Hansard

I congratulate Alex Cole-Hamilton on securing this members’ business debate, not least because it is not before time, as he rightly pointed out.

When I looked into the subject, I found—as Mr Cole-Hamilton did—what appears to be extraordinary complacency on the part of the Scottish Government. Far from acknowledging the issue and steeling herself to do something about it, I found the minister, in a contribution from December 2021, crowing that

“When it comes to Scotland’s water, we have so much to be proud of”—[Official Report, 22 December 2021, c 34.]

and trying to divert attention by making spurious comparisons with other countries. That was an answer that she repeated, practically verbatim, in June 2022, having, I presume, pulled the previous script off the shelf.

When, earlier this month, The Courier reported that Scottish Water had dumped raw sewage into Loch Leven, in what NatureScot termed a “serious pollution incident”, the minister was asked to comment. She declined to do so, perhaps—in the light of her earlier intervention—because her view is that that did not happen. A Scottish Government spokesperson was wheeled out to say simply that investment had been made in the past and that there would be more to come. There was no mention of what would actually change. That is utter complacency.

The various comparisons that have been made by the minister are false equivalences. The Ferret report that Alex Cole-Hamilton cites in the motion refers to the Scottish Government’s water environment policy manager, David Lister, saying that only 10 per cent of overflows in Scotland are monitored, compared with 80 per cent of those in England. I suspect that Alex Cole-Hamilton is right to say in his motion that the true number of discharges is likely to be much higher.

Actually, I do not suspect that—I know it. Just last week, though a freedom of information request, I got figures from Scottish Water covering the period from 2017 to 2021, which show that a total of 563,500 hours of sewage overflow were recorded in Scotland during that period. That is an increase of around 70 per cent in that time. Yes—members heard that right; the SNP has been allowing thousands of hours’ worth of sewage to be pumped into our rivers and lochs for years, and the problem is only getting worse. It should be remembered that that data is from only 10 per cent of the overflows.

The lack of data really worries me. In committee yesterday, I asked NatureScot what impact the overflows were having on its sites, and I was told that it does not have a lot of information on the effects that they have on protected sites and species. In the same session, I twice put the 10 per cent figure to SEPA and asked whether it felt that monitoring is sufficient and whether it should align with England’s 80 per cent to ensure that we can see what is going on, rather than simply denigrating the English and European figures, but no answer was forthcoming. It would be very interesting to hear, in her closing remarks, the minister’s view on the 10 per cent figure.

The freedom of information request also found out that the clean-up costs for sewage spills in Scotland had soared by 500 per cent over roughly the same period. That will be for the clean-up of 49 of the 87 designated bathing waters around Scotland in which SEPA recorded unsafe levels of faecal bacteria as a result of sewage contamination, which Alex Cole-Hamilton mentioned in his motion.

I congratulate Alex Cole-Hamilton on drawing attention to the problem and giving the minister a chance not to tell us how much investment has been made in the past, which we have heard is not preventing the overflows; not to throw up false equivalences in order to denigrate our UK and European friends and suggest that all is well in Scotland; and not simply to say, as she did in December last year, that

“we are determined and poised to do more”—[Official Report, 22 December 2021, c 35.]

but to acknowledge her Government’s failure and say that that simply is not good enough, and to set out clearly, concisely and comprehensively what her Government will do to address that shameful record.