Baroness Byford – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Byford on 2016-02-09.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the results from the latest Blueprint for Water Scorecard as launched on 6 November 2012.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
Blueprint for Water is an ongoing campaign of Non-Government Organisations that make an assessment against the scorecard they have produced.
Government has already taken substantive action to protect and improve the water environment. For example, through reducing phosphate pollution in rivers from sewage works by a fifth and ammonia by a sixth compared to 2010 through investment at almost 500 sewage treatment works. Also, £87 million invested in local actions to restore our rivers and this has supported projects to improve over nearly 10,000 miles of rivers
Looking ahead, £900 million has been made available under Countryside Stewardship for environmental action by farmers and there are plans by water companies to invest £3.5 billion.
These investments, together with other actions, are drawn together in River Basin Management Plans which contain a comprehensive programme for the water environment up to 2021 and which will be published soon.
Since the Water Scorecard of 2012, Blueprint for Water published a further report ‘Water Matters’ in September 2015. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs accepted an invitation from the group to speak at the launch of this report in the Palace of Westminster, hosted by the hon. Member for Richmond Park, Zac Goldsmith.
In her speech the Secretary of State made it clear that Government shares many of the long-term outcomes put forward by the Blueprint for Water and went on to explain how Government intends to pursue them through the 25 Year Plan for the Environment. Blueprint and its constituent organisations will have an opportunity to contribute to this plan as it is refined further over summer and autumn 2016.
