Welsh Affairs Committee
Oral evidence: Water quality in Wales, HC 1113
Wednesday 8 February 2023
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 8 February 2023.
Members present: Stephen Crabb (Chair); Simon Baynes; Wayne David; Geraint Davies; Ben Lake; Rob Roberts.
Questions 1-53
Witnesses
I: Angela Jones, Campaigner, Gail Davies-Walsh, Chief Executive at Afonydd Cymru, and Jon Khoo, Chair at Surfers against Sewage.
Witnesses: Gail Davies-Walsh, Angela Jones and Jon Khoo.
Q1 Chair: Good morning. Welcome to this meeting of the Welsh Affairs Committee, where we are looking at water quality in Wales. We are delighted to be joined by an expert panel of witnesses: Angela Jones, who is a businesswoman, adventure specialist and high-profile campaigner on water quality in Wales; Gail Davies-Walsh, the chief executive of Afonydd Cymru, the umbrella body for river trusts in Wales; and Jon Khoo, who is chair of trustees at Surfers Against Sewage. Thank you all very much for giving us your time and expertise this morning.
Perhaps I could start by asking each of you to give us, in very broad, general terms—we can go into more detail later—your sense of where we are in Wales on water quality. How bad is the situation, and how good are certain aspects of it? Perhaps you could start, Ms Davies-Walsh.
Gail Davies-Walsh: My summary at the moment is that our Welsh rivers are in a very poor state in terms of water quality. Five of our nine SAC-designated rivers are failing for phosphorus and excessive nutrients, while 32% of all rivers in Wales fail for phosphorus, and only 40% currently meet the criteria for good ecological status.
Sewer overflows play an important part in terms of the impact on our river water quality; over the last two years, the data for Wales has shown that around 100,000 spills per annum are going into our rivers.
Q2 Chair: Thank you very much. Jon Khoo, what is your take, please?
Jon Khoo: I would concur with Gail’s picture. We did a bit of checking on Welsh Water’s background, as one of the main providers, and it is basically pretty much the same: sewage was spilled 98,286 times in 2021—that is 808,000 hours of sewage being spilled into the waterways.
Equally, in terms of data from the water companies, we saw 193 alerts for sewage being discharged into bathing sites. Now, bathing sites are very important, because they tend to have better measurement—they are a good way to keep account. In 2022, the largest number of spills—37—was at Llandudno, which the Committee will know is a popular tourist destination, and there were 37 spills.
People think of clean water as a basic human right, but we think it is also the connection between our communities and nature. Water quality is a significant issue and a problem, but also an opportunity for Wales to step forward, be progressive and really demonstrate that any promises and talk can be followed by walk.
Q3 Chair: By way of follow-up, there was quite a lot of publicity last year, when Wales was, I think, awarded 53 blue flag awards for beaches, specifically because of good water quality. That is obviously being used as a key marketing point for promoting Wales as a tourist location. Is there a difference between bathing water off the coast and rivers? When we talk about pollution in Wales—Ms Davies-Walsh referred to the fact that the situation is not good—are we mainly thinking about rivers? Is there less of a problem with the waters off our coasts?
Jon Khoo: The nature of the problem is different, but the threat of pollution is pretty equal. I am sure that Angela and Gail will be able to cover more on the river side, but on the coastal side this is mainly about effluent and sewage coming from our towns; you are not going to see so much on the agricultural side, but I will leave that to my colleagues here. So I don’t think you want to be saying either/or—both need to be significantly tackled as problems.
Q4 Chair: Ms Jones, you have done a lot of strong work in this area. Are Welsh rivers safe to swim in and enjoy as a bather?
Angela Jones: I have been asked that question many, many times. Over 40 years I have been in and on the river, and the huge decline in the last six years has been diabolical. I witness it at first hand. I witness the sewage coming in—the untreated sewage. The Wye and the Usk are my rivers, but the Wye is a cross-border river. We have a huge problem with poultry in the Wye: it is absolutely decimating the whole ecosystem and hugely needs to be addressed.
But we also have the likes of Welsh Water just pumping in. The evidence I have collected over the years shows the diabolical state of things—it really does. Human health and animal health are all about this. We are losing these wonderful ecosystems, which we hold so dear. There are thousands of people around the country just like myself who love their river or their coastline and who are witnessing exactly the same.
Q5 Chair: Yet there has apparently been a growth in pursuits like wild swimming and paddle boarding on the Wye and other Welsh rivers. Is your advice to people not to go out on the rivers? Is the situation as bad as that?
Angela Jones: I won’t take anybody in the river. I test regularly. I have trained up many volunteers. On the Wye and the Usk, we have over 340 citizen science volunteers testing the water. We are sharing data with scientists that clearly shows the pollution hotspots. I know every combined storm outlet on the Wye and the Usk; I know every intensive poultry unit; and I know when they have muck-spread. Certain sections of the river I will not even touch.
For six or seven weeks in the summer months, when the river levels were so low and the green algal blooms were so dangerous, I told everybody—families, children—to stay out of the water. Not only were the wildlife struggling, but if anyone goes into the river, it is dangerous. I have had so many reports of people being ill. I would go into the river only when I test and know it is in those levels. All the other times, I will stay out of it.
Q6 Chair: Thank you. Can I come back to you, Mr Khoo? Surfers Against Sewage run this very effective campaign tool: a system of alerts to your supporters when there is a sewage discharge from a storm overflow. That triggers emails to water companies, regulators and ourselves as Members of Parliament. Sometimes the constituent who writes to us following one of those alerts from yourselves will say that the bathing water is not safe in a particular beach location. When I, as a constituency Member, have raised that with Natural Resources Wales, for example, they have often said, “Well, if the water quality is okay, it is not a threat to health.” Do you disagree with the way that the regulators are looking at this issue?
Jon Khoo: I find it troubling that there is a disconnect there. Clearly, if we are hearing from our citizens and communities that they are getting sick, it is happening. Equally, if we marry that up alongside the data given by the water companies, we are seeing that too.
The service you refer to is our safer seas & rivers service, which is very important in citizens being able to give that data. In the same way as Ms Jones, we will talk about citizen science. We are trying to fill a gap, and to ensure that the data is being added to and the companies are hearing when there is any form of spill. They are hearing the effects of that sickness as well.
I will not take too much of the Committee’s time on this, but one thing I was going to say is that when you think about when someone gets sick, on average they are going to be off work for two days. This is Charl’s view from Poppit West, from our water quality report. This is the kind of thing you will get through your constituents. Charl said, “Poppit beach was stinking. The river I was fishing in…had a slick on the surface. There was a gut-wrenching stench of raw sewage. I had to take a day off work because eyes were sore, swollen, red and itchy.”
Think of every day off work for Charl there—just think how many other people are having to miss out on potential pay or having to take sick days because all they did was want to connect with nature and go for a swim. With the service, we feel that we have to contact you, as MPs, and we have to contact local councils because we are not being listened to.
Another area we may wish to explore is whether the water companies and Natural Resources Wales are taking on board such data, whether qualitative or quantitative, from our service or from citizen scientists such as those Ms Jones works with.
Q7 Chair: What was the beach you just referred to?
Jon Khoo: Poppit West, in Pembrokeshire.
Chair: Wayne, did you want to come in on this?
Q8 Wayne David: Ms Jones, you mentioned that things have actually deteriorated significantly over the last six years. It has been suggested that that is because of climate change; there are more storms, heavy water and sewage overflows. Is there a direct correlation between the two?
Angela Jones: Obviously, we have climate change and we have bigger storms, but I can speak closely about the Wye. It is the nation’s favourite river. We have had a massive increase in poultry farming; manure is spread over the land, and it is running straight into the Wye. We then have sewage on top of that. We have IPUs—intensive poultry units—that have overtaken the land and put the river on a cliff edge. I monitor the salmon and the eels below the surface—everything. From the fisherman to the child who wants to swim, the wildlife has been absolutely decimated.
It is a cross-border river. We need to have a cross-border taskforce to look at that. I have been to so many meetings where we have had dates and people saying this is going to happen and that has happened. Nothing has happened. We have probably got about a year left on the Wye before we lose that river ecology.
The Usk is very similar, but the Usk is not about poultry; it is agriculture, run-off and sewage. Welsh Water is in both those rivers. I see it at first hand, because, like I said, I am below the surface monitoring the aquatic life. I sleep on its banks. I take people in for their health and wellbeing. The youngest is three and the maturest is 96. I think I am independent of everybody. When I gave birth to my children I became a guardian, but I am exactly the same for nature.
I took a weekend off to go down to the coast at Pembrokeshire. I went in at Wiseman’s Bridge to kayak around the coast, and there was a huge amount of sewage coming out of there. I said to an adventure company, “How long has that been going on?” and they said, “We didn’t notice it.” I had my testing kit. There were phosphates and nitrates. I am trying to get away from pollution, but this is going on in the whole of Wales. Like I said, the Wye, poultry and sewage need to be addressed. What is the legacy of this Government going to be?
Q9 Chair: When you say “this Government”, which Government are you talking about?
Angela Jones: We have the Welsh Government and Westminster. I feel privileged that I am sitting here in front of all parties today. I am just the Wild Woman of the Wye, as they call me. I don’t want to be out there. I don’t want to be camping. This is so out of my comfort zone, but I am passionate about saving it and I feel like it is being let down drastically.
Chair: Thank you.
Q10 Wayne David: On the point about Government, you mentioned in your response that many of the issues that you have cited need to be tackled on a cross-border basis.
Angela Jones: Yes.
Q11 Wayne David: Is there any form of dialogue or approach between the Welsh Government and the UK Government to tackle the issues that you have referred to?
Gail Davies-Walsh: Shall I pick that up? Yes, there are, but I think that needs challenging and I certainly think that that needs improving. In the case of the Wye, there has been a Wye nutrient management board since 2019. That board was set up because of failure on a tributary of the Wye in England and therefore it was an England-based nutrient management board to start off with. But it was clear that the issues on the Wye were originating in Wales, and it took some time for the Welsh regulatory bodies to come into the room and join that group and start looking at that on a cross-border basis.
We need to remember that we have three cross-border rivers in Wales—the Wye, the Severn and the Dee—and the scenario is no different on any of those rivers. To have a solution put in place here, we need to get over what is devolved and what is not devolved and which Government it sits under, because we have to have consistent policies on both sides of the border if we are to make a change.
Q12 Wayne David: That is an important point. So you see a real problem that has not been tackled.
Gail Davies-Walsh: Yes.
Q13 Geraint Davies: Angela Jones, can I pursue this issue about the Wye? My understanding is that the company responsible—the US company Cargill, which is responsible for hundreds of these chicken farms—previously got sued by the city of Tulsa in 2001 for excessive pollution, and they are making up the same excuses. Would you agree with me that the sudden increase in the devastation of the Wye over recent years is a matter of chicken manure on top of existing discharges from human sewage and that it has got to such a critical level that action needs to be taken now?
Angela Jones: Thank you, Geraint, for bringing that up, because that is exactly what has happened. Permission has been given for intensive poultry farming, but this is not farming. I have sat with farmers, the EA and Natural Resources Wales, and this is not about farming—this is huge American companies coming over here, doing exactly the same as they did there. The data is out there on how they decimated their own rivers and lakes; now they have come here, because the regulators that are supposed to be out there stopping this and regulating those rivers are not regulating. The fines are not out there.
The evidence I have includes video evidence and testing. When I meet the regulators at a section that is highly polluted, they turn up without a kit. When I offer them my evidence, or anything we have collected, they do not want to look into it. Natural Resources Wales is not doing the job and is not fit for purpose. You can see by their reports, and how they go back on those reports, how they are getting it so wrong. That really needs to be looked at.
Q14 Geraint Davies: The issue is what should be done and who should do it. Obviously, we have Natural Resources Wales, because Environment Agency Wales got hived off from Environment Agency England and Wales. That does not solve the cross-border nature of rivers, as Gail mentioned. We have Ofwat and Welsh Water, and the Welsh Government and the UK Government. Basically, your view is that somebody should somehow intervene to control the discharge from these chicken farms.
Angela Jones: Straightaway. The land is phosphate-loaded, as it is, and more manure is going on to it. There are no buffers stopping it; when it comes down the field, there are no margins or buffers to stop it washing into the water. We probably have about a year left.
The Wye is where tourism started; it is the nation’s favourite river. It crosses borders; nature crosses borders—nature knows no borders. We are killing that river and overloading it by poultry farming. That needs to be addressed urgently. We do not want that type of farming.
Then, we have Welsh Water, whom I meet, and they say that the combined storm outlet should be used only in a storm—it is not. I sleep on the banks. I’m in that water. I film it when the sewage is coming in in the middle of the night. Recently, in 24 hours, I filmed 15 releases from a CSO going in without a permit. That needs to be addressed.
Q15 Geraint Davies: Can I turn to Gail, now? Obviously, I am interested in your view on chicken farms as well. In terms of the combination, if you like, of sewage discharge, agricultural discharge and chicken discharge, how are we doing in Wales? In a nutshell, what action do you think should be taken, not by the water companies, but by Government generally? Maybe the water companies cannot, for example, sort out the chicken farms.
Gail Davies-Walsh: We have a great variation in terms of whether it is agricultural impact or sewage impact on our rivers at the moment. It is complex, and they are both adding to that failure on water quality. As Angela said, that became very pronounced on the Wye because of the eutrophication algal bloom failure there, but it is certainly not limited to the Wye.
It may interest you to know that the growth of poultry units in Wales is highest in Pembrokeshire at the minute, on Pembrokeshire rivers, and not on the River Wye. We need to be very aware of that because this problem is not just happening in one place; it is happening across Wales.
I am really concerned that, if we put focus and controls on specific rivers, the action taken has a consequence on another river in Wales. That has been very clear from the Wye, because some of the actions that were taken have ended up with subsequent impacts on the Usk, and that is very dominated at the moment by the application of slurry and sewage sludge to land and by the controls—or lack of controls—in Wales currently with regards to that. We see failure at every step of that process.
Q16 Geraint Davies: Just so I am clear about this moving from the Wye to the Usk, are there systems available to actually process this slurry without just dumping it in rivers and causing phosphorous pollution, or would we have to close down these chicken farms? What are we saying?
Gail Davies-Walsh: Some units are directly spreading to land; for some units, it is part of their nutrient management plans, which are passed through planning, that their waste gets taken to anaerobic digesters. And anaerobic digester is processing that waste, but we have to remember that the end product is a highly concentrated nutrient digestate, and the only place that that is going currently is also on land. At the moment, the required controls linked to that are not being enforced and regulated, and therefore, unfortunately, there is a significant chance that that will just become run-off into our rivers. That is where the water quality failures are coming.
Q17 Geraint Davies: Who should process that? A lot of this conversation will be about Welsh Water and the like, and I will be coming on to talk about water and sewage bills, but who should be responsible for the pollution you have just mentioned?
Gail Davies-Walsh: That sits with two bodies, as far as I am concerned. One is local authorities, as competent authorities under the habitats directive. They approve development, both agricultural and housing, and in that approval process they should ensure that there is appropriate disposal of waste and that that disposal is then enforced and regulated with Natural Resources Wales.
Q18 Geraint Davies: Finally, just so we are clear on this chicken thing, we have heard about other problems—the destruction of crabs in the north-east and all this sort of stuff—but are you saying that there is a case for lower-level, less intensive, less mass-produced chicken farming and a return to a more “with nature” approach, which would not generate this massive concentration of pollution and environmental harm?
Gail Davies-Walsh: There is, but we have to sort the waste product controls out. I actually get quite flabbergasted that what we have is a very high-nutrient end product, and, at the moment, it is a waste product. Meanwhile, we have an agricultural community that is having a really difficult time at the minute financially, and it is purchasing fertilisers at high cost, so we have a complete circular economy failure: we are not resolving what to do with a waste end product that could actually provide a UK-based support system for fertilisation. But that can only be done if soils are sampled, and we know that they require nutrients. There is extremely high evidence that, in Wales, particularly on the River Wye, those farms are already saturated with nutrients and do not need any additional fertilisation.
Q19 Wayne David: So should many of these issues be considered initially at the planning stage of the process, and enforced by local authorities in part afterwards?
Gail Davies-Walsh: Yes.
Q20 Geraint Davies: Jon, we are now seeing water and sewage bills going up in Wales again. What should the priorities be in terms of storm overflows and the like, and what more should be done? There is a combination of problems here, isn’t there?
Jon Khoo: A couple of things. One of the things I am conscious of and concerned about is any idea that the cost of clearing up this mess that has been made gets passed to normal people, because in the midst of a cost of living crisis, I feel like it is passing the buck.
What is interesting with Welsh Water is that it is actually set up very differently from other water companies, in that it is a not-for-profit. I kind of wish that other companies across the border, in England and Scotland, were set up in the same way. If you could look at what those profits are and allocate them appropriately to tackle sewage pollution and CSOs, that would be important.
I acknowledge that some of the water companies, when you talk to them, say that they are allocating money to help people with their benefits. On the menu of the options that they have, however, cleaning up their act on sewage pollution surely has to be one of those options. The opportunity here is for Natural Resources Wales and the Welsh Government—and yourselves—to ask some questions of Welsh Water, as it is not for profit, about how the right decisions can be made to tackle a very serious issue not only ecologically, but socially, for communities of Wales.
Q21 Geraint Davies: The not-for-profit model encourages reinvestment in efficiencies and environmental support of any surplus the profit maximising might generate—you are looking at minimising costs. In England in particular, there are problems of leakage and the like. Meanwhile, the situation in Wales is that we export our water—we don’t get paid for it—and we have longer pipes, because there is more dispersal of people. Have you any views on the fact that people in Wales probably have to pay higher bills, even though the company is not profiteering?
Jon Khoo: That is an issue that you will probably hear from your constituents about, because some of that is likely to be highlighted. The key here is that the water industry as a whole has to hold itself more to account. You all see us complaining when we look at the salaries and how the profits are being spent. I would say that it is unfair, if the situation in Wales is that the bills are higher to compensate for what is happening across the border. Put that alongside the person who is having to take two days off work sick because they went for a dip in the local river. That will make those particular constituents unhappy, which is good because it means we get more reports and more focus on the issue. The key here is that the water companies have to be held accountable, and the regulators have to back up the taskforces and the talks with actual action and accountability.
Chair: Thank you. I will bring in Wayne David in a moment. Mr Khoo, I want to go back to the point you made about Welsh Water being not for profit. There is a view, shared by some people, that that has let Welsh Water off the hook over the years, in terms of not being asked the tough questions about outcomes because it is seen as being substantially different from the privatised water companies. When you drill into the data and look at outcomes for water leaks, pollution incidents, salaries and bonuses, and all the other metrics that the public might judge a water company on, Welsh Water looks pretty average alongside all the privatised bodies. I just put that out there, because it must not prevent us from asking the questions and holding Welsh Water accountable.
Q22 Wayne David: In recent times, we have heard a lot about the impact of leaving the European Union on legislation generally, and particularly in one area that the EU has focused on in the past, which is the environment and water quality. Has leaving the EU had any impact on regulations that have been devolved—to the UK or the Welsh Government—or has that not been an issue?
Gail Davies-Walsh: I do not consider that to be an issue at all at the moment. The standards that we are being measured against in Wales are consistent with the standards across Europe. There has been no weakening of that legislation. In fact, if anything, the Welsh Government are sending very strong signals that legislation in Wales, and particularly environmental legislation, will remain at the current standards as a minimum.
Q23 Wayne David: Going on to a slightly more technical question, the important limitation of event duration monitors is that they do not record volume and load of discharges. Is that true? Are we at fault for not measuring properly what is being discharged into rivers?
Gail Davies-Walsh: Yes. Water companies were asked to implement event duration monitors. As you said, those are simple trigger mechanisms, and they count only spills and the duration that the spill is operating for. I sit on the Welsh Government taskforce on sewer overflows, and this is one of the areas that the taskforce has been looking at. It is asking water companies in Wales to start reporting real-time CSO operations from 2023, and it is also looking at whether more monitoring needs to be put in place. One of the commitments from the Welsh Government through that taskforce is that all CSOs in Wales will be not ecologically harmful. That is quite a different commitment that is being made in Wales, compared with England, and that will require upstream and downstream monitoring of all CSOs in Wales.
Q24 Wayne David: What is the timescale for that to be introduced?
Gail Davies-Walsh: That will be going into water companies’ business plans, which are being pulled together at the moment, looking at the 2025 to 2030 period.
Q25 Wayne David: I want to ask about how we measure the quality of water. I am a lay person, and many of the technicalities, frankly, go over my head, but it has been suggested that the discharges and their contents are not monitored in a comprehensive way—it is very selective. Ms Jones, would you agree with that?
Angela Jones: Definitely. A lot of the CSOs are self-monitored by Welsh Water themselves. I have video footage of CSOs releasing when they have not been recorded by Welsh Water, and then I have to show Welsh Water those videos. There was not a citizen science group on the River Usk, so I started one up there. I have 42 trained volunteers. We are seeing regular discharges of sewage and debris. We have sanitary towels coming down. On 4 August,* during one of the driest weeks of the year, when the river levels were really low, the CSO was pumping out poo and toilet paper. There were about 20 or 30 children and their families 100 metres down from the CSO. Welsh Water came to this incident, and they had a big vehicle full of water—we were in drought. They hosed down the CSO and shouted to the children, “Please get out of the water—there’s debris coming down.” I have that all on video. That is what is happening.
People are being told that if they do not agree to this sewage going into the water, it is going to come up in their houses. Normal people out there who listen to this will think, “It’s going to cost us a fortune to fix this,” or, “We’re going to have a backlog in our houses.” When it is a storm overflow and it comes up, that is fair enough—at certain times it has to—but it is not the case here. I meet up with Welsh Water, and they do not even know when they are releasing—they do not know this information. It is really sad to think that children and our future generations cannot play.
Q26 Wayne David: That is a very graphic description you have given us. Mr Khoo, would you say that the same thing applies to the sea when all that stuff comes down?
Jon Khoo: Yes. When we are thinking of coastal, and also rivers, in terms of human health, what we are really focusing on is antibiotic-resistant bacteria, viruses and microplastics, and also what else is coming out. That is the focus. I am not sure we have all those covered yet.
It is also about the quality of the data. I am grateful that a number of water companies are providing more real-time data, which they can even plug into the various apps that we and others have, but is not all year round, and it is not consistent across the board. One of the key things is that you cannot manage what you do not measure. If we make sure that that data is coming through and we have that transparency and that dialogue about where they are not doing enough, and we use the data where things are improving, that continued dialogue and that sophistication of choosing the right measures can move things forward, but we are very much not there today, in 2023.
Q27 Chair: Thank you very much. I am going to bring in Rob, who has been very patient, in a moment. On the issue of measuring, Welsh Water told me just over a year ago that it had been inaccurately measuring data from its pumping station near Newport beach in north Pembrokeshire—a very popular tourist location. It previously said that there had been 24 spills during the course of 2020, but the revised figure was 193—that is just in one pumping station in one part of my constituency. When you hear information like that, does it give you confidence that Welsh Water is monitoring accurately? Mr Khoo just said that you can’t tackle what you are not measuring, but that is predicated on accurate measuring of what the problem is.
Gail Davies-Walsh: I think we have failures of monitoring in many different places, and we need to be clear about that. Water companies have their own responsibilities around monitoring—for example, EDMs. Do we have confidence in that? My position is that that is why we have regulators in this country. It is a regulatory role to ensure that the monitoring is being done properly and look at the performance of that data. That is both with Natural Resources Wales and Ofwat, which, after all, is a financial regulator and should be ensuring that the investment that water companies get is being spent properly and is going towards where it needs to go.
Equally, our monitoring network in this country actually sits with our environmental regulators. Compliance on those rivers with standards and thresholds is measured by a monitoring network that is managed by them. That monitoring network is also inadequate at the moment. That can be seen in many different regulatory reports. In 2021, the phosphorous compliance assessments published by Natural Resources Wales showed five SAC rivers failing. It also showed that large parts of those rivers were unmonitored, so there was insufficient evidence to do those assessments. We do not know what is going on with them because there is no monitoring network in place.
Chair: That is very helpful.
Q28 Rob Roberts: I will preface what I am about to say by saying, just for the avoidance of doubt, that I agree with everything I have heard. It is important to look at the rest of the subject in the round, so I am going to play devil’s advocate a bit.
I want to pick up a few things that have been said. There is no excuse for discharges when there hasn’t been heavy rainfall—I completely agree—so action should be taken for breach of those permit conditions. Angela said a moment ago that people have been scared by the notion of sewage coming up in their houses and things like that. In some casework I had last year after a period of heavy rainfall, someone sent me pictures and videos of sewage flowing down the street past their house. How real a possibility do you think that is? You kind of dismissed it and said, “That’s scaremongering; it’s not really going to happen,” but it could happen, couldn’t it, if these discharges don’t occur?
Angela Jones: Of course it could, but we have a water company that has under-invested in Victorian sewage pipelines for many years. That investment needs to go in. Tell me—you may not know—how many times Welsh Water has been held to account and fined for these pollution incidents. It is very, very minimal. We have chief executives on ginormous bonuses when we are all struggling to pay our bills, and then we are getting told our bills are going up and also we will have sewage in our homes. You are going to scaremonger everybody doing that. The people around this table need to speak up for the people of Wales and say, “This isn’t good enough. You might not be for profit, but please invest that money back into the ageing sewage system.”
Gail Davies-Walsh: I am really concerned at the moment that we are going to start pitching environmental improvement against affordability. The costs of trying to fix sewer overflows alone—nothing else that a water company does—is in the billions of pounds, and that cannot be afforded on the water bill. The first point is that we have to look at that and understand the financial consequences of the step change that needs to be made here. Equally, a water company has a wide range of water regulation activities. That includes sewer overflows, leakage, water efficiencies and wastewater treatment work compliance. We need them to deliver all of those.
I have had early sight of Welsh Water’s investment requirements for the next five-year period for sewer overflows, and it is very significant. We have to be aware that the money that might go towards sewer overflows is very likely going to be coming off some other area of delivery.
We have to understand how that is being done and what the funds will be prioritised against. We need it all, unfortunately, because it all, in one way or another, has an impact on these rivers. We have to be aware that the consequential impacts are huge. I think £45 billion is the current estimate to remove all CSOs from Welsh rivers. It is £15 billion to make them have no ecological impact. That cannot be met by a water bill increase.
Q29 Rob Roberts: 100%. That is where I was going. The figure I was given was hundreds of billions, but that was a UK-wide figure, so that’s fine.
Jon Khoo: To follow up, this is not a new issue. Surfers Against Sewage have been campaigning for 30 years, and there was obviously a problem before that occurred. In the age of social media, I am unsurprised that you are getting more videos and letters sent to you. That is going to become more the case.
On the last couple of questions, I honestly think the failures in measurement and the lack of coverage mean we are potentially looking at a kind of iceberg situation. We are seeing only a certain amount above the level.
The final thing I want to add is on this concept of dry spills. We are not only seeing sewage discharges during heavy rain, when they are permitted. We are seeing that, for example, on 4 August, as Angela mentioned. Last year for Welsh Water, in Wales as a whole, there were six potentially illegal dry spills.
When there is heavy rain, it is going to happen more, and we will see that more. But, outside of that, the fact that these events are potentially occurring means that there are significant flaws in the system, regardless of what is appearing in your inbox.
Q30 Rob Roberts: Absolutely. That is a problem of the regulators, as has been covered. On 15 March, we have Ofwat, Natural Resources Wales and the water companies coming in. You asked about who holds them to account, Angela, and we will do our best on that day. It could be an interesting session. What should the penalties be for these discharges that do not happen during heavy rainfall time?
Angela Jones: We should set an example. If you could fine the man—Natural Resources Wales can fine somebody £3,000 for panning for gold. We have a huge company like this that is constantly pouring it in. There is no deterrent to stop them doing this. We need to hold them to account. When they do have fines, those fines need to go back into the environment that they are destroying. There needs to be that circle.
Then there is planning. Planning permission is given all the time, very often even on overloaded sewerage systems. That needs to be looked into, as well. The regulator needs to do its job and regulate. Fine Welsh Water, and fine agriculture that is polluting our rivers. Put a deterrent out there. It is easy to do—just do it. We are being let down. I am speaking for the people. I am independent. We are all out there and we are so fed up with this.
Q31 Rob Roberts: Has Afonydd Cymru come up with any plan of what to do in terms of penalties, what to say to the regulators about what they should impose?
Gail Davies-Walsh: What we say to the regulators is that we need to see some enforcement and regulation going on. Because I do not see any at the minute across any sector, I have to say.
Q32 Rob Roberts: What would be enough? What would hurt? What would be enough for the companies to pay attention?
Gail Davies-Walsh: I have no idea in terms of size of fines. Some of those fines are already stipulated. The reality is that there are none being applied. Ofwat indicated to us nine months ago that it was undertaking an investigation on all water companies’ wastewater treatment work performance. I still have seen no outputs from that investigation, and I still don’t know what that investigation is looking at for Wales. The data is out there, and it should not be taking this long to be able to assess performance. If you look at a water company’s annual performance assessment that is published by Natural Resources Wales, to date there have not been any metrics in that assessment for sewer overflows at all. They will be going in for the first time from this March. The performance of the water companies has not even been measured against those metrics to date.
Jon Khoo: From my side, I am not going to give an amount; I do not have enough knowledge to do so. I would say that I am curious to think about the investment community and what involvement they can have. Outside of my work with Surfers Against Sewage, I work in sustainable business, and a lot of larger financial institutions are only looking to finance or give loans to companies that are following certain ESG approaches. There might be some pressure there. Equally, larger pension funds will be thinking about this. As much as they are thinking about carbon, they will also be thinking about sewage and chemistry health.
I would look at the area you see in the newspapers: the executives of the water companies and how high their salaries are. When we were talking earlier about bills potentially being increased to deal with sewage, I find that very difficult.
Q33 Rob Roberts: In fairness, there are so few water companies that if you knocked down the salaries of their executives, it would only knock a couple of pounds off each individual bill. Is it a little bit of a red herring to keep focusing on the salaries of executives, because that is not going to fix the problem?
Jon Khoo: If it leads those individuals to take action, then I think it is helpful. But you are right; those hundreds of thousands of pounds, spread out, are not going to make a difference. I also like the idea that any money from fines is transparently reinvested and ringfenced in some way to look at solving the problem. We should look at how that money might be spent. I think there should be more transparency on how those fines are used, for example, working with certain universities on new approaches. Poultry farming is finding the scientists who can turn that into a scaled way of getting new fertiliser nutrients to support other ecosystems. I think that would be a step forward and progressive. I hope that the water companies and Ofwat would not disagree with that as an angle.
Q34 Rob Roberts: Super quickly, as my time is running out: apart from not applying the rules—as the regulators do not seem to be issuing fines and doing their job—do you have any other criticisms of Ofwat and NRW, and what else they might not be doing to tackle this problem?
Gail Davies-Walsh: I am afraid to say, we have a bit of a broken system. We have a set of Welsh Government environmental commitments that are published, but whether Ofwat takes those into account has historically been an issue. The Welsh Government principles have potentially not been considered by Ofwat. It has recently published its final methodology, which has, for the first time, recognised some differences in Wales—yet I still see the forward metrics it is going to use to compare water companies do not account for the Welsh Government principles.
That puts the water companies in Wales in a position where the Government are telling them to deliver to one set of standards, but they are being measured by Ofwat by another set of standards. That type of nonsense, quite frankly, is not going to help any of us. It is just not getting the performance we need out of the companies we have got.
Equally, Ofwat, as part of its final methodology, has published things with respect to executive directors’ pay, as Mr Khoo said. It is also signalling that it will be looking for new metrics that will apply to shareholders and dividends of water companies. That cannot apply to Welsh Water, as a not-for-profit company. But, despite asking, it still has not been able to tell me what it could apply to a company like Welsh Water that is not for profit.
Q35 Rob Roberts: What else could the regulator be doing?
Gail Davies-Walsh: From Afonydd Cymru’s position, we are really clear that there are many jobs that many of us do. I look after rivers trusts in Wales, and those rivers trusts are out every day trying to work on projects on the rivers and deliver environmental improvements. The only thing that can be done, and it can only be done by an environmental regulator, is regulation and enforcement. In a cost of living crisis where we have constraints on budgets, some consideration needs to be given to whether the environmental regulator’s focus needs to be prioritised, so that it has sufficient resources and budget to deliver strong regulation and enforcement in Wales and leave some of the other activities to other bodies. There are lots of us out there—we have a massive group of really committed citizen scientists and a lot of ENGO networks who could support and help on the other delivery items.
Angela Jones: That is exactly what I was going to say. With citizen science, we have so many people testing the river. Use our data. It is the same equipment that NRW would use. We have scientists behind it. Let us do that part. Let us give you that information. Let us share that information. We need NRW to do their job.
Q36 Rob Roberts: Will they engage with you at all, or do you feel generally ignored in this whole system?
Angela Jones: As I said, I am independent. Everything I do is self-funded. I have sent legal letters to NRW where I have given them evidence that I have been collecting for years, and they have not been using it. I meet up with them. I tell them where I am, what I am doing and where the pollution is. For instance, slurry has been coming down from one particular farm for years. We have been monitoring it and testing it. It is way off the phosphate and nitrate levels. They have all the evidence—nothing. It is the same with one particular combined storm outlet, which has no permit. It made “Panorama” there—nothing. I cannot personally do any more than I am doing. I feel really privileged to be here today, because this is the highest stage that I can get to, for you to listen. Please help us with our rivers and our coastal waters.
Rob Roberts: That is very interesting; thank you.
Q37 Simon Baynes: Thank you very much for giving up your time today. Angela, you said that we are the highest level you can deal with. In a way, we are not really, because it is the Welsh Government who pull all the levers on this. I have listened carefully to the discussions this morning, but most of what we have been talking about is for the Welsh Government, with the exception of where there is a water company coming across the border, such as Severn Trent, which I know well because I grew up at Lake Vyrnwy, so I am well-attuned to the intricacies of a cross-border water company. We generally talk about reserved powers on the Welsh Affairs Committee, but to a large extent, this session relates to powers devolved to the Welsh Government and their agencies, such as NRW, which I have dealt with on pollution issues, so I can understand your frustration on that score. Welsh Water, in all honesty, is not coming out well at all from this discussion.
The purpose of this section of our questions is to look at Welsh Government policies. It seems to me that the vast bulk of what we are talking about goes back to the Welsh Government, and what they can do either directly or indirectly through the agencies they have set up. I believe that NRW is too big, and would be better off if its constituent parts addressed different aspects of the environment, but that is another issue.
While it is wonderful to see you here, Angela, in a way, this should be with the Senedd and the Welsh Government, because they are the people who can sort this out. They are the people who set up Welsh Water. I am not convinced that the not-for-profit model is necessarily being used to best advantage by our putting more back into investment. What is your assessment of the steps taken by the Welsh Government and the Wales Better River Quality Taskforce to tackle the problem of sewage discharges? We have touched on this, so you do not need to answer at length if you feel we have already covered it. Gail, let’s start with you.
Gail Davies-Walsh: As I have said, Afonydd Cymru were asked to join that taskforce as a technical adviser to the Welsh Government for the sewer overflows. I can give you an outline of where that taskforce has got to. There is now a published action plan for the Welsh Government, specifically for sewer overflows. That very detailed action plan sets out a framework that the Welsh Government have committed to, in terms of delivery of actions against sewer overflows. As Angela picked up, a really important point is that there are sewer overflows in Wales that are still unpermitted. That is part of a review that the taskforce has commenced of all CSO permits in Wales.
One of the challenges that we put forward was that we also need permits to be written in a way that makes them legally enforceable, because elements that Mr Khoo mentioned around exceptional rainfall mean that there are ambiguities about how permits can be applied and enforced against. We are asking for very specific conditions to be included in all permits in Wales, so that there is no lack of clarity about how CSOs must operate. There is a commitment to put screens on all CSOs in Wales. There is also, as I said, a commitment on real-time monitoring.
We are looking at the long-term commitments for sewer overflows, including making all CSOs in Wales not ecologically harmful. That commitment from the Welsh Government is very different from what is being applied in England. Whereas in England a straight spill target is being set for sewer overflows, the taskforce decided that could be counterproductive. We would therefore look to ensure that investment prioritised removing the most harmful CSOs from our rivers. That work is ongoing; as you said, environmental legislation in Wales is devolved to the Welsh Government and is under the Environment (Wales) Act 2016.
Is there more to do? Absolutely, a lot more, and we need to look at how that can be done when there is turmoil about financial commitments, and nervousness about the signals coming from the UK Government about the weakening of EU legislation and primary environmental legislation in Wales.
Simon Baynes: Angela, do you want to comment? You have talked passionately about sewage discharge, and it has been really helpful, but I don’t know whether you want to add anything.
Angela Jones: Can you say the question again, please?
Q38 Simon Baynes: Certainly. What is your assessment of the steps taken by the Welsh Government and the Wales Better River Quality Taskforce to tackle the problem of sewage discharges?
Angela Jones: I don’t think they have done enough. I think we are being let down, and they could do a lot more, but given that we have cross-border rivers, it is a real struggle to get that to happen. We need Westminster to step up as well. I keep going back to the Wye, but it is my river, as is the Usk. Talk to any fisherman, or any child who wants to go into those rivers. Both rivers are on the verge of ecological collapse. It is not just me saying that; the data is out there. I have done so much table-talking and listening over the years, but if we don’t act now, we have lost those rivers.
Poultry farming needs to be addressed now; there is no question about that. We must also address sewage, CSOs and pumping. I am on the river at night and I see them pump out. Water is life, and it is awful to think that we are losing those beautiful, gorgeous spaces that we all enjoy, and that are great for our mental health. We will not be able to get them back once they are gone.
Jon Khoo: I concur with the comments by Ms Jones and Ms Davies-Walsh. There is some good talk and good noises, but with the set-up and the structure, there seem to be too many easy ways for there to be inaction and for things to move much more slowly than they need to.
On the devolved-versus-Westminster point, the fact that we are here shows that this is an issue of national significance; perhaps you guys can help us drive things forward in Wales, or raise this as a UK issue as well. It is very important in the hearts and minds of people across the nation. We do not have time to wait, stuck in bureaucracy, or for people to argue—“You weren’t delivering,” or “You didn’t do this”. We need the taskforces to be effective, and to focus on delivery and accountability, so that in 10, 20 or 30 years’ time, we do not regret not acting for future generations.
Q39 Simon Baynes: Do you make similar representations to the Senedd and the Welsh Government? That is obviously the key body to be discussing this with.
Jon Khoo: We would be more than willing to, but I suspect that Ms Jones probably gets more invitations. We would be more than happy to share our data and experience from around the country.
Q40 Simon Baynes: Have you sat in the Senedd, in a similar environment to this forum, and made these points?
Jon Khoo: We have not had an invitation to share that data. We would more than welcome it.
Q41 Simon Baynes: We can certainly reflect that back to the Senedd, because that is the key body to discuss this with.
Jon Khoo: The other angle is that we have a great set of reps, as we call them, out in communities who are noticing things and partaking in citizen science. We can provide the data we have, including good qualitative data on people’s experiences.
Simon Baynes: My other question was to do with the role of Government and the water companies, but I think we have covered that, to a great extent.
Angela Jones: Can I just say that I am going to the Senedd tomorrow? I make myself known down there. Tomorrow, NRW will be down there with its reports, so I follow through, of course.
Q42 Chair: Here in Westminster, there has been a furious row about water quality. There were votes on changing legislation. There was a bit of an arm wrestle, and the Government were forced to take a stronger approach to the legislation that they were creating, to put stronger duties on the water companies. When you are in the middle of those political rows, it might not be comfortable if you are a member of the party in Government, because all the attention is focused on you, but it is a healthy thing for our democracy that we have that spotlight and scrutiny. I do not see that same political argument happening in Wales about water quality, if I am honest. When you go to the Senedd, I would encourage you to try to foment more discussion and dissent about this.
Angela Jones: I do.
Chair: Consensus is the enemy to progress on this issue. That is my feeling, anyway.
Q43 Wayne David: The Welsh Government has said that if we are to tackle this issue, particularly storm overflows, “We need a cross sectoral, holistic approach”. That is an important phrase, because it indicates the complexity of the issue we are talking about. For example, we referred to the problems around planning consent being given for chicken farms, houses or whatever. All too often, the presumption is in favour of development. There are numerous examples of local authorities taking a strong stance, but then the developer appeals to the Welsh Government, and the consent is invariably passed. It strikes me that, more broadly, we need to look at the nature of planning consent, and whether there is a need to adopt a more vigorous approach—this is a devolved issue—so that the Welsh Government insists on stronger stipulations with regard to planning consent in a whole host of areas.
As you say, all too often, there is strain; in this case, strain is being put on the Victorian sewage system in most parts, but that is seldom a material consideration in planning consent. Perhaps it should be.
Gail Davies-Walsh: The phosphorus compliance assessments that were reported in 2021 have resulted in a complete planning embargo on five SAC rivers in Wales, so there is no development on those rivers at the moment. That is not a different position from that in England.
That planning embargo is taking up a lot of focus and attention from the Welsh Government and other bodies in Wales, which are looking at how that planning embargo can be released. That is a requirement around something called nutrient neutrality—ensuring that no new developments will add any nutrients to those rivers. That is in place and is extremely robust at the moment, but planning applications still get through, and we still see installations that operate without any planning consent whatsoever.
I always look at rivers on a whole catchment basis, and what we have is a failure in planning. Decisions are made and passed by local authorities that have a boundary on a river, without their looking at the cumulative impact of those planning applications on the river as a whole. That is an absolute failure of the UK planning system.
Wayne David: That is very helpful. Thank you.
Q44 Geraint Davies: Gail, can I ask you about water capture on buildings? I ask this because, obviously, with climate change, there is more rain and more storm surges, and there is overflow of Victorian sewers. Is there a case for capture of water on buildings and elsewhere, so that it is held in butts then gradually released to ease the impact on sewage overflows?
Gail Davies-Walsh: Yes. I think that is a really important point—that we don’t lose sight of why sewer overflows work as they do. It is because the sewer is carrying a lot of water, and not just sewage.
Over the last 10 or 15 years, there has been an enormous increase in the volume of rainwater that sewers are carrying. That comes from poor land management—land run-off—and urban and highways drainage; that is all entering the sewer system.
The long-term, sustainable way to get sewer overflows to work properly, and to remove the issue that we have with river water quality, is to remove that rainwater from the sewer system. That requires a complex and complete review of how the water is managed. It is being managed in the simplest and cheapest way, which is basically by our discharging it straight into the sewer.
The Welsh Government led with legislation for sustainable urban drainage, so that is already in place in Wales. That requires all new development in Wales to be accompanied by sustainable urban drainage solutions, so that no run-off from a new development goes into the sewer. However, we have to accept that we have really old housing stock in Wales, and there is still no solution for existing houses, and for highways drainage.
Q45 Geraint Davies: You could retrofit them with butts, couldn’t you?
Gail Davies-Walsh: It will need much more than that, I am afraid. It needs a complete landscape step change. We need to go right back to the start of our river catchments.
At the minute, we are trying to fix solutions at the end of pipe, or the end of the catchment, where the flooding is taking place. We need to look at solutions that remove water wholesale from much higher up the catchment, so that we never get to the point of flooding. That will need nature-based solutions—wetland storage and attenuation ponds. Those things are on a much bigger scale than the solutions that we are looking at.
Q46 Geraint Davies: That is true about storage, yes. Finally, can you comment on the impact of the Environment Act 2021, as compared to the Environment (Wales) Act 2016? There has been revocation of EU legislation as well. How do those changes protect or undermine progress on the environment in Wales, compared with England?
Gail Davies-Walsh: The Environment (Wales) Act 2016 is the legislation in Wales. The 2021 Act is for England only; some of it brings in provisions that are already in place in Wales, so I don’t see it making a fundamental difference to Wales. However, the weakening of EU legislation really concerns me, because if it is removed, there is no primary environmental legislation in Wales. Things such as planning legislation would overrule any environmental legislation that exists. That clearly cannot be right, because we then could not implement the changes that we need in planning. The signal that I have been given by the Welsh Government is that they are committed to ensuring that EU legislation of that standard will remain in Wales.
Q47 Geraint Davies: But they cannot ensure that. If the legislation falls out of bed because Westminster doesn’t review it or assimilate it, as it is not primary in Wales, the environmental protections will be removed from Wales by default.
Gail Davies-Walsh: Correct, and therefore it would have to be looked at for primary legislation in Wales.
Geraint Davies: So it is particularly concerning.
Q48 Chair: On a point of clarity, it is thoroughly within the Welsh Government’s competence to legislate to maintain standards in Wales. That is my understanding.
Gail Davies-Walsh: That is my understanding as well.
Q49 Geraint Davies: So that we are clear on this, if the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill goes through, and various protections that are underpinned by primary legislation in Westminster don’t get assimilated, those protections will be lost in Wales, won’t they?
Gail Davies-Walsh: I believe so, yes.
Geraint Davies: That is for the record.
Chair: I think we risk going round in circles. This is a very familiar subject to you, Geraint. Ben Lake.
Q50 Ben Lake: Thank you very much for your time this morning. We have had quite a bit of discussion about the Welsh Water sewage discharges and discharges by water companies. I represent a rural area, and one thing that struck me was that a lot of domestic households might not be connected to the mains water system and will instead have septic tanks. I am interested to know whether that concerns you, whether you are aware of seepages or leakages, and how we might tackle that. As far as I am aware, there doesn’t seem to be a clear body or way of monitoring any discharges or leakages from those types of self-contained, independent systems.
Angela Jones: I have seen it at first hand: septic tanks overflowing and going into the river, and businesses that are on septic tanks releasing into the river. We have to address that as well. It has to be regulated. We think it is about 10% of what is getting into our rivers. It is very broad. Agricultural run-off is major.
We talk about planning in terms of housing, but we are still getting planning on more intensive poultry units. If permission is withheld, they apply for extensions, and that is still being passed. I always say to people that I never want to grow my business. It is all about that circle—connecting it all together. We start in homes, looking after what we have got, and then we go into the outdoors and protect and respect that. I have been campaigning for the last five or six years. I am dyslexic and I do not have any home internet, but I try to hold polluters to account and gather this amount of data and just keep going. I get absolutely bombarded by vigilantes trying to knock me off what I’m trying to do. There’s no ulterior motive than to bring change. We really are letting our rivers and coastal waters down. I am sorry, but it is so close to my heart.
Q51 Ben Lake: Thank you, that is very useful. Gail?
Gail Davies-Walsh: If I can pick up on septic tanks, there is actually a requirement for them to be registered in Wales.
Ben Lake: Who monitors that?
Gail Davies-Walsh: That is Natural Resources Wales again. Have all septic tanks been registered? Absolutely not. Do people even know that they need to register their septic tanks? I don’t think so. Even if they are registered, what actual inspection and regulation of those septic tanks is going on? Some of our rivers are certainly suffering impacts from septic tanks.
For many people, when they think about septic tanks, they think about tanks in a domestic property, but in Wales septic tanks are actually used for much bigger solutions to sewage treatment. There are hospitals with septic tanks, for example; there are schools and housing developments with them, too. Some of those septic tanks are actually extremely large-scale solutions. Angela is right that the Usk was found to be dominated by a septic tank impact of about 10%, but other rivers certainly are as well. We have lots of rural areas in Wales that aren’t connected to the main sewer, so it is a really important element. I am aware of a Welsh Government review ongoing at the moment that is looking at the number of licensed septic tanks against the sewered network to see how large-scale that problem is and how it can be identified.
Q52 Ben Lake: It seems that NRW is supposed to be monitoring and overseeing quite a few different things here. This is another aspect of concern. I represent Ceredigion, which has the headwaters and sources of a number of Wales’s most important rivers, including the Teifi and the Tywi. I know that there have been concerns from local river groups in the past about the acidification of some of the headwaters due to some planting schemes and intensive forestry. Very briefly, do you think NRW is undertaking its role effectively?
Gail Davies-Walsh: Crikey, we have opened a whole new can of worms. We have very acidified waters on those two catchments. We also have a very large element of coniferous plantations on those catchments, which are exacerbating that issue. The joining of a single body for natural resources included a forestry element for Natural Resources Wales, which owns significant amounts of that forestry plantation. As rivers trusts, we have huge concerns about not just the current coniferous plantations on those catchments, but the enormous amount of applications for new plantations that are coming in at the moment on Welsh rivers, which, really frustratingly, are being passed and given consent to be planted, and they are being planted with even more conifer trees. As far as I am concerned, it is a failure of planning that we are allowing those types of plantations to go in on a river that is already failing for its river water quality and is already designated for its acid-sensitive waters. That is a completely new problem. There is something very badly failing there at the moment.
Q53 Ben Lake: That is very useful. It feeds into the general impression we have had today that there is a severe failing of both enforcement—I think there is a lot to be said about greater enforcement powers and more stringent enforcement on these issues—and the fundamental structure of the planning system.
I will turn finally to the balance between governmental regulators and the water company itself. Again to be parochial for a moment, I represent a rural constituency that suffers from a severe shortage of housing, for both rent and ownership. At present there can be no planning for new homes, schools or care homes along the Teifi and its tributaries, which is understandable because of the phosphate issue. There is concern that in the next few weeks—potentially a month or so—there will be similar embargoes for the marine side of things, so you will have a situation where, in the entirety of Ceredigion, you cannot plan or develop at all. There is a social cost there. Is it the case that we should be far more stringent with water companies to introduce things such as phosphate stripping in wastewater treatment centres? Where do you think the balance lies? How much of that social cost should be put on to the water companies versus the regulators and the Government?
Gail Davies-Walsh: On some of Wales’s rivers, source apportionment work has already been undertaken and is published; it is certainly published for the Teifi, Wye and Usk. That clearly shows the origin of the nutrient failure and assigns that, in the main, to the water company contribution to that nutrient issue and the agricultural contribution. It is worth saying that that is very varied depending on where you are. For example, on Angela’s river, the Wye, it states that 72% of the failure is linked to agricultural impact. If you go across to the Teifi, it says that 67% of the impact is linked to wastewater treatment works. The picture is very different.
We are expecting the water companies to identify their investment requirements for the next five years to fix their impact on that nutrient imbalance. We expect that to be delivered by 2030, but that will require Ofwat and the Welsh Government to support the investment requirements needed for a water company and to make what will be very difficult decisions around affordability and the size of the water bill. What we cannot do is conflate the wider issues of the failure on those rivers that are from other sources.
I am devoting quite a lot of time through Afonydd Cymru at the minute to the issue of nutrient neutrality to try to support a process in Wales that will enable new development to commence, because that is important for the housing sector and the economy in Wales, but it needs to be done in a way that puts no further impact on to those rivers. We need to separate that problem from what is a much more long-term impact that has occurred on these rivers and a failure from other sectors. Everybody needs to own their part of the problem here and everybody needs to take the necessary steps to fix it.
Ben Lake: Thank you very much. That is really useful.
Chair: It has been a really interesting and insightful session this morning, so a huge thanks from all of us to you for giving us your time and expertise and being frank with your answers. You have given us lots of good material to take to our next session on this issue, which will happen next month when we will have Natural Resources Wales, Welsh Water—Dŵr Cymru—and Ofwat. Hopefully we will have all the right people in the room. Thank you. That brings the meeting to a close.
*Correction: Angela Jones subsequently confirmed that the date was, in fact, 14 August 2022.