It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Elliott. We need to be absolutely clear: nobody wants to see untreated sewage discharged into our rivers and seas. To suggest otherwise is quite frankly nonsense. I have the privilege of representing the wonderful constituency of St Austell and Newquay. It has two coasts, and hardly a week goes by when a constituent does not contact me about this issue.
To suggest that Conservative Members do not take this matter seriously, and at times are not angry about what is going on, is quite frankly wrong. This is the first Government to put in place a deliverable plan to address the issue and hold water companies to account. That is what we voted for, and that is what we are delivering. Yes, it could be quicker—and I know that because I had the privilege of being the Minister who launched the combined sewage discharge reduction plan. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), who did most of the work on that; I just got to do the glamorous bit and launch it. It contains a review date of 2025 to look at whether the delivery of the plan can be sped up. I urge the Minister and whoever is in the hot seat when the review takes place to continue to do that.
The Government are looking at planning reform, and if there is one thing we can do to help it is to speed up the planning process for water companies that want to upgrade their sewerage systems. Removing the red tape would help deliver the plan much quicker.
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