Cherilyn Mackrory MP for Truro and Falmouth.

This week in Parliament I spoke in a debate about sewage discharges. This followed the anti-sewage and pollution protest last week, in which hundreds of local residents in Falmouth gathered at Gyllyngvase Beach, where raw sewage is regularly pumped into the sea.

In 2021, there were 15 Sewage Pollution Alerts for the whole year at Gyllyngvase Beach. This included 40 spills equating to 27 hours of discharge in the local waters. In the month of September this year, there were 15 Sewage Pollution Alerts. People in Falmouth have had enough. It is affecting people's lives, and people's businesses.

It's not just in Falmouth – it's happening all across my constituency. In Penryn during 2021, the sewer storm overflow spilled 100 times for a total of 451 hours. In Chacewater, it spilled 120 times for a total of 2366 hours. In Truro, just one of the outlets discharged 185 times, totalling 612 hours. Tresillian had 789 hours worth of discharged sewage, and in Goonhavern, there was 1585 hours worth of discharge. Grampound Road had 2,074 hours of discharged sewage in 2021.

This is all completely shocking and this is being discharged into our local seas, waterways, and rivers, like the River Fal. These are places where people swim, exercise, and fish.

The most shocking figure for me was seeing that one sewer storm overflow spilled 355 times for a total of 7,486 hours into the River Fal. Some simple maths show that this particular outlet was discharging sewage for the equivalent of nearly 312 days. Just for a moment imagine sewage being discharged all day and night, for 312 days out of 352 in a calendar year. Now I am not saying that was the case, but 7,486 hours is the equivalent of just shy of 312 full days.

Recently I met on-site in Portloe with South West Water to talk about the raw sewage overflow here. When the system overflows, in this little coastal village, it literally squirts out of the drain up into the air. South West Water have now committed to addressing this problem, but this is not right.

We cannot continue to discharge sewage at this rate. Something has to change.

Protecting our rivers, seas, and waterways is something that is so important to me. I count myself fortunate that I am able to try and make a difference in the House of Commons. In Parliament, I sit on the Environmental Audit Select Committee and we have conducted detailed enquiries into this very complex issue. This is an issue that has been dodged by successive governments since the 1960s, resulting in combined sewage overflows continuing to be built, resulting in them becoming overwhelmed by our growing population. What should be an 'exceptional' occurrence, has become routine and this is completely unacceptable.

Our Select Committee has met with many of the top water company CEOs, including the CEO of South West Water, to answer questions on this very issue.

In addition to my work with the Select Committee, I am the Vice Chair of the Ocean Conservation All Party Parliamentary Group and I am always raising this issue in Parliament.

Locally, in the constituency, I am working with various local stakeholders to clean up the River Fal and improve the water quality for our swimmers, shell fishermen, and marine life. In a couple of weeks' time, I am going out to test the water quality myself.

After two and a half years campaigning on this issue, recently I was pleased to welcome the details of the Government's sewage reduction plan which aims to leave the country's rivers and beaches cleaner and safer.

In August, the Government published its storm overflows reduction plan as a legal requirement of the Environment Act 2021. The plan sets out actions for water companies, the Government, and the public to take to help reduce the impact of storm overflow discharges.

Overflows that are causing the most harm will be addressed first to make the biggest difference as quickly as possible. The plan frontloads action is particularly important and sensitive areas including designated bathing waters and high-priority ecological sites.

I will absolutely be making the case that the outlets, like the ones around the River Fal, Gyllyngvase Beach, and the other areas I mentioned earlier are looked at as a priority.

The Government has called the plan "the most significant investment and delivery programme ever undertaken by water companies to protect people and the environment". We now need to see action to implement this.

There has been some misleading coverage in the media on this topic in recent times - but this Government is the first ever to implement a plan to tackle the impacts of storm overflows. Water companies will be required to deliver the largest infrastructure programme in water company history - with a mandatory £56 billion capital investment over 25 years to tackle storm sewage discharges.

There will be strict fines for companies who do not comply with targets to ensure they eliminate all ecological harm and protect public health.

Water companies are starting to listen and will be investing £3.1 billion to deliver 800 storm overflow improvements across England by 2025. This will deliver an average 25% reduction in discharges by 2025.

Sewage overflows are not a new thing. We just know more about it now than ever before because of investments made in recent years.

What's important is that a Conservative Government have increased the number of storm overflows being monitored 15-fold from 5% in 2016 to almost 90% now monitored. Our plan will mean we monitor 100% of storm overflows by next year. Because of these changes, this means we can now actually see what's being dumped in our waters and when. Without this, we still wouldn't know about what was being released into our waters. I cannot stress this enough. We are tackling this issue and we do not intend to stop.

It is important to realise that a huge amount of progress has been made in recent years to tackle sewage overflows, but I know there is more to do.

There is still confusion circulating that I voted to continue dumping sewage into our waters. This is simply not true and I hope I have clarified my position on this matter.

I will continue to press the Government, as well as South West Water, to tackle sewage overflows in every way we can. I will not shy away from holding those responsible to account.