SIR: Last week Winchester MP Steve Brine voted against a House of Lords amendment to the Environment Bill that would have put beyond all doubt the legal obligation of water companies have to stop pumping raw sewage into the UK’s rivers and coastal waters. Last year the Government’s Environment Agency reported 400,000 sewage pollution events across the UK. The Agency’s chief executive has recently said he would be ‘cautious about swimming in an English River’. Wild swimmers take note.

The Lords’ amendment to the Environment Bill would have forced water companies to phase out their CSO (combined sewage overflow) ‘get-out-of-jail clause’ and tackle the increasing water pollution problem we’re facing. Legislation is undoubtedly the only way that this problem will be solved. Nine years ago, the European Court of Justice ruled that the UK was operating illegally, and water companies should only use CSOs in ‘exceptional circumstances’. Of course, that ruling no longer applies in the UK.

The new measures being pushed through by our government are weakening the previous European legislation. Mr Brine and his colleagues voted for this to happen. Private water companies distribute hundreds of millions of pounds to their executives and shareholders each year. The government’s approach is to ask them to behave nicely. Anyone like to bet that strategy will work?

Charles Jennings,

Stanmore Lane,

Stanmore,

Winchester