Thank you, Ms Elliott, for chairing us so efficiently. I thank the Minister for the responses she has given. I thank the other two Front-Bench speakers, the hon. Members for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) and for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), and all the other colleagues who have come forward with their ideas. With so many ideas having been put forward, would it be possible for the Minister’s Department to collate those in its response, so that we get a full response?
The hon. Member for Leeds North West asked whether we in East Sussex are satisfied. We are never satisfied in East Sussex! That is what keeps us here. My neighbours —my hon. Friends the Members for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart), for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell) and for Lewes (Maria Caulfield)—and I are in a car. It is the East Sussex car and we will continue to drive it.
I will say this to the hon. Member for Leeds North West: I could give him £56 billion-worth of reasons why I am happier, because this Government are the first to do something about it. No other Governments have. We should all encourage the Government for that.
The hon. Member for Leeds North West is right that I did vote with him and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne). However, we were not voting to end discharging, as has been put out on social media—not at all. It was just discharge at certain levels. Nobody who voted the other way was doing anything but voting for improvements for the first time. It pains me to see some of the abuse that goes on. We are not campaigners here. We can work effectively together for all of our constituents’ sake to make a better environment. All I would hope is for us to stick with the facts and the ideas and be nicer to each other and to our waterways.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered sewage discharges.