In his latest newsletter Simon Jupp announces that he will be leading a parliamentary debate on Tuesday.

Richard Foord seems to have got there first.

He will be hosting an event in the fringes of the House of Commons on Monday. His guests will include the End Sewage Pollution Coalition, which includes the Rivers Trust, British Canoeing, the Angling Trust, River Action, Swim England, Surfers Against Sewage and the Women’s Institute. So it might be more productive.

This follows up his tabling of a bill in January to hand over  responsibility for collecting and reporting data on the number and duration of spills to the environmental regulator.

Owl fears the debate Simon Jupp will lead will seek once again to divert attention  away from the government’s record of privatisation, lax regulation and underfunding of the regulator and place all the blame on the water companies. 

Here is Owl’s summary of the first debate at the end of February last year:

Simon Jupp led the debate. Unfortunately his fellow Tories from Devon followed his lead, especially Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) and Kevin Foster (Torbay). [Though to give Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) her due, she did try to rise above this.]

They let SWW off the hook from the start:

For example, here is how Simon Jupp opened the debate:

….In recent years, a spotlight has been shone on storm overflows and CSOs. Water tourism is booming across our region, including windsurfing in places such as Exmouth and Sidmouth in my constituency. However, there is another reason why people have finally started talking about the issue: the Conservative Government have put in place a plan to improve our water, giving us all an opportunity to hold water companies to account.

People finally talking about the issue of sewage because the Tories have a plan? Really!

……Of course, in a perfect world, we would stop sewage spills completely and immediately. Sadly, that is virtually impossible in the short term; because of the pressure on our water infrastructure, we would risk the collapse of the entire water network, and the eye-watering costs involved mean we would need not just a magic money tree, but a whole forest.

No short term solution because it would cost? Why so little investment over the years?

Here is Owl’s summary of the second debate last September:

A second debate on South West Water’s record was hurriedly arranged to take place before MPs break up yet again. 

As a consequence of verbose schoolboy debating antics from the proposer, Mr Liddell-Grainger MP (Bridgwater and West Somerset), and nothing new from the Minister replying to him, the debate ran out of time and lapsed. 

Owl’s take

The Tories are still in denial over the consequences of privatisation and the effect austerity cuts have had on regulators, trying to blame everyone else.