England to diverge from EU water monitoring standards

The thing is, this is such a massive political own goal for the Tories and they don't even know it.

Water quality sounds like a bit of a niche political issue. But you know all those rural southern 'Blue Wall' constituencies where the Tories have been bleeding votes to the Lib Dems over the last few years? Water quality and sewage discharge into rivers comes up as a top local issue for voters in so many of these places. This is why the Lib Dems are campaigning so furiously on water quality in their rural target seats. It's also why every time there's a national news story about water quality (like this one), there's always a quote from a Lib Dem spokesperson in the article rather than a Labour quote (even though in general, the national press massively prefer to look to Labour for an opposition quote).

The Lib Dems have identified this as a salient issue that the Tories nationally simply haven't woken up to. It's such a damning statement about Rishi's Tories - not just clueless about what's happening in the country at large, but clueless about even the parts of the country that have Tory MPs - so clueless that they're making national decisions that are actively harming their own election prospects but are clearly unaware of the impact this is having.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

While in the EU, England was covered by the water framework directive (WFD), which meant a national chemical and ecological survey of rivers was conducted annually.

Activists say this may make it harder to compare the state of the country’s rivers against those in the EU, and will leave the public in the dark over pollution from sewage and agriculture.

To now not have a full assessment in 2022 and have to wait to 2025 … simply sows confusion and leaves the public in the dark when it comes to properly understanding whether our rivers are getting better or worse.”

Government officials told the stakeholder meeting that in 2022 only a limited number of water bodies were assessed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and budget cuts.

The Liberal Democrats’ environment spokesperson, Tim Farron, said: “Instead of clamping down on sewage dumping, ministers have let water companies off the hook and scaled back assessments so we could know exactly how much damage has been done.

That means abolishing Ofwat and setting up a new regulator with real teeth and ensuring that testing is carried out regularly so we can get a full picture of the damage being done to our countryside.”

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