On 17th January, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) quietly updated its special administration regime (SAR) framework in a move that appears to protect government investments in water companies should they eventually become insolvent.
The procedure is secondary legislation, where a statutory instrument or document is published and is considered approved unless MPs table a motion in parliament to reject it within 40 days – a process known as negative procedure.
The update moves the government to the top of the priority order with regards to re-couping loans it has made to such a water company, leap-frogging other stakeholders who would be due money such as administrators and creditors.
DEFRA described the legislation as the “ultimate enforcement tool” with regards to monitoring performance of water companies in an accompanying explanatory note.
Colm Gibson, managing director at Berkeley Research Group, told City A.M. that investors should pay attention to the “increasing emphasis on using special administration for companies that perform poorly”.
“These changes make it harder for shareholders to mount a legal challenge if they disagree with the special administrator,” he added.
The changes are timely – Thames Water, the country’s largest water and sewage service provider, continues to struggle under a £18.3bn debt pile and recurring operational failures.
The most recent of these include the quadrupling of sewage spills in the last nine months of 2023 compared to the corresponding period in 2022, according to Thames Water data analysed by London’s City Hall.
New chief executive Andrew Weston said he was confident in the group’s ability to turn the ship around upon his appointment in December.
Nevertheless, these procedural changes cast greater wariness from Westminster over the company’s future prospects as major shareholders exit the company and warnings from both regulators and Westminster increase in frequency and severity.
A former water industry executive told City A.M. that while nationalisation doesn’t seem an immediate possibility, the government’s move shores up its coffers should bailout funds be needed.
“It’s a lesson from Bulb that it’s hard to get your money back, so they’ve changed the priority order” they said.
Former energy supplier Bulb entered into a special administration regime (SAR) after collapsing into administration in 2021 and the government footed a £3bn bill to protect the 1.5 million households affected and paid consultancy Teneo £49.9m as an advisor.
“I cannot imagine why the government would change the priority order here unless they had been asked by a water company to put money in.”
Defra and Thames Water have been contacted for comment.
“If to govern is to choose, then to campaign should be to present clear choices and trade-offs to the electorate. If the parties don’t do that clearly and honestly over the next year, we at IFS will do what we can to plug that gap.” Paul Johnson, Director IFS.
Britain’s next government faces some of the toughest tax and spending choices for generations as it is forced to grapple with the impact of weak growth and high debt interest payments, a leading thinktank has said.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) warned that Jeremy Hunt’s much-predicted budget tax cuts risked being reversed or paid for by spending cuts, and urged the Conservative and Labour parties to “level” with voters before polling day.
Launching the IFS’s work programme for an expected autumn general election, the thinktank said the victorious party would have a “thorny” inheritance.
“Living standards have endured an unprecedentedly long stagnation. Taxes are at record levels for the UK (though remain low to middling by European standards). Public services are showing visible signs of strain and are, in many cases, performing less well than they were in 2010,” the report said.
Falling inflation and lower market interest rates have improved the short-term outlook for the public finances and provided Hunt with the scope for a giveaway package worth around £20bn. But the IFS said the chancellor needed to spell out what taxes would rise in the future or specify which services currently supplied by the state would be axed.
“Further tax rises and further cuts for most public services are built into current plans. But on official forecasts, this is only just enough to stabilise government debt as a fraction of national income,” the report said.
The thinktank said the challenges facing the next government were made more acute because a slow-growing economy would generate less in tax, and interest payments on the UK’s £2.7tn national debt would account for 9% of revenues on average across the next parliament.
Both the Conservatives and Labour have promised to reduce debt as a share of national income – which stands at just under 98% – but the IFS said this would be more difficult than at any time since the 1950s and would involve trade-offs. These included:
A large cut to public investment over the rest of the decade, which would still fall even if Labour’s planned spending on its green prosperity plan was taken into account.
Tough funding constraints, with concentration of spending on priority areas such as the NHS, schools and defence, implying cuts of £20bn in other unprotected departments.
Plans by both parties to cut net migration to the UK had implications for the social care and higher education sectors, and neither party had talked about the higher care costs or the higher tuition fees for domestic students that would result from cutting numbers.
Progress towards achieving net zero had involved picking most of the low-hanging fruit and the next steps – such as reducing emissions from buildings – would involve short-term costs on businesses and consumers.
Spending on disability benefits was rising fast and required urgent attention, but previous efforts to rein in spending had struggled to achieve the stated objectives, while any general promises to cut spending would need to be accompanied by specific details as to who would lose out.
The IFS said that unlike wars and pandemics, the challenges facing an incoming government were predictable, but could not be dealt with by a government that ignored reality and the need to choose from competing options.
The thinktank’s director, Paul Johnson, said: “Now more than ever, as a country, we face some big decisions and trade-offs over what we want the state to do and how we’re going to pay for it. Those looking to form the next government should be honest about these trade-offs.
“If they are promising tax cuts, let’s hear where the spending cuts will fall. If they are going to raise, or even protect, spending, they should tell us where taxes will rise. Or parties might think that further increases in government debt are justified, in which case they should make the argument for why debt should be rising.
“If to govern is to choose, then to campaign should be to present clear choices and trade-offs to the electorate. If the parties don’t do that clearly and honestly over the next year, we at IFS will do what we can to plug that gap.”
Several “blue-sky” ideas have been put forward for how Exmouth could be given a facelift. Changes to the area around the railway station, the town and the seafront were suggested by consulting firm WSP at an East Devon District Council (EDDC) meeting this week.
An extended forecourt is proposed at the station, followed by a public space which could be used for events, as well as a children’s play area and visitor centre. A new leisure centre, theatre, GWRSA facility and multi-storey car park would also be built at the current Imperial Road short-stay car park.
The ideas are separate to Devon County Council ’s plans for the station area, which include new crossings and filling in the subway.
Heading into town, WSP suggests extending the public space along Church Street and introducing more foliage, and also creating a space alongside Tower Street Methodist Church to “reposition the town centre as a pedestrian-friendly place.”
At the seafront, the firm explains how Exmouth Pavilion could be turned into a sports facility to “complement the leisure centre,” with a new public space opposite in place of the Beach Gardens car park. “Sculptural stairs” towards the Ocean leisure complex could provide access to the beach and also provide seating.
The last of its proposals included a new “arts and culture hub” at Foxholes car park, a new multi-storey car park on Maer Road, and a pedestrianised Queen’s Drive towards Orcombe Point with “pods” for a variety of uses.
No car parking places would be lost, just “consolidated” and the concepts are not set in stone.
If all WSP’s ideas were to be implemented, it estimated the base cost could be just under £6 million between 2024 and 2026.
Cllr Olly Davey (Green, Exmouth Town) was impressed with the proposals, but says the public should be asked what they think.
He said: “I think it’s really important that we listen to local people as we go along.
“Unless we ensure that we take the people of Exmouth with us, we are going to get a lot of pushback.
“And it’s not always because people don’t like what we’re doing, but they resent the fact that they weren’t asked, they weren’t told, and they weren’t involved.
“So please let’s make sure that we really use meaningful consultation. We cannot run this and deliver it without the buy-in of the people of Exmouth.”
Cllr Geoff Jung (Lib Dem, Woodbury and Lympstone) said EDDC would need to think about sewage-related constraints.
CGI of Exmouth Esplanade ideas (WSP/ EDDC) (Image: WSP/ EDDC)
He said: “We need to work with the Environment Agency on the engineering and the climate resilience, and we need to work with South West Water with their infrastructure at the moment because South West Water pumping station is at Maer Road car park and there’s tanks underneath the car park, which we would have to consider when we’re putting a multi-storey car park there.
“We’ve also got sewage tanks underneath Imperial Road car park and again we’ll have to consider that. Having a car park and a sports hall above a sewage tank, there’s question marks there.
“We also need to work with [Devon County Council] highways because of their parking, the roads.
“It all forms part of a jigsaw. We’re well aware that South West Water are making big investments in Exmouth. And this project, a lot of these things will need to fit hand in hand with what they want to do.”
I have been a staunch advocate for older people in beautiful East Devon. This has included speaking up in Parliament for the Triple Lock on pensions, through to being a stickler for older people’s access to services through traditional means, such as high street bank branches, and railway ticket offices. Today, I would like to give up my column to younger people.
Last year Devon County Council spent just under £2million on all youth services across the county; an almost trivial sum in the context of their wider £1.7billion budget. A tiny fraction of this sum would make a huge difference to local volunteer groups that are supporting young people. I visited one such last week – Headlight, that does vital work in Axminster and Ottery St Mary.
Those of us who are adults now are merely custodians of our planet. Many of us seek to pass on to our children a world that is slightly better than the one we inherited. We Liberal Democrats seek to make policy decisions that look to the long term.
It is vital we ensure the voices of young people are heard. We should give them the opportunity to help shape our decision-making. That’s why the British Youth Council was established, and why the Youth Parliament plays a key role in giving a voice to young people across the country.
I learned recently that Devon will not be participating in the British Youth Council’s youth Parliament. I do understand the huge challenges facing local government finances, but I feel this decision to withdraw from the British Youth Council is wrong.
Last year, I was lucky enough to have one of Devon’s Youth Parliament members spend a week volunteering in my office. Emiko is passionate about ensuring young voices from rural and coastal communities are heard. She has used her time as an ‘MYP’ (Member of Youth Parliament) to encourage other young people to register to vote.
It was great to get to work with her. I am just sad that, as her term nears its end, there will not be another person like her taking up the mantle if Devon is to withdraw from the scheme.
Given climate change and the nature crisis, we need young people around the table now more than ever. We should seek to help them leave a great country to another generation who we may never see.
If we want to create thriving communities that remain attractive places for people to live, work, and start a family, then we must ensure we put our young people at the heart of our planning.
Thames Water must “get a grip” on river pollution, Sadiq Khan has said, after an analysis revealed the duration of sewage spills in London increased more than fourfold last year.
“Frankly the current state of some of our rivers is appalling and only getting worse. Thames Water urgently need to up their game, and get a grip of the situation,” said the mayor of London.
Khan has invested considerable political capital in tackling air pollution, resisting pressure last summer for a U-turn on expanding the ultra low emissions zone. But this is the first time he has turned his focus on water pollution.
Data from Thames Water, analysed by City Hall, shows there were 6,590 hours of sewage spills in the last nine months of 2023, up from 1,420 hours for the same period in 2022. The figures only started being published in April 2022, preventing a full year comparison.
Between 25 and 31 December last year, sewage was dumped 18 hours a day on average, amid heavy rainfall.
Khan has written to Chris Weston, who was appointed chief executive of Thames Water last month, calling for more action. In the letter, he expressed his dismay at slow action on sewage spills into the River Wandle. Last year the river became the last in London to be downgraded from “good” ecological status, meaning close to its natural state, to “moderate”.
“I have many fond memories of walking alongside the Wandle with my family. As one of our few treasured chalk stream rivers, it is a truly precious asset, and I am deeply disappointed on behalf of Londoners that you have inherited an approach that is not prioritising its restoration,” Khan told Weston.
Storm overflows, which act as emergency valves on the sewer network, are designed to spill sewage into waterways during times of heavy rainfall. While 2022 was dry with a months-long drought in many parts of the country, 2023 was much wetter — July was the sixth wettest on record.
Thames Water, which has built a £4.5 billion “supersewer” under London that is expected to begin trial operations at the end of this year, noted it was still the only water firm to offer a real-time map of sewage spills into rivers. A spokesman said: “Taking action to improve the health of our rivers is a key focus for us and we are leading the way with our transparent approach to data.”
Khan also accused the government, which has a plan of effectively ending spills by 2050, of not doing enough to stop discharges of raw sewage. “Ministers are standing by and letting more and more dirty sewage flow into our rivers. We need tougher legislation that forces water companies to act as a matter of urgency,” he said.
However, the chief executives of England’s water companies were pressured this week over their record by Steve Barclay, the new environment secretary. At a meeting yesterday, he is understood to have told bosses he was “shocked and appalled” at what appears to be routine law-breaking due to pollution incidents in the water industry.
People in the room said Barclay made it clear that bonuses should not be paid to leaders of any companies where such illegality takes place. The Labour party this week reiterated its plan to ban bonuses at polluting firms, finding water bosses had taken £26 million in bonuses since the last election.
Meanwhile, England’s post-Brexit environment watchdog said the government may have broken the law through inaction on stopping farmers from polluting rivers.
In a ruling on a complaint by green groups ClientEarth and WWF, the Office for Environmental Protection said: “We believe Defra may have failed to comply with environmental law and, if it has, we consider that failure would be serious.” The complaint hinged on whether the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was sending enough inspectors to farms to check for breaches of water pollution rules.
A river in Lyme Regis is now closely monitored after tourists complained of a bad smell
“The government must [now] revise their guidelines and we hope this will help bring river pollution under control as soon as possible,” said Kyle Lischak, head of UK at ClientEarth, an environmental law charity.
A Defra spokesperson said: “We have set highly ambitious legally binding targets to reduce water pollution from agriculture, and just last year more than 4,000 farm inspections were carried out to ensure farmers comply with legal requirements.”
CULM Valley MP Richard Foord was celebrating on Wednesday (January 24) after winning his battle with the Government to stop water companies collecting and reporting on their own data on sewage discharges.
Mr Foord, who represents parishes stretching from Hemyock to Holcombe Rogus, had campaigned against water companies being allowed to ‘mark their own homework’ on data showing whether or not they were illegally polluting rivers.
The responsibility for both collecting data on sewage discharges and reporting to Government on the data had been left with the private companies since 2009.
The ‘in-house’ data collection and assessment meant there was little oversight by Government or environmental regulators as to the ‘true’ scale of sewage discharges into watercourses.
Liberal Democrat Mr Foord tabled a Bill in Parliament last year which was expected to be debated next month and would make the Environment Agency legally responsible for checking data collected by water companies and offering its own assessment of the situation. [See www.midweekherald.co.uk December 2023]
Now, the Government has told the water companies the Environment Agency will be tasked with carrying out official inspections of its own.
The Government was also thought to be considering a ban on dividends being paid to water firm bosses if it was proven that illegal discharges were taking place.
Mr Foord said: “I am delighted that Ministers have agreed to adopt my proposal, which ends the farce of water companies marking their own homework on sewage spills.
“Now, we need to see the Government go further and beef-up our regulators with the power to properly crack down on this negligence.
“These negligent firms have been allowed by the Government to get away with this for so long and it must be addressed.
“I will not stop fighting to ensure that Conservatives hear the anger from people across the Westcountry.”
Communities Secretary Michael Gove said he will raise the percentage by which councils’ core spending power increases each year, from 3 per cent to 4 per cent.
This boost to the Government’s funding guarantee amounts to a combined package of £600m and will increase councils’ core spending power up to £4.5bn in 2024-25.
The support package will primarily see an additional £500m added to the Social Care Grant to bolster budgets – a key concern raised by councils.
“We have listened to councils across England about the pressures they’re facing and have always stood ready to help those in need,” said Mr Gove.
“This additional £600m support package illustrates our commitment to local government. We are in their corner, and we support the incredible and often unsung work they do day-to-day to support people across the country.”
While council chiefs said the new emergency funding will help dozens of local authorities avoid falling into effective bankruptcy in the short-term, there remains concern over the longer-term financial issues that have resulted in budget cuts to many essential services.
“This increase in funding is welcome and will help councils in the short-term,” said Councillor Sir Stephen Houghton, chairman of the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities, which represents 47 urban councils.
“However, it won’t address the long-term funding gap or the need for reform of the broken local government finance model.”
Sir Stephen added: “This unprecedented increase before the final settlement shows that there is a growing understanding within the Government about the crisis in local government finances. These pressures have been well-documented for some time, so it is disappointing that the funding has only been announced at this late hour.
“More funding will be required to match the current level of demand-led pressures and stabilise the sector.”
The Local Government Association, which estimates councils in England face a £1.6bn funding gap in 2024-25, also believes the bailout will not be enough.
Its chair, Councillor Shaun Davies, said: “All councils will be using any positive additional money to reduce frontline service cuts but it will not be enough to cancel out these cuts completely or the council tax rises.”
The new funding deal follows calls from more than 40 Conservative MPs – including seven former cabinet members – for the Government to bail councils out ahead of this year’s expected general election.
There are also concerns that the additional funding will not be enough to solve the social care crisis.
Cathie Williams, joint chief executive of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, said the extra money was “much needed” and would be welcomed by people who receive and provide support.
But she added the scale of the pressures on budgets means more needs to be done to enable independence at home, support unpaid carers and address workforce shortages.
“We need to move from treating the symptoms to addressing the cause of the challenges we see in adult social care, like long waiting times and people missing out on care altogether,” said Ms Williams.
The local government finance settlement for next year includes a £64bn funding package.
The Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said this was an average real terms increase of 6.5 per cent for councils.
Finance bosses at seven councils have issued at least one Section 114 notice since 2020, with three doing so last year.
The notices are an acknowledgment that the local authority cannot balance its books as required by law and lead to a freeze on non-essential spending on services.
Nottingham City Council became the latest authority to issue a Section 114 notice after forecasting a £23.4m budget deficit.
Earlier this month, Somerset Council warned that it will be forced to issue a Section 114 notice unless the Government permits it to increase council tax bills by 9.99 per cent.
Community hospital supporters with long memories will recall that in 2017, Devon Health Scrutiny Committee refused to refer the closure of beds in Seaton, Honiton, Ottery and Oakhampton to the Secretary of State. Tory councillors, mostly from East Devon, blocked the referral, the last chance to keep our hospitals as they were supposed to be when local communities paid to build them. This is the background to the new crisis in Seaton, and now also in Okehampton.
Today, the Committee refused by 8-5 to refer the closure of Teignmouth Community Hospital to the Secretary of State, with Tory councillors once again blocking the decision and Lib Dem, Labour and Independent councillors voting for. And this is the last time they will have the chance to refer any decision – the Government has abolished scrutiny committees’ powers to refer, from 31 January. No reason has been given, but it’s pretty clear that they are just removing the last vestiges of local democratic accountability. Another reason to vote them out later this year!
Health Scrutiny backs Seaton again
Devon’s Health Scrutiny Committee once again urged Devon NHS and NHS Property Services to come to an agreement with the Seaton Hospital Steering Committee today, after Jack Rowland, Marcus Hartnell and I addressed them. Seaton Hospital supporters were out in force.
In October 2022 Simon Jupp “united” behind Liz Truss. As a result he was also “newly promoted” as a PPS to right-winger Simon Clarke when he became Secretary of State for Levelling-up, Housing and Communities.
So where does “our” Simon, the self confessed “libertarian”, stand on the leadership question?
Simon Clarke advised to lie down by Tory MP after calling for Sunak to quit
Simon Clarke has been told it would be “good advice” to head to a dark room, lie down and sort himself out, after he called on Rishi Sunak to quit as Conservative leader or risk a Tory “massacre” at the general election.
The postal affairs minister, Kevin Hollinrake, said Clarke’s intervention on Tuesday night was a sign of the “panic” that is brewing in some factions, but said it was not a view held by the wider parliamentary party.
We now learn that Hinkley C could be delayed to 2031 and cost up to £35bn, (at 2015 prices).
So is it time to ask the question again and has anyone heard from our Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) lately? Especially as the government has new plans for “mini nukes”. – Owl
Hinkley Point C could be delayed to 2031 and cost up to £35bn, says EDF.
The owner of Hinkley Point C has blamed inflation, Covid and Brexit as it announced the nuclear power plant project could be delayed by a further four years, and cost£2.3bn more.
The plant in Somerset, which has been under construction since 2016, is now expected to be finished by 2031 and cost up to £35bn, France’s EDF said. However, the cost will be far higher once inflation is taken into account, because EDF is using 2015 prices.
The latest in a series of setbacks represents a huge delay to the project’s initial timescale. In 2007, the then EDF chief executive Vincent de Rivaz said that by Christmas in 2017, turkeys would be cooked using electricity generated from atomic power at Hinkley. When the project was finally given the green light in 2016, its cost was estimated at £18bn.
“Like other major infrastructure projects, we have found civil construction slower than we hoped and faced inflation, labour and material shortages, on top of Covid and Brexit disruption,” said Stuart Crooks, the project’s managing director, in a message to staff.
Crooks said: “Running the project longer will cost more money and our budget has also been affected by rising civil construction costs. It is important to say that British consumers or taxpayers won’t pay a penny, with the increased costs met entirely by shareholders.”
EDF had previously said that the first reactor unit at the nuclear site would be due to be complete by June 2027, with a 15-month buffer period which was likely to be used – putting its completion at September 2028, and a further year for the second unit. It costs were estimated between £25bn and £26bn, and this was later revised up to £32.7bn in February 2023.
EDF gave three scenarios, ranging from becoming operational is 2029, to delays pushing this back to 2031.
It said that the cost of completing Hinkley will be between £31bn and £34bn, although if completion is delayed to 2031 costs would rise to £35bn.
In December it emerged EDF’s partner in the project, China General Nuclear, had halted funding for Hinkley. The move came after the government took over CGN’s stake in Hinkley’s proposed sister site, Sizewell C in Suffolk, stripping the Chinese state-owned company of its role in the project.
The latest financial estimates are based on accounting in 2015 figures, meaning the total cost of the project could be far higher when inflation over the last decade is factored in. Hinkley’s ballooning costs have proved controversial with French taxpayers, which are picking up the tab.
Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C are expected to herald a new era of nuclear plants touted by the government.
Last year the government launched a delivery body, Great British Nuclear, with the aim of accelerating the development of new nuclear projects. Earlier this month ministers set out plans for out for the “biggest nuclear power expansion in 70 years”.
However, the Hinkley Point C delay will add to concerns over project delays and costs, as well as skills in an industry earmarked to deliver a quarter of the national electricity demand by 2050.
Crooks wrote: “Dome lift happened 24 months later than we had planned when we began in 2016. Of that delay, 15 months was due to the global pandemic. So, beyond Covid, we’ve lost nine months since we started. That’s not perfect, but for the first nuclear plant to be built in Britain since 1995, it’s not bad.”
Crooks said that project was “well past the halfway mark” and “many risks are now behind us”.
Now a leading councillor is calling for what she calls the ‘deception’ to be stopped.
There are calls for closer scrutiny of large house-building projects to make sure builders keep their promises.
Teignbridge councillor Jane Taylor (SD Alliance, Kerswell-with-Coombe) will ask fellow councillors to support her when she speaks at a procedures committee next week.
She wants more transparency in the planning process, particularly around Section 106, the mechanism through which developers pay for community projects in return for permission to build.
She says that while councillors make decisions based on what is in front of them, the end product often ‘looks nothing like’ the approved application.
“It may change beyond recognition by a process of amendments,” she says in a motion to the procedures committee. Planning officers may be able to agree amendments without the planning committee ever seeing the proposal again.
Cllr Taylor adds: “This is a well-established practice by developers which enables the plans to be passed and then amended so that the maximum profit can be achieved.
“It is called value engineering. I call it deception and it’s time it stopped.”
She claims the council is aware of the process, but goes along with it for fear of the consequences if they don’t comply.
She goes on: “It is no secret that this council, along with many others, has an unhealthy dependency on the money provided by major housebuilders.
“It is time to draw the line and take the first steps to breaking the cycle and distancing ourselves from this unhealthy relationship by sending a clear signal to developers.
“We will not be bartering to build houses. Submit, approve, build. We will no longer be engaging in planning ping pong.”
The motion says that any variation to planning conditions on all developments of 20 homes or more must be brought to the planning committee and not dealt with by officers.
Newly-released fly-tipping figures have been challenged by East Devon District Council (EDDC) as giving a distorted view of the actual situation.
The authority has reassured residents that it investigates every single report of fly-tipping. StreetScene officers visit all tips on council controlled sites to check for evidence of those responsible and arrange rubbish removal.
Where evidence is found or if the tip is on private land, EDDC’s Environmental Health team will carry out an investigation and take enforcement action where possible.
In 2022/23 even though there were 399 reported fly-tips, there was enough evidence for it to be referred to EDDC’s Environmental Health team on 23 of these occasions – 10 of which were investigated further.
The year 2022/23 was the first year since 2018 that no enforcement action was taken for fly-tipping. EDDC has seen a significant reduction in the numbers of fly-tips which have justified further investigation. So far, in 2023/24, it has served two fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping offences.
The Government requirement for all councils to provide information for the ‘fly tipping league tables’ only provides a very small amount of information of how a local authority is managing public spaces for their areas.
In an article last year, The Country Land and Business Association said:
“Yet despite the overall decrease in incidences, these figures fail to reflect the full scale of the crime, as increasing reports of fly-tipping on private rural land are not included. Two-thirds of all farmers and landowners have at some stage been a victim. But hundreds of thousands of offences on private land are going unrecorded, as farmers often have so little faith in the ability of the police or council to deal with fly-tipping that they simply bear the cost of removing rubbish themselves.”
The figures recently published shows that the fly-tipping in East Devon is declining but the council is aware that landowners and farmers are finding increasing amounts on their land.
Councillor Geoff Jung, EDDC’s portfolio holder for Coast, Country and Environment said:
“We have seen a big drop off in the number of fly-tips where evidence of responsibility is found, so we are looking at other ways to obtain this.
“These figures provided by Government gives a very distorted view of a council’s performance.
“I can reassure our communities that all fly-tips reported to the council are investigated and dealt with. If they are on council-controlled land they will be removed and where sufficient evidence exists, enforcement action will be taken.
“I would urge any resident who witnesses fly-tipping to contact the council on the East Devon App so our officers can follow it up.”
“What is needed by Government is an overall strategy on dealing with illegal dumping of waste on both public and more importantly private land.”
Before we proceed to the next business, I would like to make a brief statement. The link between Members of Parliament and our constituents is special and fundamental to the democratic life of the country. As we enter the general election year, many hon. Members are expecting boundary changes. Some will contemplate standing for constituencies that they do not currently represent. I have received a number of representations from hon. Members from all parts of the House about colleagues involving themselves in their constituencies. I thought it would be helpful to remind the House of some important rules and conventions regarding constituency representation.
First, Members usually deal with individual cases relating only to their own constituencies. When a Member is contacted by someone seeking assistance who is not her or his own constituent, the normal expectation is that the person should be referred to the relevant constituency Member. Secondly, when a Member intends to visit another constituency other than in a private capacity, they should make every reasonable effort to inform the Member representing that constituency before they do so. That applies equally to ministerial visits. The ministerial code states that the Ministers intending to make an official visit in the United Kingdom must inform, in advance and in good time, the MPs whose constituencies are to be included in the visit. I should add that, although the ministerial code does not apply to shadow Ministers, they should adhere to the same protocol if visiting constituencies.
Thirdly, when issues relating to another constituency are raised in the House, the Member concerned should, where possible and when time permits, inform the other Member involved in advance. That applies equally to the tabling of written questions.
Hon. Members have a duty to look after the constituents who elected them to this place. Boundary changes do not take effect until the next election. We must observe the convention of not involving ourselves with another Member’s constituency until that time. More generally, I understand that the political temperature will rise as we get closer to an election. I urge all hon. Members to continue to treat each other with courtesy and respect in the remaining months of this Parliament. The election seems to have started a little too early.
Leader of East Devon District Council Paul Arnott writes.
On Monday this week the government’s offshore petroleum licensing bill passed its second reading. In essence, this puts wind back in the sails of the oil and gas companies who wish to suck every last drop of fossil fuel from the North Sea.
The government was determined to push this through, which resulted in protests from Chris Skidmore MP resigning his ministerial position rather than have to vote for it, and other abstentions. We can’t be sure of Simon Jupp’s position as he was not present at the vote, but real guts was shown by Alok Sharma MP. He turned up and abstained, a touch choice which will have cost his political career a great deal.
I have often written that despite not being from a Conservative background myself, I have many friends who are, and I am always ready to offer praise from to politicians from all backgrounds. Alok Sharma is a highly significant, centrist Conservative (one of the few left) who served as President for the International Panel on Climate Change having previously served as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from 2020 to 2021 and Secretary of State for International Development from 2019 to 2020. He knows his stuff.
At last year’s Dubai conference, the government promised to phase out oil and gas, the conference agreeing that no new oil and gas licences should be granted if the world is to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. All agreed that going beyond this would cause climate catastrophe, ruining the lives of millions.
Yet the Conservatives are so in thrall to the right-wing climate-change-sceptic chunk of the party that almost immediately they nominated Lord David Frost, fresh from his leaving the country in a tough spot as a result of his bullish Brexit negotiation, to sit on the House of Lords select committee on environment and climate change. In this the party shows that it is ripping itself apart, wasting valuable time in the process.
You may remember Donald Trump wondering if inhaling disinfectant into lungs might cure Covid-19. Sir David Frost’s displayed Trumpian intelligence in the House of Lords last year, when he said that rising global temperatures due to the climate crisis were “likely to be beneficial” in the UK, because it would mean fewer people would die from cold temperatures.
He seemed not to have a clue that warming changes weather systems, increasing storms and flash floods as well as sea level rises, as all of us have seen happening before our eyes in the last year. He seems not to be aware of places in East Devon like Exmouth where every flood now causes a sewage crisis to. Not theoretical, but here and now.
I need hardly add that Lord Frost is also a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which opposes a number of net zero environmental policies funded by wealthy Conservative donors. And of course, it is well known how close oil and gas companies have been to the party for many years.
Never mind the “culture wars”, all the distracting nonsense about “wokeness” being injected into the nation’s bloodstream ahead of a general election. This climate battleground within the Conservatives between Alok Sharma thinking of the future and Lord Frost thinking of his chums in well-funded and convenient denial is the real frontline for the soul of a once great party. And the nation.
In East Devon, this foolishness from the government regarding climate change is a daily challenge. Change please, and soon.
Surprise, surprise, yesterday, 23 January 2024, Simon Jupp wrote to the education Secretary about the state of St. Peter’s primary in Budleigh Salterton. This was prompted by the Panorama exposé rather than the letter an exasperated Head Teacher, Steve Hitchcock, wrote to him nine months ago in March 2023.
It raises questions about whether Simon Jupp has only been putting effort into those communities with deserving cases such as Tipton, that will lie within the new constituency boundaries of Honiton and Sidmouth, leaving the rest of his constituents to fend for themselves.
As Owl has pointed out, Simon is abandoning 78% of his current constituents. If he was such a good constituency MP why would he do this?
1.30 pm, Wednesday, before Health Scrutiny Committee at 2.15
Campaigners from TEIGNMOUTH, where the hospital has been under threat for some time, and SEATON, where NHS Devon announced 3 months ago that they were intending to hand back a wing to NHS Property Services for disposal, will be joined this time by campaigners from OKEHAMPTON, where a ward space is now also being handed back.
Richard Foord, MP for Tiverton & Honiton which includes Seaton, has written a letter to be read out at the Committee.
Campaigners are now asking: Which community hospital, paid for by a local community, will be under threat next?
The ICB have revealed to Seaton campaigners that they originally looked into using the Brownfield Land Fund to obtain public funding for demolishing part of the hospital and building houses.
The Committee will be considering reports on Teignmouth and Seaton – the report on Seaton includes NHS Devon’s proposal for Okehampton.
Speakers from the 3 communities will address the Committee.
Richard Foord MP has written to the Committee
CONTACT: Professor Martin Shaw, Secretary, Seaton Hospital Steering Committee 07072 760254
Last week at St Peter’s primary, Budleigh Salterton, the temperature in the 1960’s “sheds” dropped below 7C.
Hettie, 10, said: “When it’s so, so cold, you start shivering, so your writing goes really wobbly when you’re actually writing it because our hands are shaking so much.”
Last March, Head Teacher, Steve Hitchcock, sent a letter to the DfE, his MP Simon Jupp, and the parents at the school. He rehearsed the problems in education today and proposed solutions. He started: My community of headteachers has been meeting with our local Conservative MP for many years, and we sound like a broken record.
In 2010 Michael Gove cancelled the “Building Schools for the Future” programme introduced by Labour in 2004
Is Simon Jupp AWOL, gaining face recognition in the new Honiton and Sidmouth constituency which doesn’t include Budleigh? Tipton isn’t the only primary with long standing problems.
Schools in urgent need of repair have told Panorama they are struggling to keep children warm in buildings that are “not fit for purpose”.Watch on BBC iplayer(UK only)
At one primary in Devon, temperatures are so low that children keep gloves and coats on during some lessons.
The head teacher says despite parts of the school being seemingly impossible to heat, he has been told it does not qualify for extra money for repairs.
The Department for Education (DfE) says pupil and staff safety is “paramount”.
According to the government’s own figures, the average primary in England needs £300,000 worth of maintenance or upgrades, while the average secondary school needs an estimated £1.5m.
BBC Panorama’s investigation reveals what some of that damage and decay means for pupils and teachers who experience it every day. We found:
A secondary school in Dumfries and Galloway where draughty windows are stuck together with sticky labels
Another in North Yorkshire that teaches some lessons in marquees in a playground, because two-thirds of its building became unusable after the discovery of potentially dangerous concrete, known as Raac
A further secondary school in Essex that has a no-go area after a Raac problem led to the discovery of asbestos
A primary school in Greater Manchester that has faced multiple evacuations because of flooding and worrying levels of potentially explosive sewage gas
At St Peter’s Church of England Primary School in Budleigh Salterton, Devon, some children work in unheated modular buildings – nicknamed “the sheds” – which were built in the 1960s and were supposed to be temporary.
St Peter’s has three classrooms that its head teacher describes as “just sheds”
Just last week, temperatures in the “sheds” dropped below 7C – even with all the heaters on. Workplace regulations say classrooms should be at least 16C.
“I’m really cold. I have to wear gloves and it’s really hard to use a pencil or a pen when you’ve got your gloves on,” said Sebastian, who is eight.
Hettie, 10, said: “When it’s so, so cold, you start shivering, so your writing goes really wobbly when you’re actually writing it because our hands are shaking so much.”
Last year, a National Audit Office (NAO) report on school conditions said about 24,000 school buildings were “beyond [their] original design life” – that’s more than a third of the entire school estate in England.
It also found about 700,000 children were having to learn in “a school that the responsible body or DfE believes needs major rebuilding or refurbishment”.
The NAO’s report also highlighted the scale of the Raac crisis across the school estate in England.
The funding of school maintenance can be complicated. Different responsibilities are shared between central government, devolved administrations, local authorities and the schools themselves.
The Welsh and Scottish governments say they don’t have figures for their backlogs of school maintenance. Northern Ireland says its bill has been growing for 15 years and is now estimated at about half a billion pounds.
The DfE says £5.3bn is needed each year to maintain schools in England, but it has only been allocated about £3bn by the Treasury.
After a survey, St Peter’s was given an A grade for the condition of its buildings
With a £2bn shortfall, the backlog of repairs is growing fast.
In 2021 the government published results of a conditions survey of almost every school in England and graded them in four categories.
St Peter’s in Budleigh Salterton was rated grade A, which means it had been assessed as in the best condition.
Steve Hitchcock is head teacher at St Peter’s, which is left putting the little funding it has into maintaining its “sheds”
“It’s farcical,” said head teacher Steve Hitchcock. “We have three classrooms that are just sheds, that are just not fit for purpose.”
A report from MPs on the Public Accounts Committee at the end of last year noted that schools in the north of England generally appeared to be in worse condition than those in the south.
At Russell Scott Primary School in Denton, Greater Manchester, head teacher Steve Marsland empties out buckets of water collected from leaks around the school whenever it rains.
In 2015, the school underwent a multi-million pound refurbishment to its 150-year-old building. But Carillion, the company contracted to carry out the repairs, left the school with a catalogue of new problems, including faulty fire doors.
Carillion has since gone bankrupt, with debts of more than £7bn, and the school has been left battling issues old and new, including flooding, roofs leaking and heating failures for nearly a decade.
“Since 2015, we’ve had to close the building six or seven times for various issues,” said Mr Marsland.
“We’ve actually abandoned the building for explosive levels of sewer gas.”
Back in 2004, the Labour government’s solution to repairing schools was billed as the biggest school-building investment programme since the Victorian era.
It was called Building Schools for the Future and aimed to rebuild or refurbish every secondary school in England over a 15-20 year period.
But this programme was cancelled in 2010, by the coalition government and then-education secretary Michael Gove. A separate programme for primary schools was also cut back, but not cancelled.
Sam Freedman was Mr Gove’s adviser at the DfE in 2010. Speaking to Panorama, he said he now felt the decision to cut the Building Schools for the Future programme had been rushed.
He also said if the programme had not been cancelled he thinks most of the issues impacting the school estate today, including Raac, would have been “picked up earlier” – because every secondary school in England would already have been structurally assessed.
In a statement, a DfE spokesperson said the government had compiled the largest and most comprehensive survey of school building conditions in Europe – the first of its kind – to “significantly” improve the condition of the school estate, targeted where it was needed most.
The spokesperson added that £15bn of capital funding had been allocated since 2015 for essential maintenance and improvements, including £470m in 2023 “to address school buildings in need of immediate support as quickly as possible”.
In addition, the School Rebuilding Programme, which began in 2021, commits the government to rebuilding 500 schools in England, both primary and secondary, over the next 10 years.
In Wales, the government says it spent £2.3bn over the past 10 years rebuilding and refurbishing schools.
Meanwhile, the Scottish government provided £1bn of funding to the Learning Estate Investment Programme (LEIP), which started in 2019.
However, in England, three years in, only four schools have been rebuilt and, according to the NAO, the government is already behind on its plans.
Emma Wilson, author of last year’s NAO report, said the DfE “has made much slower progress than initially expected with the school rebuilding programme. Both in terms of getting those schools on contract and ready for the build and also doing the construction itself, which will inevitably have impact on the rest of the schools that are following in the queue behind them.”
The DfE told Panorama that progress with the School Rebuilding Programme had been hampered by global events like the war in Ukraine.
In the meantime, St Peter’s is left putting the funding it has into maintaining its cold and leaky sheds.
And at Russell Scott Primary, Mr Marsland is still laying out plastic containers when it rains.
In 2022, he received a letter from the Secretary of State for Education, saying that the school would be rebuilt, but he has been waiting since then for news of when the work will start.
When Panorama contacted the DfE, it said the school will have “a detailed programme plan to review” by the end of January 2024 and will be more “deeply engaged” by the department from that point onwards.
“You get used to every problem and you deal with it, and deal with it, and deal with it. So it becomes second nature and just normalised, which is the issue,” Mr Marsland said.
“I should have been retired, I’m 65 now. But I can’t leave the school in this way until it’s rebuilt. Until I see a digger on the foundations being being laid for a new school… I’ll be going nowhere.”
Alerts for Exmouth, Sandy Bay, Budleigh Salterton, Sidmouth, Beer and Seaton all say “there has been a sewage discharge into the sea from here. South West Water is responsible for this spill”.
The app says:
“Exmouth’s started at 10pm on Jan 21.”
“Sandy Bay’s began at 05:35 on Jan 22.
“Budleigh Salterton’s began at 22:05 on Jan 22.
“Sidmouth’s began at 23:25 on Jan 21.
“Beer’s began at 23.25 on Jan 21.
“And Seaton’s sewage discharge began at 05:50 on Jan 22.”
There are three types of alerts on the Surfers Against Sewage app, a sewage discharge alert, means there has been a sewage discharge from a combined sewer overflow within the past 48 hours. pollution risk alert’ which means’ bathing is not advised’ and a pollution incident alert which means there has been a confirmed incident alert.
Water bosses responsible for illegally dumping raw sewage “should be in the dock” for the damage caused to the UK’s waterways, Labour’s Shadow Environment Secretary has insisted.
Steve Reed has warned executives of the major water companies that Labour will go after them personally with criminal sanctions if they continue to allow illegal “toxic” discharges to pollute the country’s rivers and seas.
Currently the firms themselves can be held liable for pollution but individual executives rarely are.
The Shadow Cabinet minister claimed that the Conservative Government has “turned a blind eye” to sewage dumping because of “a cosy relationship” with “the polluting water industry”.
Speaking exclusively to i as part the Save Britain’s Rivers campaign, Mr Reed accused water firms of “corruption” and vowed to legally pursue chief executives if they fail to clean up the mess being left in the country’s waterways.
“Last year, we had the highest level of illegal sewage discharges in history. And that means you’ve got toxic, raw sewage swilling through our rivers, our lakes and into our seas and lapping up onto our beaches. And the public are quite rightly furious about this,” he said.
Mr Reed highlighted the case of United Utilities, which was accused last year of downgrading pollution incidents, including dumping raw sewage into the World Heritage Site Lake Windermere. The move enabled the firm to increase its bills for customers by £5.1m, according to a BBC Panorama documentary. United Utilities denies the allegations.
Asked if water bosses should be in court over the illegal dumping of sewage, Mr Reed said: “The reason I want to begin personal criminal liability is because I think they should. I do think they should, but this government has just sat back and let them get away with it.
“And you have to ask why? What is this cosy relationship that exists between the Conservative Government and the polluting water industry?”
Labour has vowed to immediately place water companies in “special measures” if it forms a government, and will block the payment of bonuses to water executives if they are found to have overseen illegal sewage dumping. The bosses of the worst offending companies will then be held personally criminally liable and firms will be stripped of powers to self-monitor their own water outlets.
Water companies receive permits that allow them to discharge sewage into rivers, lakes and coastal areas during times of exceptional rainfall to prevent their infrastructure from becoming overwhelmed.
However, firms have faced repeated accusations of dumping sewage outside the parameters of of these permits, which is illegal.
Criminal charges can be filed for breaches of these permits, but such cases are lengthy and expensive, meaning that the Environment Agency (EA) often relies on civil penalties. The Government recently increased the maximum fine that water companies can face in civil cases from £250,000 to £250 million.
For the most severe cases, the EA does pursue criminal charges, but these have resulted in fines levied against water companies, not custodial sentences for executives.
For example, Southern Water was fined £90m as part of a criminal investigation that concluded in 2021 that found the firm was responsible for thousands of illegal raw sewage discharges that polluted rivers and coastal water around Kent.
The EA has in the past urged courts to impose jail sentences on water company executives when serious cases of pollution are proved. However, the Crown Prosecution Service would have to consider the public interest when deciding whether to charge executives with criminal offences, and weigh how likely they would be to secure a conviction.
Mr Reed told i that the threat of losing bonus payments and possibly ending up in court will “focus the minds of water bosses”.
“It will make sure they comply with the law, and that means making sure you put in place a serious plan to bring in the investment that we need to get the water infrastructure fixed,” he said.
The dumping of sewage has become a major political issue as people across Britain have become increasingly aware of how often untreated waste is being released into our waters through points known as “storm overflows”.
This awareness is partly due to increased monitoring; in December water companies hit a Government-imposed target of installing monitoring equipment at 100 per cent of these storm overflow points for sewage spills, up from just 7 per cent in 2010.
Mr Reed, the MP for Croydon North, also pledged to look at the “revolving door” between regulators Ofwat and the Environment Agency and the water companies.
An investigation last year found that at least six senior current industry staff members have been identified as moving jobs between regulators including Ofwat and the EA and water firms such as Southern, Northumbrian and South West Water.
Mr Reed also raised the Conservatives’ attempts to scrap so-called nutrient neutrality regulations that protect waterways from overdevelopment in a bid to build more housing. He suggested it was an example of the Tories turning a “blind eye” to water pollution to appease big developers, many of whom are Conservative Party donors.
“Looking at the nutrient neutrality issue, who is one of the biggest sources of donations to the Conservative Party? It’s developers. And who is the government trying to lower environmental standards to benefit? It’s developers. Well, there’s a cosy relationship.”
He said the Government is “as aware as anyone” about the problem, but has failed to prevent it because the Conservatives have a “far too cosy relationship with the water companies”.
It comes as Labour has published figures that show water bosses have paid themselves a staggering £25m in bonuses since the 2019 election, despite accusations of widespread failure in the system.
“There’s £25m I’ve identified that could be spent on improving infrastructure by not paying it as bonuses and incentives to water bosses who are overseeing law breaking. I don’t think the public should be charged a penny more. While there is that amount of corruption – and I do think it’s corruption – in the system.
“If you’re knowingly breaking the law and covering it up to make more money for yourself and your company, that is corruption.”
The Conservatives have been approached for comment.
12 The Laurels Flightway Dunkeswell Devon EX14 4RSRef. No: 24/0081/FUL | Validated: Thu 11 Jan 2024 | Status: Awaiting decision
East Devon Watch 