• PMQs: Sunak refuses to ban water company bonuses amid sewage dumping scandal
• Retained EU Law: Govt have dug themselves into a hole
• Victory as Lib Dems force Govt u-turn on sewage regulation bonfire

PMQs: Sunak refuses to ban water company bonuses amid sewage dumping scandal

During Prime Minister’s Questions today, Rishi Sunak refused to back the Liberal Democrat demand to ban water company executive bonuses.

The Leader of the Liberal Democrats raised the multi-million pound bonuses paid to water company executives, despite their firms destroying rivers and coatlines with sewage discharges.

Conservative MPs were heard to be laughing at the issue of sewage discharges.

In the House of Commons, Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey asked:

Mr Speaker,

Last week, many lifelong Conservative voters turned to the Liberal Democrats to be their strong local champions.

They delivered their verdict on the Government’s failure to hold water companies to account for dumping raw sewage into our rivers and onto our beaches.

Water company bosses were paid fifteen million pounds in bonuses last year – rewarded for destroying our precious natural environment.

Three of those executives have now turned down their bonuses, but they should never have been entitled to them in the first place.

So will the Government now ban these sewage bonuses until the dumping stops?

Retained EU Law: Govt have dug themselves into a hole

In response to news that the Government have made a u-turn on their plans to remove thousands of EU laws from the statute books, instead opting for approximately 600.

Lord Fox, Liberal Democrat Lead on the Retained EU Law Bill in the House of Lords said:

The Conservative Government have dug themselves into a hole with this Retained EU Law Bill. While they may have stopped digging, they’re still in the hole.

In their desperate attempts to avoid this legislation turning into chaos, they’re still leaving a lot of uncertainty. Both the public and businesses should be able to go on without being constantly concerned by the precariousness of so many of our laws.

For the Liberal Democrats, the fight is not over. We will push to remove as much of this uncertainty as possible, looking closely over the list of regulations due to be scrapped and fighting to retain our environmental safeguards, food standards and employment protections.

Victory as Lib Dems force Govt u-turn on sewage regulation bonfire

Responding to news that vital sewage regulations (the Bathing Water Regulations and Water Framework Directive) have been saved from the Government cull of legislation in the Retained EU Law Bill, Lib Dem Peer Baroness Bakewell, who tabled the amendments to save the regulations said:

This is a hard-won victory for the Liberal Democrats who have fought tooth and nail to protect sewage regulations from the Retained EU Law Bill bonfire.

But the fight isn’t over. If the Bill passes, Government ministers will be able to water down sewage regulations at will without significant scrutiny or debate and certainly without any amendments from other parties.

We won’t stop until the Conservative Government finally ensures that the health of our environment and people are protected from their ideological whims.