This Tuesday Labour will use our Opposition Day Debate to try and progress the Water Quality (Sewage Discharge) Bill, which seeks to end the Tory sewage scandal which has polluted waters and open spaces across the country, with filthy raw sewage, including here in Garston and Halewood.

Since 2016 1,276 years’ worth of raw sewage has been dumped into British waters. On average, this equates to a new Tory sanctioned sewage dumping event taking place every two and a half minutes in places where people live, work and holiday. In 2022 alone, there were 824 sewage dumps a day across the country.

13 years of Tory government has taken our country backwards, allowing it to be treated as an open sewer. As I heard in Parliament last month ahead of World Water Day not one English river is classed as being in a healthy condition, none meet good chemical standards and few meet good ecological standards.

It’s clear that we have a Tory government that has run out of road, when all it can resort to is regurgitating and repackaging existing powers and old announcements that will add to customer bills and do nothing to end sewage dumping. On Tuesday Tory MPs have a choice as to whether they want to progress the Bill or once again vote to keep dumping raw sewage into our environment.