Emma Hardy

I had just taken an intervention from the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller), who talked about the excessive removal of water and the situation that she finds herself in with the water company. I agree that we need to look for a long-term solution. When we abstract too much water, that increases the concentration of pollutants and the water temperature, and decreases oxygen levels, leading to increased silt and loss of habitat. As the hon. Member for Henley and Thame (Freddie van Mierlo) mentioned, the physical habitat of our chalk streams has also been altered. They have been modified by people over recent decades, limiting the naturally varied habitats that plants and animals rely on and exacerbating the negative impacts of abstraction and pollution. Taken together, along with the sewage incidents, these pressures are placing our chalk streams under increasing strain and environmental stress. In the constituency of the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted, where chalk streams including the River Lea and River Ver flow, these pressures are no different. That is why this Government are continuing to ensure the conservation of chalk streams. Under the Government’s water industry national environment programme, improvements have been agreed for three waste water treatment works in the Harpenden and Berkhamsted constituency. They include stricter phosphorus limits for the discharge of fully treated sewage effluent and improved waste water flow monitoring to ensure that the required volumes of sewage receive full treatment before any storm overflow can occur. The capacity of the Berkhamsted waste water treatment works to fully treat sewage has also been increased from 247 litres to 316 litres per second, providing for a higher and larger quality of treated effluent. The Environment Agency is investigating the cause of a prolonged storm discharge from the Markyate sewage treatment works into the River Ver. Unfortunately, as it is a live investigation, I cannot go into more detail now, but I greatly encourage the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted to speak to the director of the Environment Agency about that and, of course, when the investigation is concluded, we can have a more detailed conversation about the issue and about what enforcement action can be taken. I should also note that the Environment Agency has been working with Affinity Water and local partners to revitalise chalk rivers by leaving more water in the environment, addressing the issue of over-abstraction of our chalk rivers, and improving the physical habitat and water flow. Water abstractions across the catchment have been reduced by 33.3 megalitres per day, with a further reduction of 23.5 megalitres per day to be delivered by spring 2025. This is ongoing work in progress to address over-abstraction from chalk streams, which we rightly recognise is a concern.