David Levy – What a Waste of an Opportunity – Dec 20
By far one of the biggest efforts made by Marinet this year has been in raising the issue of discharges of untreated sewage to rivers and seas.
Correspondence flowed between myself, as Marinet chair, and the Environment Agency but always appeared to be going in a circular motion, until we recognised the opportunity of raising an amendment to the Environment Bill.
Stephen identified the appropriate clause (76) in the Bill and was able to insert the words that made accountability for discharges to the environment a management obligation of the water companies in their 5 year ‘management plans’ to the Secretary of State.
By identifying Rt. Hon Philip Dunne, MP for Ludlow, as a concerned MP on these issues and whose Private Members Bill was advocating changes to river quality, we found an MP who was willing to promote our amendment. In conjunction with Richard Graham MP, he got our proposal adopted under their joint names as Amendment 200. This was discussed and voted on 17th November 2020.
You would think that this loophole amendment would gain immediate favour with Surfers Against Sewage because here would be the opportunity to enforce action against poorly, often untreated discharges to the sea. In other words this amendment proposed a solution to their specific problem of swimming with turds.
To my knowledge the SAS leadership did not even consider this amendment or even put the amendment for support to the membership for them to decide. This meant that what was withheld from us was the active involvement of their members writing to MPs for support in the House of Commons.
Our membership were immediately involved. They were splendid in their efforts and our collective endeavour was recognised by the Minister as being diligent, including our blanket lobbying of all 600+ MPs.
So what happened during the long and detailed discussion of the amendment?
Things started out well. Labour MPs talked of building bridges on this issue through their support, but the writing was on the wall when this suggestion was mildly ridiculed.
Amendment 200 was promoted and formally seconded and then the Minister, Rt. Hon Rebecca Pow MP responded. She was all over the issue, was well aware of what was needed and she made it clear that she expected her MPs to endorse her position that she already had all the powers she needed for change.
At this point I have to state that I am very wary of someone who rejects legal responsibility for action, suggesting we are all in situation where we can work with the water companies on this.
No legal responsibility has already led us to a position where action to clean up this problem has stagnated and even deteriorated over the past five years.
This point is clear in the statements that have been made by the Chair of the Environment Agency. She has been most unhappy with river quality and discharges that too frequently breach safety standards and, by implication, health standards too.
The mantra from the Minister was ‘trust me’ and that was the final call that she made to MPs. It was then that she was asked whether the words of the Amendment 200 could be mentioned instead in the explanatory notes at the Report Stage of the Environment Bill. A fudge of sorts was proposed around this alternative of just an entry in the explanatory notes and, although the Labour MPs called for a division, the vote came back 8-5 against Amendment 200.
To be clear those who proposed Amendment 200 did not support (abstained) when the Minister asked MPs to trust her. Only the Labour MPs voted for the Amendment.
In conclusion what I gained from this event was that you cannot call on politicians to do the right thing. You cannot trust them to stand up for a principle. Remember Katy Clark, MP for N. Ayrshire and Arran, fighting her own Labour Party over fisheries? Not here, not these politicians.
All I can point to with any certainty is that we will carefully watch the wording of the explanatory notes for the Environment Bill.
We are also watching with some trepidation what is happening to the spread and growth of water borne diseases and the growth in the rat population. Already some scientists are pointing our attention towards the potential for the spread of another plague.
Who then will we blame? Accountability has a short shelf life. By then, I expect those MPs voting on the Amendment will be long gone.
David Levy
