Louise Haigh MP: Landmark legislation announced to crack down on bosses polluting waterways in Sheffield Heeley

Major legislation has been announced that will crack down on water bosses polluting rivers, lakes and seas. This will be the most significant increase in enforcement powers in a decade.

The Water (Special Measures) Bill has been introduced to parliament and will give regulators new powers to take tougher and faster action to crack down on Yorkshire Water damaging the environment and failing their customers.

The Bill will significantly increase the ability of the Environment Agency to bring forward criminal charges against lawbreaking water executives and will create new tougher penalties, including imprisonment for water executives when companies fail to co-operate or obstruct investigations.

The new legislation will also ban the payment of bonuses to water bosses if they fail to meet high standards to protect the environment, their consumers and their company’s finances.

Louise Haigh MP for Sheffield Heeley said:

“I’m pleased that this legislation is being brought forward because recent data shows that the number of sewage discharges in the Sheffield Heeley constituency skyrocketed by 58%, to 487 sewage spills in 2023, compared to 308 in 2022.

“That’s an equivalent of 1,458 hours of sewage spilling into our waterways in 2023 – an increase of 74% since 2022.

“I’m contacted regularly by residents who are very concerned about these ongoing spills and the effect this is having on their community and the environment.

“This is absolutely unacceptable and this Bill will mean that water executives will no longer line their own pockets whilst pumping out this filth. If they refuse to comply, they could end up in the dock and face prison time.

“This Bill is a major step forward in our wider reform to fix the broken water system.”

Other measures in the Bill include severe and automatic fines for a range of offences, including allowing regulators to issue penalties more quickly, without having to direct resources to lengthy investigations.

It will also introduce independent monitoring of every sewage outlet, with water companies required to publish real-time data for all emergency overflows. Discharges will have to be reported within an hour of the initial spill.