What are the UK political parties promising to do about sewage?

In Brief...

• The UK faces significant sewage pollution, with raw sewage spills increasing by 54% in 2023, impacting health and tourism.
• The Conservatives have introduced unlimited fines for polluting water companies, while Labour proposes blocking bonuses for polluters and criminal charges for repeated offenses.
• The Liberal Democrats, Green Party, and Reform UK each offer various strategies, including adding environmental experts to water company boards, re-nationalising water services, and reclaiming foreign-owned utilities.

What's happening to Britain's waters?

Here's some good news for Nigel Farage. If he does win the Clacton seat in the 2024 General Election, sewage won't be something he needs to worry about.

The new leader of the Reform party is standing in one of the UK's seaside towns which has avoided sewage problems in recent years, where treated waste is dumped far out to sea.

But it has been a growing problem for many other seaside towns, coastlines and rivers.

In 2023, raw sewage was pumped into UK waters for 3.6 million hours. This is the highest number on record, and an increase from 1.8 million hours the previous year.

This was highlighted by Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey when he fell into Lake Windermere in May 2024 to draw attention to the UK's mounting sewage problem while on the election campaign trail.

Millions of litres of raw sewage was pumped into the English beauty spot for ten hours in February 2024, due to a fault at a pumping station. Davey could have been at risk if he'd taken his tumble earlier in the year.

What are the risks of swimming in water that is polluted?

Sewage is gross, but it's also dangerous. If you swim in water with human waste in it, you'll be exposed to bacteria and viruses that have already grown accustomed to living inside the body, and would be quite at home inside you as well.

Sure, some are harmless, but others can cause infections and stomach upsets, or even more serious conditions such as hepatitis or E.coli.

It's not just bad news for local swimmers or accident-prone Liberal Democrats either. The UK tourism industry contributes around £106 billion to the UK's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and many of the country's most popular destinations are near the coast, lakes and rivers.

If this income takes a hit, it would be a huge blow to the UK's economy, which is one of the top concerns for voters as we approach the July election.

Why do we have a problem with polluted water in the UK?

Most sewers in the UK are very old, many having been built in the 19th century, when cities were far less densely populated. Since then, these ageing pipelines have been repaired and updated over the decades, but are unable to cope with modern demand.

Then, there's the environment. Companies only pump raw sewage into our waters when storm tanks are overwhelmed by heavy rain, and the only other escape for the deluge is the other way up the pipes: leading it back into our homes and all over the bathmats.

Of course, the more heavy rain a country gets, the more likely its storm tanks will frequently overflow.

Due to climate change, the UK is not only getting warmer, but it's also getting wetter. The warmer the air is, the more moisture it can hold. The more moisture it can hold, the more rain we get.

And then there's profit. Water services were privatised in 1989 due to a fall in investment during the eighties, and now these companies are run for profit, and need to attract investors to keep providing essential services at a low price for customers – all while dealing with the ageing infrastructure and climate pressure.

What are the political parties planning to do about the problem?

The Conservative government has taken some action. In December 2023, Steve Barclay, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, introduced unlimited fines for water companies that polluted UK waters, without criminal prosecution. It had previously been capped at £250,000.

But Conservative MPs voted against a Liberal Democrat motion to criminalise water companies for dumping sewage in May 2024.

Labour MPs abstained from the vote, having proposed their own methods to deal with polluting companies.

Labour has pledged to hit the privately owned water companies where it hurts, by giving the water regulator the power to block bonuses being paid to bosses of polluters. It has also promised to introduce criminal charges for "repeated law-breaking" and introducing "severe and automatic" fines, among other measures. In its 2024 General Election manifesto, Labour claim the Conservatives have "turned a blind eye" to the problem.

The Liberal Democrats have said it will put environmental experts on the boards of water companies to make sure sewage spills are taken seriously, with Ed Davey saying after his Windermere dip: "We need to make sure that the water companies are properly held to account."

The Green Party has pledged to return the water companies back into public hands, saying it is the only "sustainable" way way to run these services.

And as for Reform, previous leader Richard Tice had shared party plans before standing down from leadership.

Tice said the party would "take back control" of the utilities from an estimated 70% foreign ownership, and equally divide ownership between the UK government, and "British pension funds".

Campaign group Surfers Against Sewage has called for “bold and ambitious” plans to clean up British waters by the year 2030 from whoever takes power after 5 July.

The parties are aligned that something needs to be done, it’s just a question of how, and whose policy gets put in place.

What do The News Agents think?

“I don’t think anybody would have expected that the quality of water would have become such a political issue in Britain,” said Lewis Goodall.

“You talk to Labour people, you say this works for them on two levels. One, the Conservatives are so - not just this government, the long history of Conservative governments, they are so embryonically linked to this privatisation that any time something goes wrong they [Labour] can make political capital out of it. 

“But secondly, also, this is so meme-able. It’s so good for internet culture and for internet attack ads – the idea of there being sewage in the waterways.” But sewage has always been pumped into British water, since before the past 14 years of Tory government, but since privatisation of the water companies, people are placing blame.

“It’s the idea of there being sewage in the sea, the idea that nothing in Britain is working any more,” Lewis continued. 

“That idea – and you see all these disgusting-looking emojis talking about it – that they can’t even stop human waste getting in the sea.

“If you look at the long history, this has always happened to some extent, but we now know this is because of checks the government has introduced, so it’s an indictment for Labour, not only of the privatisation of the water industry, but they will say of the Conservatives handling of our utilities.”

“It’s all a bit s**t,” added Jon Sopel.

Listen to the latest episode of The News Agents podcast now.