PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Rivers: Pollution (6 October 2020)

A number of funded programmes across Defra deliver multiple environmental benefits. For example, from the start of 2014/15 to the end of 2021/22, we will have spent around £3bn on agri-environment schemes under the Rural Development Programme for England. These schemes help farmers deliver multiple and joint benefits for water, air, biodiversity, flood prevention and more. While some of this is directly targeted at water quality, the wider spend has broader, cross cutting benefits some of which will help to improve water quality, which cannot be simply disaggregated. There, is therefore, no single budgetary figure that can capture all the work done across the Department to tackle river and water pollution.

Of programmes specifically aimed at water management the Water Environment Improvement Fund, with a resources budget of £6.5 million and a capital fund of £10 million in 2020/21, supports local catchment schemes tackling river and other water pollution. A resource budget of £2.86 million and capital budget of £4 million is available for the Water and Abandoned Metal Mines scheme, which funds measures to prevent water from disused mines, polluted with harmful metals such as lead and zinc, entering surface and groundwater.

Tackling river and other water pollution is supported by considerable water company investment in environmental improvements, under their statutory obligations. In the Price Review period 2020-25, investment has been scaled up to £4.6 billion.