Conservatives have allowed Britain to be treated as “open sewer”, McMahon says

Jim McMahon has declared that the Tories have allowed Britain to be treated as an “open sewer” after analysis revealed that 40,874 days’ worth of raw sewage were dumped into coastal constituencies last year.

According to Labour analysis of Environment Agency data, raw sewage was discharged into coastal constituencies in England and Wales for 980,999 hours in 2022. The party calculated that 141,777 sewage dumping events took place in coastal constituencies, equivalent to one every three minutes and 45 seconds.

The Shadow Environment Secretary said: “That the Tories have allowed villages, towns and cities across the country to be treated as open sewers shows that they have no respect for places where people live, work and holiday.

“Coastal communities should be able to just enjoy the place where they live without having to worrying about encountering filthy raw sewage.

“The next Labour government will build a better Britain, ending the Tory sewage scandal by delivering mandatory monitoring on all sewage outlets, introducing automatic fines for discharges, setting ambitious targets for stopping systematic sewage dumping and ensuring that water bosses are held to account.”

McMahon last week introduced the water quality (sewage discharge) bill, which, if passed, would mandate the Environment Secretary to publish a strategy for the reduction of sewage discharges as well as regular economic impact assessments.

The bill – which is due to have its second reading later this month – would also set a legal requirement for the monitoring of all sewage outlets, impose penalties for failures to adhere to monitoring requirements, introduce automatic fines for sewage dumping and establish a legally binding target to reduce sewage dumping events.

Commenting on the bill’s introduction, McMahon said: “It’s clear that we have a Tory government that has run out of road, when all it can resort to is regurgitating old announcements that do nothing to end sewage dumping.

“That’s why Labour has brought forward legislation to force the clean-up of the water industry. Tory MPs, having previously blocked Labour-backed measures to end the Tory sewage scandal, have no excuses for not supporting this bill, which puts an end to sewage dumping once and for all.”

The Environment Agency revealed at the end of last month that there were more than 300,000 raw discharges into rivers and coastal areas in 2022, lasting for more than 1.75 million hours.

Commenting at the time, Keir Starmer said sewage dumping was “ruining so many areas of our country” and accused the Conservatives of “sitting on their hands, with no response to it”. The Labour leader promised that his party would take “real action on this scandal” if it comes into government.

Environment minister Rebecca Pow acknowledged that the volume of discharges was “unacceptable” but said the government is “taking action to make sure polluters are held to account”.

Therese Coffey was criticised this week following the announcement of the government’s cleaner water plan, after she claimed that people who say they can end the sewage spills are “either detached from reality or being definitively dishonest with the public”.

The Environment Secretary said upgrades to the sewer network would “put hundreds of pounds on people’s bills”, arguing: “There’s no way we can stop pollution overnight. If there were, I would do it without hesitation.”

In August last year, the government put forward a plan to reduce sewage dumping. The plan has been subject to a High Court challenge by campaigners, including the Good Law Project, who argue that it is too weak.