Portsmouth MP launches attack on Conservative government over water pollution concerns

Portsmouth South MP Stephen Morgan has launched an attack on the government after backing his party’s new pledge to clean up the UK’s waters.

It comes following a summer of discharges by Southern Water into Langstone Harbour, which have made water pollution one of his ‘top priorities’.

Mr Morgan said: ‘Sewage pollution is a blight on our bathing waters and precious natural environment.

‘My postbag is full of constituents who are rightly disgusted by it. But the Conservatives have been letting polluters get away with it for years.

‘I’ll continue to work hard in our community and in parliament to force water companies to clean up their act.

‘The next Labour government will enforce these tough plans to finally put an end to the sewage crisis in our city once and for all.’

Announced at the party’s annual conference in Liverpool, Labour’s plan includes a legally binding target to end 90 per cent of sewage discharges by 2030, plus mandatory monitoring of sewage outlets, automatic fines for discharges and a penalty charge for all discharge points failing to meet monitoring requirements

In a further development, Mr Morgan added that he has written to the new environment secretary, Ranil Jayawardena, demanding answers over whether Southern Water has paid its £139m outstanding fines for discharges – as well as calling for the money to be ringfenced to pay for better sewage infrastructure moving forwards.