Source · Select Committees · Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 50
50
We recommend that Ministers and the Environment Agency should set challenging improvement targets and timetables...
Recommendation
We recommend that Ministers and the Environment Agency should set challenging improvement targets and timetables for this progressive reduction to inform the drainage and sewage management plans to be drawn up by each water company. The first round of these plans should clearly indicate significant ambition, by setting a stretching timetable for progressive reductions in the use of overflows. (Paragraph 243) Surface drainage and urban pollution
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The Government agrees with the recommendation that incentivising and providing support for progressive action, such as through existing and future agri-environment schemes, is required to improve the condition of our water bodies. The Government has already committed to prioritise water quality in the delivery of the new schemes. The Secretary of State set out, in his Written Ministerial Statement in December 2021, that water quality is one of the primary high-level priorities for the new environmental land management schemes. Restoring England’s streams and rivers is one of two themes that the Landscape Recovery scheme will focus on during its first round of applications, and, in the first year of the schemes, the Sustainable Farming Incentive will focus on actions to reduce nutrient leaching and protect soils. As part of the development of the new environmental land management schemes, Defra have been working closely with experts in Natural England and the Environment Agency to ensure that these schemes will support farmers to improve water quality. For example, as outlined in the December 2021 update on the Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme, standards on nutrient management and water body buffer zones, among a range of others, are under consideration.