The Art of Green Finance

Readers from the UK will no doubt be aware of the appalling state of many of our rivers and seas. Water companies in the UK were privatised at the end of the 1980s by Margaret Thatcher’s government and remain in private hands, many owned by large multinational companies. Since privatisation, there has been massive underinvestment in water infrastructre alongside large bonuses for water company bosses and shareholders. This state of affairs alongside poor monitoring and enforcement of sewage dumping regulations has lead to rivers that no longer support wildlife and seas which cannot be used recreationally without risking illness.

Surfers against Sewage is a charity that I have supported for a long time and one of the charities that I regularly donate to. They have been at the forefront of campaigns to improve the state of our waterways. Surfers against sewage, along with several other water charities have produced an End Sewage Pollution Manifesto with a clear policies that our next government could adopt to dramatically improve the state of our waterways.

The End Sewage Pollution manifesto has several suggestions organised under 5 main headings:-

• Enforce the law
• Stop pollution for profit
• Prioritise high risk pollution
• Empower a nature-led approach
• Reveal the truth

Surfers against sewage are a non-political organisation and are not advising which local MPs to vote for. Therefore, I’ve decided to take an in depth look at how each of the main parties manifestos stack up against the End Sewage Pollution Manifesto…

Liberal Democrats

First to release their manifesto this week were the Lib Dems. Their manifesto contains a dedicated section on the natural environment which contains several pledges related to water companies and their regulation.

The Lib Dems pledge to:

• Enforce existing laws to ensure that the storm overflows only function in exceptional circumstances.
• Introduce a Sewage Tax on water company profits.
• Set legally binding targets to prevent sewage dumping into bathing waters and highly sensitive nature sites by 2030.
• Embrace nature-based solutions to tackle the problem of sewage dumping.
• Implement Schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act to require sustainable drainage systems in new developments.
• Mandate all water companies to publish accessible real-time data on any sewage they dump.
• Strengthen the powers of local authorities to monitor the health of our rivers, lakes and coastlines, restore our natural environment and tackle climate change.
• Improve the quantity and quality of bathing waters and sensitive nature sites with more regular and robust testing of water quality.

The Lib Dems have clearly read the End Sewage Pollution manifesto (ESPM) as much of the language in the Lib Dem manifesto is identical to the ESPM. They have made clear commitments and have covered all of the areas suggested in the ESPM. In addition, the Lib Dems have commited to introducing a ‘blue corridor’ programme for rivers, streams and lakes to ensure clean and healthy water and setting new ‘blue flag’ standards and comitted to introducing a single social tariff for water bills to help eliminate water poverty within the next parliament. They also pledge to create a real network of marine protected areas, ensuring that they are fully protected from damaging and destructive activities, protecting and restoring blue carbon and ensuring climate resilience at sea.

Ambitious, definitely. My only criticism is that it is not quite clear if the sewage tax would be enough to fund the other measures, however, frankly, their commitments are going to be hard to beat!

Score for ambition 9/10.

Conservatives

Next to release their manifesto were the Conservatives. The Conservatives state that they will:-

• Work with the regulator to hold companies to account including banning CEO bonuses for a serious criminal breach.
• Use fines from water companies to invest in river restoration projects.
• Introduce 100% monitoring.
• Continue their moratorium on deep sea mining.
• Ratify the Global Oceans Treaty.

The moratorium on deep sea mining is positive as is ratification of the Global Oceans Treaty. The proposed ban on CEO bonuses is for a serious criminal breach only which appears to be a loophole and does not appear to include regular sewage discharges which have become almost routine. Overall, ambition appears lacking in comparison to the Lib Dem commitments. The conservatives also get a score for actions taken, as they have been in goverment for the last 14 years.

Score for ambition 4/10. Score for action 1/10.

Green Party

The Greens pledge to campaign for:

• Ending the scandal of sewage pouring into our rivers and seas by taking the water companies back into public ownership. Money that is now being extracted by shareholders would be invested to fix the leaks and rebuild infrastructure.
• Elected Greens will push to restore rivers and take a nature-based solutions approach to the prevention of flooding and storm overflows.
• We would increase DEFRA’s budget by £1.5bn, allowing an increase in funding for the Environment Agency and Natural England, to support the vital work they do to protect our environment.
• All UK domestic and overseas territorial waters to offer the highest level of protection to marine life.

Ambition appears high but there is a distinct lack of detail or steps that can be easily and quickly implemented. It is also not clear where the Green Party would find the money to fund public ownership and extra investment.

Score for ambition 6/10.

Labour Party

Labour pledge to:

• Put failing water companies under special measures to clean up our water.
• Give regulators new powers to block the payment of bonuses to executives who pollute our waterways and bring criminal charges against persistent law breakers.
• Impose automatic and severe fines for wrongdoing and ensure independent monitoring of every outlet.

The Labour manifesto is generally less wordy than that of the Liberal Democrats or even the Conservatives and although the sewage crisis is mentioned in the “plan for change” part of Keir Starmers foreword to the manifesto, sewage is explicitly not mentioned in the first steps that a Labour government would take. Overall, a definite plan and a sense of urgency appear lacking.

Score for ambition 4/10…and this to be honest rather generous based on the information provided.

How accurate are the scores?

The scores were based solely on the manifestos released by the main political parties this week, however, the manifestos are not completely comparable as they are written in very different styles. The Lib Dem and Conservative manifestos were more wordy than those from the Green Party or Labour and as plus points were awarded for detailed policies, these parties may have benefited from the wordier approach. Plus points were also awarded for importance placed on the issue of sewage in our waterways with what appears to be a clear leader among the group in this respect in the form of the Lib Dems. However, MPs from across the political spectrum have been vocal on the issue of sewage and this is not reflected in these scores.

What about other environmental issues?

I’ve only looked at a single environmental issue here, chosen as this is an area that people feel particularly strongly about. If you are more interested in climate and environmental issues in general, have a look at Friends of the Earth’s assessment of the parties green policies. This was written before the release of the manifestos so may be updated in due course.