Hansard

There is not a member in the chamber who does not have, somewhere in their constituency or region, a beautiful expanse of our most vital natural resource. I am, of course, talking about water. Whether it is a river, loch, reservoir or firth, Scotland is graced with some of the most beautiful waters in the entire world. From the River Almond, which joins the Firth of Forth at the popular Cramond beach in my constituency, to the Cromarty Firth, where you can often spot a pod of dolphins—and sometimes an orca—and the world-famous Loch Lomond and Loch Ness, we are incredibly privileged to have those places on our doorstep and we must cherish them.

I am a scuba diver, an open-water swimmer and an enthusiastic if talentless surfer, so the debate carries a personal resonance for me and for many of us who like to spend time in or at Scotland’s waters. However, our waters are also of profound environmental and scientific importance, and they are home to many varieties and species of wildlife. It is more important than ever, therefore, that we take the necessary steps to take care of those environments and to ensure that we follow any regulations in place that are designed to protect them. Sadly, however, we are not doing so.

Every day in Scotland, raw and dilute sewage is being dumped in our rivers. Thanks to investigations by The Ferret, we now know that that happened more than 10,000 times last year—that is 30 times a day—and in 2020, it happened 12,000 times. It is certainly happening more than that; Scottish Water currently has the capacity to monitor just 3 per cent of sewage release points. We need to scale up the monitoring system rapidly so that we can assess the full extent of what is going on.

In addition, more investigations by The Ferret have revealed that, over the summer, 49 of 87 designated bathing waters recorded levels of faecal bacteria that could endanger public health. Places such as the West Sands in St Andrews, Ettrick Bay on the Isle of Bute and Belhaven beach in Dunbar all recorded high levels of bacteria. At Eyemouth in the Borders, levels reached more than 50 times the legal limit. Those are places where many of us and our constituents spend time; I find it alarming that we may be exposed to such high levels of bacteria in so doing.

What I find even more alarming is the lack of action taken by the Government. I raised concerns about that with the First Minister in May, as members may remember. She informed me that she would

“come back to”

me

“with more detail about what the Government is doing”.—[Official Report, 12 May 2022; c 22.]

Last month, I wrote to her, because I had still not received that detail.

This is not the first time that Liberal Democrats have tried to hold the Government to account on this matter. In December last year, my colleague Liam McArthur—yourself, Presiding Officer—asked the Minister for Environment and Land Reform whether the Scottish Government would look to bring in annual reporting on sewage releases and whether there was a plan to eliminate those overflows altogether. The reply was that

“We will not eliminate overflow, because it is a vital part of the system.”—[Official Report, 22 December 2021; c 43.]

I find that hard to believe—that the Scottish National Party-Green Government believes that it is vital to dump raw sewage into our waters—but that is the response that we received. By that logic, the Government seems to be arguing that it is inevitable that excrement, wet wipes and sanitary towels will be in the same waters where children will play, dogs will swim and fish will live.

What astounds me even more is that, as far as I am aware, this is the first debate on sewage that we have ever had in this Parliament. Our bodies of water are being polluted while our Government sits on its hands. Shockingly, that is also happening where we have in place what are supposed to be the tightest environmental regulations—specifically, in Loch Leven, just a few miles from the chamber. For context, Loch Leven is a site of special scientific interest, a special protection area, a Ramsar site and a national nature reserve—that is four layers of environmental protection. All those classifications mean that there are strict environmental protections in place that should keep Loch Leven, and the species that inhabit it, safe and clean. Those regulations are being ignored, with raw sewage being dumped into the loch regularly.