McMahon: "A Labour government would clean up water industry"
Shadow environment secretary Jim McMahon has promised that a Labour government would clean up the water industry and give the Environment Agency the power and resources to “properly enforce the rules”.
Speaking at the Labour Party Conference, he pledged that being “a custodian of water and the environment will be a duty again”.
He accused the government of allowing over a million sewage spills over the past six years – amounting to more than one every two minutes.
“How could any government that loves this country allow this abuse of our open spaces, rivers and sea?” he asked.
McMahon said that a Labour government would clean up the water industry by:
• Delivering mandatory monitoring of all sewage outlets.
• Giving the Environment Agency the power and resources to properly enforce the rules.
• Introducing a legally binding target to end 90 per cent of sewage discharges by 2030.
• Introducing automatic fines for discharges and a standing charge penalty for discharge points without monitoring in place.
• Ensuring any failure to improve is paid for by eroding dividends, not adding to customer bills, or hitting vital investment in the system.
• Ensuring water bosses that routinely and systematically break the rules will be held professionally and personally accountable.
