Louise Sandher-Jones

I thank the Minister for all the hard work she and her team have been doing on the Bill. It is very important to my constituents. To go back to the very basics, we are talking about something that everybody in North East Derbyshire uses every day—water. I believe that everybody in my constituency, and in the whole country, has a right to know that the water in our rivers and streams is clean, clear and free from pollution. The reason I have to state that now in this House is that we have not had the action we should have had over the past 14 years. That is a huge failure of the previous Government to get action taken and completed on this important issue. Instead, in 2023 water was polluted over 2,000 times in North East Derbyshire—and that is in just one constituency. Last week, I met local residents in Ashover, which is situated on the River Amber, in my constituency. They impressed on me their concerns about pollution in that very picturesque part of the river. We have had good news, in that Severn Trent Water has improved treatment tank capacity in the area, but my residents are worried that that will not be enough, and indeed that we will not know whether it is enough. They are already concerned that the water they see does not live up to the standards they wish to see. That is why I particularly welcome the fact that the Bill is bringing in independent monitoring of water quality. I am afraid I disagree with the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron). What I think is important is not that we get carried away with volume, but the impact on water quality. That is what matters most.