THE MPs for Aberconwy and Clwyd West have discussed their reasoning behind voting down an amendment to the Environment Bill which would have placed a legal duty on water companies not to dump waste into waterways in England.

Robin Millar and David Jones, MPs for Aberconwy and Clwyd West respectively, opted to vote against the Amendment 45 last week, which was voted down by 268 MPs to 204.

On Tuesday, though, the government announced a partial U-turn, with new rules including a duty on water companies to reduce the impact of sewage discharges from storm overflows.

The organisations will be required by law to show a reduction in sewage overspills during the next five years.

The Westminster Government has no say on these matters in Wales, where sewage management and discharge is carried out by Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water, which answers to the Welsh Government.

In a statement on his website, Mr Millar said: “We would all like to wave a wand and fix this. But I hope it is clear from this description that the problem is not simply a matter of changing the law. Good government means asking how will it be delivered.

“I was pleased to support the bill on this latest stage of its journey through the House.

“However, the Amendment 45 would have made it a duty on water companies to fix the system.

“While well-intentioned, it would require discharges into watercourses to be reduced regardless of weather conditions and without any plan to achieve this.

“The risk was this would leave water companies with no choice but to allow backflow – onto land and into properties.

“The lack of a plan is critical. Any changes to make the system work even during heavy rains will include the physical work of building new networks of culverts, sewers and drains – separating the sewage from rainwater systems.

“This takes time and involves a huge amount of disruption. The cost has been estimated at between £150 billion to £600 billion.

“To put that in perspective, £150 billion is bigger than the schools, police and defence budgets combined. At the other end of the range, £600 billion is nearly twice what has been spent by the UK government on responding to the pandemic across the UK.

“These costs would have had to be passed onto the consumer and has been estimated between £5000 - £20,000 per household.

“I simply could not support that kind of blank cheque for the water companies – which would have to be paid for by consumers.

“All in all, the amendment may have been well-intentioned but was not realistic, sensible or affordable. I could not and did not support such an amendment.

“Did I vote to allow the discharge of raw sewage into our rivers and the sea in Aberconwy? No. I voted in favour of a deliverable, sensible bill that will reduce the discharge of sewage into our rivers and waterways.

“I voted against an unrealistic, unaffordable and undeliverable amendment to that bill which could have cost twice as much as the pandemic response.”

Mr Jones added: “In recent years, the sewage discharges into the river system have increased. This is because the increase in the size of the general population and the increasing frequency of extreme weather have put extra pressure on the sewerage system.

“Completely eliminating this problem would require rebuilding the sewer system, the preliminary cost of which is estimated to be anywhere between £150 billion and £600 billion. These are, self-evidently, monstrously heavy costs.

“Rebuilding the sewage system could also involve the complete separation of the sewage systems, leading to potentially significant disruption for homes, businesses and infrastructure across the country.

“For such reasons, the Government was not able to accept the Duke of Wellington’s well-intentioned amendment.

“However, once we have clearer figures and have assessed the likely costs and benefits, further measures can be taken.

“Furthermore, if MPs had voted last week immediately to prohibit any discharge of sewage into the river system, before upgrading the sewerage network, then any heavy rainfall would have led to sewage flooding back up the pipes into people’s homes, as described above.

“It would obviously have been grossly irresponsible to vote for that, which is why the Government benches opposed it.

“Voting to permit the flooding of people’s homes with sewage would rightly have provoked strong objections from the public.

“Nevertheless, the amount of sewage discharged by water companies into our rivers is not acceptable.

“Therefore, the Government has decided to address the issue in England. It will be drawing up a plan to reduce sewage discharges, and the Environment Agency and water companies based in England will report regularly on such discharges.

“For example, water companies in England will have to monitor storm overflows and publish notification of the overflows occurring and ceasing within one hour of occurrence. They will also be required to monitor the water quality upstream and downstream of the discharge.

“The Environment Bill also places a new duty on the Government to produce a plan to reduce sewage discharges and their adverse impact, and report to Parliament on progress.

“Additionally, the Government will be required to produce a report setting out the actions required to eliminate discharges in England, and the costs and benefits of doing so. Both publications are required before September 1, 2022.

“Following the debate in the House of Commons last week, the Government has also announced that it will bolster the measures it is already taking.

“Finally, Her Majesty’s Government will be providing the Welsh Government with an additional £2.5 billion per year, on top of its annual baseline funding of £15.9 billion. This funding gives the Welsh Government sufficient resources to provide the necessary investment in such areas.”

In July, the Government set out for the first time its expectation that The Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat) should incentivise water companies to invest to significantly reduce the use of storm overflows in the forthcoming pricing review period.

The Government has this week announced that it will now place this policy position into the Environment Bill, to underline the action it is taking.

Figures provided by the Environment Agency show that water companies discharged raw sewage into rivers in England more than 400,000 times and for more than three million hours last year.

A pollution alert has also been issued for Traeth Benllech on Anglesey in a Surfers Against Sewage map which tracks combined sewer overflows and pollution risk forecasts, having reportedly been contaminated by human waste due to a sewage discharge.

The legislative process for this bill continues and further consideration of it is due by the Commons on Monday, November 8.