffey, last month came under fire from green groups after she published the Government’s updated Environmental Improvement Plan which only promised to end discharges into rivers and the coastline by 2050.
But ministers are under pressure to go further, with Tory MPs in certain parts of the country warning it is increasingly becoming a political battleground for them.
