Environment Bill

My Lords, may I press the Minister a bit further on the local nature of pollution, particularly air and water? To pick another example, phosphate in rivers can be a problem, but in the southern Hampshire rivers it is a particular problem because of the sensitivity of the estuarine ecologies to excess phosphate, whereas it might not be such a problem in another ecology. In that circumstance, it becomes crucial to know where the phosphate is coming from; how much comes from agriculture and sewage; which particular bits of land it comes off; and what practices are available to reduce it and are effective in reducing it in those circumstances. That needs a local level of focus and research, and I did not hear anything in his answer—and indeed there was a good deal to worry about in what the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said—which gave me a clue about where that evidence can come from.