Item 5 is next, a debate on a Member's legislative proposal, the impact of storm overflows. I call on Alun Davies to move the motion.

Motion NDM7833 Alun Davies

To propose that the Senedd:

1. Notes a proposal for a Bill to reduce the adverse impact of storm overflows.

2. Notes that the purpose of the Bill would be to:

a) place a duty on a sewerage undertaker whose area is wholly or mainly in Wales to secure a progressive reduction in the adverse impact of discharges from the undertaker's storm overflows;

b) to reduce adverse impacts of sewerage discharges on both the environment and on public health;

c) make the duty on a sewerage undertaker enforceable by the Welsh Ministers or by the authority with the consent of, or in accordance with a general authorisation given by, the Welsh Ministers. 

Motion moved.

I'm grateful to you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to bring forward this legislative proposal. Members who have had the opportunity to note the legislation I propose—well, those eagle-eyed Members, certainly—will note a certain familiarity with the wording. It is, of course, the wording that was accepted as an amendment in the House of Lords last October. When I brought forward this piece of legislation last October, it was with the intention of seeking to understand where does Wales stand, what is the legislative and statutory framework for the management of releases into watercourses in Wales, because I think we do need to fully understand. I'm glad the Minister herself is answering this debate, because I think it would be very useful for us to understand the statutory framework that exists in Wales. I should say that since I brought this forward, I understand that the climate change committee as well has taken an opportunity to look at this subject, and I think we're all looking forward to reading the report of that committee.

My concern is that the framework that currently exists in order to regulate this part of the statute book is somewhat complex. I question whether it is fit for purpose, and I look forward to the Minister providing us with the reassurance that it is. To my understanding, the current legislative framework is largely established by, first of all, the Water Industry Act 1991, but then the Water Act 2003 and the Water Environment (Water Framework Directive) (England and Wales) Regulations 2017, which provide for the primary mechanism for assessing and managing the water environment. These regulations then place a statutory duty on Welsh Ministers to prevent deterioration and to improve all water bodies to 'good' status by 2027. I'd be grateful for the Minister's confirmation that she is committed to meeting that objective.

We also know that Natural Resources Wales prepares river basin management plans for each of the three river basin districts in Wales, and these plans should impact water quality and they should set environmental objectives and implement a programme of measures to protect and improve the environment. Whilst I welcome the fact that NRW does have the ability and should set these management plans, it's difficult to note without disappointment that although they were consulted upon three years ago, no final plans have yet been published. I think that is a real source of disappointment and also concern for us. Given this somewhat complex statutory environment, I wonder why the Welsh Government sought to exclude Wales from some of the proposals in the Environment Act 2021, which gained Royal Assent last November.

In normal times, I would always argue—and the Minister has heard me argue this—that there should be a distinct statute book for Wales where the legislation that affects Wales can be found and easily accessed. One of the criticisms made, of course, about the statute book by the former Lord Chief Justice Thomas in his commission's report is that it's very difficult to access and understand where Welsh law sits. The reason for that is complexity, and one of the reasons for the complexity is the fact that Welsh law sits in more than one place. It sometimes sits in a number of different places, which means that it's difficult to understand, not just for ourselves but also for lawyers, judges and legal professionals. That is a fair and reasonable criticism to make. I wish to understand where we are in Wales at the moment, what is the statutory framework, and how does that deliver the objectives that I think we will all share on all sides of the Chamber today and across the country. We all want to see river water quality improved, we want to see watercourse quality improve, we want to see water bodies' quality improved, and we want a statutory framework that's understandable, that's easy to appreciate and to understand, and that can then be delivered by the bodies, individuals, organisations and businesses that are affected by it.

What I don't want to do this afternoon is to criticise either the current water companies that we have in Wales or those people who provide for discharges to watercourses, because that isn't the purpose of what I'm proposing today. What I do want to do is to ensure that we have a statutory framework in place to regulate discharges to watercourses and water bodies, and then we can have the debate and the discussion about how we deliver the improvement in water quality, because that then enables us to deliver that in all sorts of different ways.

I think one of the things that's really affected a lot of us—. As somebody who grew up in the Valleys of south Wales, in Tredegar, I well remember the Sirhowy river when I was a child, which was filthy, and I don't think we can put too fine a point on it. That water contained almost anything you can imagine. I remember telling friends of mine who lived 'down the country', as we used to say, down in Llangynidr and elsewhere, that, 'Our rivers are better than yours because they've got more colour in them' and, 'It's a terrible river because you can see the bottom of it'. I think those days are gone, and I hope they have gone, but what we need now is a statutory framework that will ensure that moving forward we're all able to guarantee water quality wherever we live in Wales, and that we're able to have a statutory framework that we can all understand as well. Thank you very much.

I'd like to thank Alun Davies MS for what I consider to be an exceptional legislative proposal. Now, whilst the Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales is targeting all farmers in relation to water pollution through the Water Resources (Control of Agricultural Pollution) (Wales) Regulations 2021, Welsh Water and other water companies are effectively responsible for too many water pollution incidents and simply they are allowed to get away with it, and it is not being addressed. Too often, in my own constituency, I can think of incidents where hundreds and hundreds of fish died and were found dead as a result of water pollution incidents, and local anglers bringing this to my attention. I then contact the water companies and, indeed, NRW, but the speed by which they work is simply not fast enough. Last year I worked on a case that highlighted the fact that despite Welsh Water being aware of hydraulic overload flooding issues at a lay-by in Capel Curig during heavy rain, and that's been happening since 2004, it still remains the case, almost two decades later, that the organisation simply cannot justify a permanent solution to the flooding issues.

According to the Consumer Council for Wales it is important to understand that if the flooding has been caused by the public sewer, the sewerage provider is responsible for fixing the problem. Additionally, with regard to sewerage undertakers, the following is noted in section 94(1)(a) of the Water Industry Act 1991:

'It shall be the duty of every sewerage undertaker...to provide, improve and extend such a system of public sewers (whether inside its area or elsewhere) and so to cleanse and maintain those sewers and any lateral drains which belong to or vest in the undertaker as to ensure that that area is and continues to be effectually drained'.

I actually do believe, and it's understandable—no-one is not saying it is—that they are failing, currently, to meet that duty due to finance issues. We need to undertake a frank discussion with the organisation to establish exactly what it would take to ensure that their infrastructure operates in an effective way that does not harm the environment. And I have to say, in all fairness to Dŵr Cymru, when they've had issues, it can be—. I think Welsh Government have a part to play here, Minister. I think we all, as Members, should be doing more to highlight the problem that plastic wipes that are flushed down the toilet—the negative impact that has. I quite often retweet Dŵr Cymru notices asking people not to put these things in the toilet, because they are really causing heavy pollution, heavy blockages and, you know, our—

Can the Member conclude now—[Inaudible.]?

—rivers to be unhealthy. Okay, that's it. Thank you.

Thank you to the Member for Blaenau Gwent for introducing this legislative proposal. A number of constituents have been in touch with me, as is the case for many other Members I know, expressing concerns about sewage being spilt into our waters from storm overflows—many of them supporting the call by Surfers Against Sewage to stop the release of sewage into the seas by 2030. These people include swimmers, surfers and also people who are encouraged to use the seas for their health and well-being. And the concern is that the current practices not only have clear environmental implications, but they also represent a direct risk to the health of people using our waters. There was one surfer who truly wanted to take advantage of a good day of waves, as we have around Anglesey very often, but told me, 'I'm not sure how ill I will be if I do go surfing.'

In looking into the issue, one thing that became clear to me was that it's only during the usual swimming season that water monitoring actually happens, and it doesn't happen in winter when there is potential for CSO spills to be higher, of course, and often because of wetter weather. And representing an island constituency, I can tell you that people do use our beaches and waters at all times of the year, and some of the best surfing waves come in midwinter. You need to actually look at them very closely, if you ask me—it looks very cold—but some people do enjoy that, and I enjoy watching them, I have to say.

But I will ask the Member whether he would agree on the need for monitoring 12 months of the year, and is that something that the Bill that he proposes would deliver? And perhaps the Minister could also comment on the need to extend the current seasonal monitoring. It would be of great help to constituents in making choices as to whether they do go swimming or surfing or not, and I think it would aid with the objectives of the proposed legislation too. And I'm happy to support it.

Can I also thank my colleague Alun Davies for tabling this important piece of legislation? It is something I will support on behalf of my constituents who live in the lower Swansea valley. There is serious pollution in the River Tawe, especially as it travels through Swansea en route to the sea. The Tawe has discharge from the Trebanos treatment works, and waste materials such as parts of trees and plastic are also there causing pollution. Anglers are concerned about untreated human waste entering a river where children regularly play. I'm told that there is evidence of eutrophication on the River Tawe. My constituents feel there is inadequate action by Natural Resources Wales, and they are the ones who think there's no action at all by NRW.

According to Welsh Water, when there is heavy rainfall, too much water can get into the sewer, meaning it has to be released back into rivers or the sea without the usual treatment. This is going back to the nineteenth century. Welsh Water have said they are permitted to operate sewers in this way by Natural Resources Wales, and the practice is unlikely to cause environmental damage. Well, if it's unlikely to cause environmental damage, the question has to be, why do they not discharge all sewage directly into the rivers and into the sea, if there's no environmental damage being caused? I'm unconvinced that there's no environmental damage; my constituents are certainly unconvinced there's no environmental damage.

Local anglers say the river still smells foul days after heavy rainfall has ceased, and that is a public health concern. They're also concerned that the sewage can cause excessive algae growth, which could upset the river's ecosystem. And I don't think that we always think about rivers in terms of their ecosystem, but, like everywhere else, they are very prone to one thing happening that can cause serious problems. And we have rivers that are almost dead because of the algae growing in them, and that's something we don't want to see happening.

If there was a storm and you get lots of water in the drain, the storm storage part of the sewer fills up and discharges into the river. It should stop when the storm stops. But here the issue continues for up to 36 hours after the storm, caused by excessive surface water getting into the sewer. There is a lack of investment in storm water storage, and the only solution is more money being spent. The only way we're going to get more money spent is making it a legal requirement. That's why I support Alun Davies's proposal.

We want to reduce the impact of sewage discharge on both the environment and on public health, and we need to place a duty on a sewerage undertaker, enforceable in law, to not discharge untreated sewage. If they can get away with it, why would they engage in treating it? We need to support this because it's for the benefit of anyone of us who lives near a river.

Can I thank the Member for Blaenau Gwent for bringing this forward, and for his introductory speech, which captured so many things that I think we'll all agree with? There's no doubt about it, sewage discharge is very important and very topical; I think there is little that occupies my inbox more than this at the moment, especially in our area. Recent statistics have shown that raw sewage was dumped into Welsh rivers more than 100,000 times, for almost 900,000 hours, during 2020. In fact, Tintern, in my own constituency, saw some of the highest numbers of sewage releases in south-east Wales in 2020, recording 263 releases over 1,489 hours. These are absolutely staggering numbers.

The River Usk is particularly affected by this issue. It has experienced a number of release events in recent years, over and above those that have happened due to high rainfall, and that is the big bone of contention. Last year we know an investigation by Panorama—we all saw it—found that the Aberbaiden treatment plant in Usk illegally dumped untreated sewage into the River Usk on 12 consecutive days in December 2020. And it was discovered that there was also a Welsh Water-owned sewage overflow pipe into the River Usk that didn't have a permit. Now, I know these issues have since been looked into and are being worked on by Welsh Water. However, concerns remain as to how fast the required sewage disposal infrastructure can be put in place to mitigate against sewage discharge, and that's all across Wales. So, there is also concern and frustration expressed regularly, certainly by constituents, that our regulators are not taking robust enough action on those who knowingly pollute, and that includes water companies. 

As we're all aware, the release of sewage into the natural environment, as we've already heard, even when absolutely unavoidable, results in pollution and reduces water quality, as well as harming wildlife, and it's clear, then, that more action is needed to cut down on such incidents across Wales. However, I realise that there isn't an easy fix, and that companies are taking some action to reduce the impact of overflows on the environment. For example, I'm aware that Welsh Water have been working with NRW to identify CSOs that do not have a permit so they can be regularised and put into the improvement programme. But there is more to do, and that is why I'm supporting the proposed Bill set out by Alun Davies. There needs to be more of an onus on water companies to take steps to ensure that the release of sewage is an exception rather than the norm. Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. 

I just want to contribute to this debate as Chair of the Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee, just to take the opportunity to inform the Senedd of the committee's recent work in this area.

The frequency of sewage spills and their impact on the environment and public health is an area, as we've heard, of serious public concern. And in response to this concern, and on the back of significant developments in England, as we've heard in the opening remarks, the committee decided to hold a short inquiry on storm overflows.

The purpose of our inquiry was to better understand the extent of sewage spills in Wales and to look at the action being taken by water companies, by regulators and, of course, by the Welsh Government to try and reduce them. The committee is in the process of finalising its report at present, which we will publish later this month. And while I wouldn't want to pre-empt the findings of the report, I'd like to highlight some of the issues that we covered during our inquiry.

Storm overflows should operate infrequently and in exceptional weather conditions only. But, of course, as we've heard, that is not the case at the moment. Instead of that, we hear regular reports of sewage spills in rivers across Wales, and the latest data shows that sewage was discharged into our rivers more than 105,000 times in 2020 alone—105,000 times in one year. And that does suggest, of course, that there is a significant problem.

But what's being done to address this? Water companies were keen to highlight the fact, of course, that sewage spills from storm overflows are not the main cause of river pollution in Wales. And while that is true, we shouldn't use that as an excuse to not respond strongly to this problem. And regardless of their contribution to poor river health, sewage spills are at an unacceptable level.

Now, during our inquiry, we heard reports of improvements in transparency around storm overflows in recent years following the introduction of event duration monitoring and annual reporting. But, again, there is room for further improvement. We touched upon the current regulatory and enforcement regime for storm overflows, including NRW's approach to investigating incidents of sewage pollution. Now, NRW must be able to respond promptly and effectively to all cases of river pollution, regardless of their source, and we know from recent experience that that simply isn't the case.

We heard the Welsh Government and its partners have established a dedicated taskforce to consider how best to tackle the impact of storm overflows, and this, of course, is a very welcome development. The taskforce will be publishing a road map for storm overflows shortly, and then there will be an action plan following in the coming months.

Will these steps be enough to address the problem? Well, only time will tell, but the public has made its position clear on this, and it wants to see a significant and urgent improvement. And, as a committee, we will be keeping this under review to ensure that the Welsh Government and the water companies and the regulators are all delivering, not only to protect our environment, but also to protect public health. 

I'm grateful to the Member for Blaenau Gwent for bringing forward this Member's legislative proposal, as I myself had an incredibly similar MLP on improving inland water qualities here in Wales. And it's reassuring to know that, while there may be potential disagreement over the semantics and finer points of the policy, it is, in fact, an issue that does generate cross-party support. And as he so eloquently said in opening this debate, it hasn't escaped his attention that there are similarities between his legislative proposal and that of the UK Government's Environment Bill, which sees a duty to ensure water companies secure a progressive reduction in the adverse impacts of discharges from storm overflows. I think it's encouraging that, when there is a good idea, regardless of which side of the political divide it comes from, it is acknowledged as such, and I'm sure Members in this Siambr will be aware of the repeated emphasis that no one side has a monopoly on good ideas, and, therefore, I will be voting in favour of this proposal.

I'd like to take the opportunity, like the Member for Ynys Môn, to pay tribute to Surfers Against Sewage for their work in highlighting and combating the discharge of sewage into the sea at beaches across Wales. Many Members may be aware of the targeted e-mails to elected Members when a combined sewer overflow—a CSO—has discharged sewage into a water at a specific location. Surfers Against Sewage have estimated that, between 1 October 2020 and 30 September 2021, 5,517 sewage discharge notifications were issued by water companies warning of sewage pollution impacting designated bathing waters in England and Wales. Of these, 3,328 discharge notifications were issued during the bathing season of 15 May to 30 September. So, based on the widely accepted advice not to swim in sewage-polluted waters for 48 hours following a discharge, this means 16 per cent of swimmable days during the bathing season have been lost due to sewage pollution events.

It would also be remiss of me, as shadow rural affairs Minister, not to mention agriculture and agricultural pollution. It is my belief that for too long the agricultural sector has been unfairly targeted as the sole and lone polluter of our waterways. The industry wants to improve and do better by the environment and by our waterways, but it is not they alone who are responsible for water pollution incidents. So, that's another reason why I lend my support to this proposal, as it aims to reduce the sewage discharges in our waterways, which, I believe, will bring about positive improvements to the quality of water, our environment and to public health. Diolch. 

I call on the Minister for Climate Change, Julie James. 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. As all Members have said, there's been a lot of media coverage recently about water quality and sewage discharges into waterways, and, as Alun pointed out in his submission, the UK Government has legislated to set targets for water companies in England to reduce these. But there is a widespread perception that this is the main cause of poor water quality, but, actually, as most people have acknowledged in the Chamber today, numerous factors contribute to poor water quality, including agricultural pollution, private drainage misconnections, septic tank overflows and a variety of other issues.

I've recently met with—in fact, it was Monday evening that I met with—Ofwat, and they've told me that 35 water bodies have been identified where intermittent sewage discharges are partially contributing to the reason for not achieving good ecological status under the Water Environment (Water Framework Directive) (England and Wales) Regulations 2017, and they are also failing for other reasons. So, Ofwat is going to be conducting a review of how many of the combined sewage outlets were discharged, and, if so, were they discharged in combination with a storm event or another river spate event and, if so, why, and, if not, why not. So, it will be very interesting to see the outcome of Ofwat's review of whether or not water companies are using correctly the powers that they have in order to use the discharge properly. And just to remind people that the storm overflows at waste water treatment works—there are a lot of acronyms in this, so I'm trying to say them all out—perform an essential role to prevent the works from becoming overwhelmed during periods of heavy rain, which would have the effect of the sewage backing up into domestic properties. So, let's just be clear how important it is that that doesn't happen and the public health issues that that would then incur.

So, Welsh Water does have—. We have two water companies in Wales, just to be clear, and both of them have all of the rights and responsibilities under our environment Act and our future generations Act, some of which is being duplicated in England. But also, some of the—. Alun directly asked me why we didn't go in with the English legislation, and the answer is because we have a much more holistic understanding of what's causing spates in rivers, including some of the catchment area issues, and we're very focused on having as much natural flood protection and natural sewage protection as possible, and not just developing concrete channels to channel the water away towards the sea and so on. So, I'm very keen that we develop solutions that suit the ecology and particular river circumstances in Wales. 

But, just to be clear, Dŵr Cymru obviously has the vast majority of the infrastructure in Wales, and they've installed event duration monitoring on 99 per cent of their storm overflow assets and the remainder will have them installed by the end of this year, by next year. All relevant data is available on the website, so you can see exactly what's happened with those. They are required to provide a summary of spill data from their monitors to NRW on an annual basis, and they provide real-time storm overflow alerts all year around at key bathing sites. So, already, in conjunction with Surfers Against Sewage, Dŵr Cymru allows registered users, through the Surfers Against Sewage safer seas campaign, to get real-time information on when a storm overflow begins to operate, how long it operates for and when it stops. So, anyone who wants to go bathing in the rivers can pick that information up, and it is really useful to have that if you're into wild water swimming, and I should declare an interest and say I definitely am into that. So, I have an acute understanding of the need to understand what exactly is happening. 

And just to be clear, that should not happen unless the river is in spate, so in the middle of a big storm like a few of the ones we've had over the last few weeks. And that river would not be suitable for swimming in if it was in spate. You would not want to see people trying to go wild water swimming in a river that's in spate, that's coming up above its banks and so on. So, those are the circumstances, and only then should the storm overflows be being used. So, that's what the Ofwat investigation is going to be looking at to see whether those two things are in conjunction.

We also work closely with NRW to monitor and, where necessary, improve water quality of rivers across Wales. Dirprwy Lywydd, we have a very large number of things that we're doing, which I will run over my time if I try to read out, but included in them are the nutrient management boards that we have set up for various rivers, the SAC rivers, in Wales. We do have a piece of work going on with NRW to understand exactly how many incidents they attend—they attend the great majority of pollution incidents—how much the unit cost for that is, and what we can do to improve that so that all incidents reported by the public are attended. But, even when attending and an instant sample has been taken, it has not always been possible to identify the offender of the pollution incident, even where we've got relevant samples collected immediately. So, it is important to make sure that we have a whole series of measures in place to make sure that pollution incidents don't occur in the first place, as well as that we have sewers that are fit for purpose.

The other thing to say is that we have a large number of other things that we're looking to do. So, I know that the Conservatives are very keen to see this water quality done, and I welcome that, but of course one of the things that we're doing is including our underwater drainage system work in this, where we're getting all our new housing developments to put in that underwater drainage. The whole purpose of that is to prevent those sewers from overflowing back into the sewers that were built in Victorian times and not built for the numbers of houses that are on them. So, again, as my colleague Lee Waters said a number of times earlier in questions, you can't separate these things out. We have a climate emergency, it is causing extreme weather events, the extreme weather events need to be coped with inside our sewage system, inside our housing developments, inside our commercial developments, and at the waste water treatment works.

So, Alun, I'm going to be bringing forward legislation later on. I'm very happy to work with you on it to make sure that we do legislate for our sustainable drainage and waste water management systems and that we put those drainage and waste water management plans and we put those on a statutory footing. I absolutely intend to do that during this Senedd term. But the issue is that we have to do that inside the holistic framework that we need to control both pollution incidents and sewage outflow incidents along our rivers, to make sure that we capture both of those, and that—forgive the terrible cliché—upstream of that, inside the housing and commercial developments that we put in place, we have the right drainage and sewage solutions in place for those in the first place, so we're not overloading the system in the first place. Diolch.

I call on Alun Davies to reply to the debate.

I'm grateful to you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm grateful to all Members who've participated in our debate, or our conversation, actually—it felt more like a conversation between individuals rather than a more formal debate. I'm grateful to Janet Finch-Saunders for the way in which she described some of the impacts of plastic waste, and it played straight into some of the points that were made by Mike Hedges, talking about the importance of an ecosystem within a river, and to look at it then in the way that the Minister suggested, in a holistic sense.

When we debate and we discuss these matters together, the points made by Rhun ap Iorwerth in terms of the monitoring—. I do agree with you, very much so, that we need to look at how we monitor and we understand the impact of human activities in the widest sense on the water ecosystem, and we need to do that through the year to have the understanding of that whole impact on the ecosystem. I understand, and I'm familiar, clearly, with the Usk and the Wye, as you'd imagine, Peter, and one of the really, really traumatic issues I look at sometimes is the impact on the Wye at the moment. I think the Wye and Usk Foundation provided us with a route-map for how we manage water quality over a period of time. I'm not sure where we've gone wrong on that, and I would like to look again at that. I hope that the Minister will be able to work with Llyr and the committee on the undertakings she's given this afternoon, because, as Sam Kurtz pointed out quite rightly, there is at times a lot more that unites us than defends us—divides us, sorry.

Deputy Presiding Officer, in closing, I was reminded during the debate of a walk I took with the Member for Pontypridd and the Member for Ogmore along the Taff in Ponty, and we spoke about how the town was turning again to the river, and, in the conversation we had, I repeated an observation from a friend of mine in Tredegar who mentioned that, as the industrial revolution took hold in the development of our Valleys communities particularly, we turned our backs on our rivers. The rivers were put into culverts or the rivers were tarmacked over or concreted over and developed and forgotten about. The towns and the people turned their backs on the river. I hope, Minister, that that isn't what we would do here today. What you said in replying to the motion, to the debate, about the holistic approach is exactly the point that I think would unite the Chamber in support of the work that you're doing, and I hope that, over the coming Senedd, we will be able to see the legislation—

You need to conclude now.

—that you suggested, Minister, and I hope that the relevant committee, in taking forward this work, will be able to recommend to this Senedd that we enact that legislation, and together all of us deliver the sort of framework that we require to take care of our rivers for future generations. Thank you very much.

The proposal is to note the motion. Does any Member object? No. Therefore, the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.