OTLEY'S MP has spoken out in Parliament against sewage dumping in the river Wharfe - warning that people may be bathing ‘in effluent’ when entering the river.

Alex Sobel spoke out after 268 Conservative MPs voted to reject a House of Lords amendment to the Environment Bill which aimed to introduce a new duty on water companies to reduce raw sewage discharges into rivers. Keighley’s Robbie Moore MP was one of those who voted to reject the amendment. A total of 22 Conservative rebels joined Labour to vote in favour.

In Parliament, Alex said “There are a number of sewage works on the River Wharfe upstream of my constituency, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore)—I see that he is in his place—and we both have bathing water quality issues because of that. It would be useful to know, using the example of Portsmouth that the Minister gave, how the Bill will help us unlock that with Yorkshire Water to ensure that people are not bathing, in effect, with effluent, which is what happens nearly every day on the River Wharfe.”

In a letter sent to Robbie Moore MP, Ilkley Clean River Group questioned the decision to reject the amendment stating “We are disappointed to find that you voted with the Government and in support of Amendment 45 (a) of Environment Bill debate on the evening of the 20th. In other words, you voted against creating a legal duty on water companies requiring them to take immediate action on sewage pollution. We feel that this is damaging to our campaign and that we would like an explanation for your action in voting in this way.”

Labour says the Government has made it harder to monitor water quality and enforce regulations through successive cuts to the Environment Agency. From 2009- 2019, Environment Agency funding fell by 63 per cent, which meant that the number of water quality samples fell by 45 per cent and the number of sampling points by 40.6 per cent. The total budget for Environment Agency prosecutions has fallen by 58 per cent.

Labour says a key contributor to the poor state of our waterways is pollution from water companies. Research by The Guardian has found that raw sewage was discharged into rivers across England and Wales 200,000 times in 2019, for a total duration of 1.5 million hours.

The Environment Agency currently relies on water companies to self-monitor discharges from combined sewer overflows. In these self-reports, the frequency or duration of overflow events is recorded but not the environmental impact, making management of waterways and enforcement of existing rules more difficult.

Keighley and Ilkley Robbie Moore, who serves on the Environment Bill Committee in Parliament said: “We need a realistic and achievable plan to clean up our rivers, and one which is practical to implement and can be enforced. You can’t govern by headlines.

"As a Member of the Environment Bill Committee in Parliament, I pushed the government hard to secure more protection for our rivers. I am pleased tough new measures are being brought in to direct the Water Services Regulatory Authority to ensure water companies take steps to significantly reduce storm sewage overflows, alongside publishing a plan to eliminate them all together. The Environment Bill will put significant pressure on water companies, like Yorkshire Water, to stop sewage discharge into our river systems altogether.

"The opposition amendment to the Bill which would have forced water companies to pay to upgrade storm systems which have operated since the Victorian era would have led to massively increased water bills for us all. That's not right, and that's why I supported the government's plans instead.

"I will continue to campaign hard to clean up our rivers, but this has to be done practically, with knowledge of the detail, and not just using ‘headline’ politics without consideration of how it will be done.”