Gedling MP Tom Randall has dismissed claims he voted in favour of allowing sewage to be discharged into rivers, calling them ‘nonsense’.
Mr Randall was one of 268 MPs who voted not to include a proposed change to the Environment Bill which green campaigners said would have resulted in water companies being fined for dumping sewage into rivers and the sea.
The Conservative MP took to social media to defend his actions after receiving ‘unpleasant comments’ on some platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Mr Randall wrote: “We all want to see clean rivers and seas, but I hope that it might help add a bit of clarification on why this amendment wasn’t suitable.
“The vote last week was whether or not the House of Commons should accept a particular amendment that came from the House of Lords.
“Amendment 45 concerned storm overflows. Storm overflows are used to protect properties from flooding to prevent sewage from overflowing into streets and homes.
“In a combined sewer system, the system carries both surface water (for example run-offs from highways) and foul water from homes and industry into one pipe, which is them treated at a water recycling centre. During a storm or heavy, prolonged rain, the flow into the combined sewer can cause it to be overwhelmed.
“The storm overflows release excess storm water into rivers or the sea when this happens. If this didn’t happen, the water would flow back up the system and flood homes.
“Section 141A in Amendment 45 would have placed a duty on sewerage undertakers in England and Wales to demonstrate progressive reductions in the harm caused by the discharges of untreated sewage.On the face of it, this is very attractive. But there were two problems with it: the amendment came with no plan on how it might be delivered and there was no impact assessment. Nor do we know the cost.
“The Government took the view that it would have been irresponsible to put this into the Bill without a detailed plan, signing a blank cheque on behalf of bill payers.
“The cost of eliminating storm overflows entirely would potentially be enormous,” said Mr Randall.
“Much of our sewerage system is Victorian. Preliminary estimates for costs have ranged from £150,000,000,000 (the equivalent of the schools, policing and defence budgets put together) to £650,000,000,000 (on a par with the cost of the pandemic response). This is a massive cost that would ultimately be borne by bill payers. You will , I hope, understand if I baulk at writing a blank cheque on behalf of consumers when I don’t know the cost or the trade off with other water industry priorities.”
The Gedling MP went on to highlight other measures included in the Bill that would help reduce river pollution.
He said a there would be a new duty on water companies to publish information (within 1 hour) of the commencement of an overflow, its location and when it ceases.
Water companies would also produce drainage and sewage management plans which would set out how the company will manage and develop its drainage and sewerage system over a minimum 25-years and how storm overflows will be addressed through these plans.
The MP said there would also be a new duty on government to produce a report setting out the actions that would be needed to eliminate storm overflow in England and the costs and benefits of such action
He added: “A majority of MPs, including me, voted in favour of taking a range of steps to address storm overflows, together with a legal duty on government to produce detailed and costed plans for reducing and eliminating storm overflows entirely.
“I hope this is useful in helping constituents see through some of the pernicious spin that has surrounded some of the commentary on this vote.”
pfft. Yeah right. Renationalise water – 400 quid a yr here for what? Keep it running on antiquated victorian pipes and cream off as much as they can for salaries and shareholder payouts. No choice to switch providers. Scam monopoly with paid off MPs
Your Tory party has been in power for eleven years. During that time you have allowed the regulator, Environment Agency and private companies to systematically pollute our waterways while shareholders and CEOs have taken huge dividends and bonus payments. Infrastructure is neglected. Fines for breaking rules are paid by consumers. You should feel shame and contrition.
Having worked in the water industry on and off for the last 40 years I can appreciate the costs and issues associated with storm water discharges. In my opinion the issues relating to the willingness of the government to address falling water quality in English rivers in the new Environment Bill highlight:
(1) A continued failure in the polluter pays principle since the move from public to private water companies and the separation of river water quality from sewage treatment. This has effectively allowed water companies to consistently report profits in the hundreds of millions each year whilst not investing enough in alternatives to combined drainage systems.
(2) The impact of climate change on the water cycle where more extreme rainfall events rapidly overload the capacities of sewage treatment works (STW). As stated by others these would have to be unacceptably large (both in terms of investment and practical management) to treat currently encountered peak flows. This and the problems of storm overflow were debated in the early 1970s and have not been solved by the less costly route of improving STW.
Whilst the present Environment Bill represented a timely opportunity to start to act on these issues, the steps proposed in the present bill are frankly too little too late. Legal duties may represent a carrot but over the past 25 years have never been the stick they should have been.
The dividends paid to shareholders of these privately owned water companies since they were sold off for peanuts would have financed the improvements needed to the sewage system. What you have voted for, Mr Randall is now making legal something that was illegal.
Putting a “legal duty on Government to produce plans” is as useful as a chocolate teapot.
You are a member of a morally bankrupt government. That is something to remember when the next general election rolls round – unless Piffle-Paffle Johnson prorogues again.
Mr Randall you do talk complete sewerage….
It’s shameful, they need to take a long term view and make the investment and lease it back to the water companies over the next 50 years to spread the cost. It’s okay to waste money on PPE to fund their chums businesses but who cares if sewage is pumped in the rivers. We’re a big country we can afford it. I won’t be voting for Tom Randell at the next election.
Change to the Environment Bill dumping sewage into rivers.
Conservative Home – ‘Philip Dunne: Why I’ve tabled a Bill to clean up Britain’s rivers’
Our MPs are elected to serve the community the question was our representative Mr Randall acting in our interests in promoting a clean environment?
Before this bill was aired did our elected representative carry out the views of our community was a survey carried out, or was his decision to vote without consultation?
I hope our politician’s make decisions for the best now and in the future.
I find Mr Randall’s rational for voting against amendment 45 confusing to say the least. Why can’t we expect the water companies to have plans to reduce storm overflow (sewage). It is not for government to make the plans and cost them, the companies concerned should openly publish their plans. Currently water companies continue to break existing law with regard to the release of sewage into our rivers, as the fines are insufficent deterents. As an open water swimmer, the places I can safely swim are gettting smaller and smaller. The government talks about more community based ‘alternative’ health options outside the NHS, open water swimming is found to greatly benefit both physical and mental health, something the government should support. But, I know of several people who have been seriously ill, requiring NHS in-patient care, because they have swum in rivers and sewage!! Stand back and look at the bigger picture (not just the next election) sometimes we have to say enough is enough, we don’t want our water ways polluting anymore
So right. Tom Randall is an inadequate replacement for Vernon Coaker who was altogether more enlightened. I didn’t vote for him at the last election, and I won’t in the next, when, I hope, enough Gedlingites feel as I do to heave him into the long grass.
This has been a useful debate.
We should read the excellent pieces in Gedlingeye.co.uk, and the correspondence to help us understand. Namely: ‘Gedling MP Tom Randall MP speaks out …’ and ‘Sewage vote: …’ and “This map reveals how much raw sewage is being dumped into Gedling borough rivers and streams”
We can probably agree that:
Fines less than cost of treatment = bad
Untreated sewage in rivers and sea = bad,
No sewage in rivers and sea = good.
Inevitably, the result will always be somewhere in between. We have (had) the EU, the Government, the Environment Agency and the surfing community trying to help us understand where it should be.
Andrew is right to question. James does a good job to elaborate. I hope Arthur and Max feel better now.
Professor Barry Smith has added a more measured and academic view, but thinks we could do better. Perhaps we can call upon the professor for more facts beyond what we already know.
Those who wish to criticise the Conservative government for privatising the water industry, and successive Conservative governments since; successive Labour governments for doing nothing about it; or our Victorian ancestors for building the sewerage system the way they did; or the water companies themselves, are free to do so. It all adds to the debate.
What is less than useful though, is to criticise MPs’ voting habits based on their willingness to “… follow the party line, so as not to miss out on any promotion up the ladder.” Tom Randall MP refers to this sort of stuff as ‘pernicious spin’. Well, it might or might not be, but it adds very little to the debate if this is all you have.
Presumably, by this reckoning, Ms Nadia Whittome MP (Lab) is equally tainted, thus making the ‘for’ vote equally suspect. Or is it just Tory MPs. Would that be all of of them; or just some? While we’re at it, let’s question all 648 surviving MPs’ voting credentials. I don’t know what they are. We don’t really know, do we.
Perhaps Dennis Skinner and the late Sir David Amess led the way here, and rose above party lines. And others? I just don’t know.
Not all sewage pumping stations are owned and controlled by the water companies. Although the vast majority are. Those which are, are under the watchful eye of the Environment Agency (EA). Water companies are fined for unauthorised spill into the water course. Do the EA catch them all? Do water companies admit to them all? I don’t know. Are water companies always fined when there is a spillage and are found out? I don’t know. Other articles on the excellent Gedlingeye.co.uk suggest the EA and Severn Trent Water probably don’t exchange Christmas cards..
Not all flows into the watercourse are illegal or negligent. That’s what this is all about.
Go to:
Water companies: environmental permits for storm overflows and emergency overflows – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) for a little light reading.
The EA should know who and how many people live where, and literally, how the land lies. They publish flood maps. What they don’t know is when it will rain, or where it will rain most. They can only read the forecast. Why not just pop in to Scarrington Rd. West Bridgeford and ask them what they do know.
The EA specifies how much sewage a sewage pumping station must pump. Once this figure is reached, do the water company switch off the pumps? I don’t know but I very much doubt it. If a pump fails and there is a spill into the watercourse, then the EA should act. If the spill is into your property, then you can act within your rights.
What if it rains so much that the manhole covers in your street blow out and flow into your property? We see it on the news all the time. That’s not just rainwater – it’s the foul contents of the sewers as well. No-one ever really gets the blame or the insurance companies might have a thing or two to say about it.
So, how do we stop this … storm water is allowed to flow into the storm tanks at sewage treatment works, but when they are full – it is allowed to flow in to the rivers and sea. As James points out “… it’s just a matter of where the overflow will be.” Sometimes the sewage system just cannot get it tothe treatment works in time.
I suppose the good people of Gedling, Guildford and Gloucester are put before the surfing community.
What should we do …?
Build bigger storm tanks, eliminate combined sewer systems and/or a combination. We learn that the EA have reported 400,000 discharges in 2020. We don’t know how many prosecutions and/or fines were pursued. It is in the public domain.
The EA probably know. Since we’re rounding …
How much will it cost to update the system? We read it is somewhere between £150 billion and £650 billion. Remember that the Jubilee line extension forecast started at £1.5billion and finished at £3.5 billion. HS2 started at £37billion and now stands at over £100billion and counting.
OK. Let’s call that £500 billion. That’s a very big number.
If share dividends are your thing … In 2020, Severn Trent Water issued dividends to its shareholders ca. £225 million.
This is a large number. None of it was paid to the writer.
Severn Trent’s neighbours Anglian Water, Yorkshire Water and Thames Water all paid less than £50 million to its shareholders.
That’s arguably the four largest water companies. So let’s be generous and call the original ten English and Welsh water companies total dividend paid to shareholders in 2020 total £500 million. These are in the public domain if anyone can be bothered. It’s a big number.
We can claim that we own the water companies. Well, the fact is, we don’t. Unless you own shares. If you don’t like capitalism; write to Tony Blair or your MP.
Anyway, if we held back all the water company dividends paid in 2020 in the UK and put them in the building society, it would take 1000 years. By that time, we will have found something else to spend it on.
That seems a long time. Can someone please check my arithmetic.
Regarding “This map reveals how much raw sewage is being dumped into Gedling borough rivers and streams”
True, the Rivers Trust map does show how much … etc… However, it also shows the discharges of treated final sewage. This is not ‘dumping’ it is ‘discharging’. It just makes the map appear more informative. When actually, it does the opposite. Treated final effluent looks like … er… water.
OK, don’t swim there but if we don’t like permitted treated final effluent being discharged into the watercourse, then it is a discussion for another day. Where do you suppose the water for your cup of tea this morning came from?
“All the water served here has been passed by the management.”