§ Mr. Onslowasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the water authorities which have satisfied his Department that they are meeting their obligations under the Water Resources Act 1963 to set standards for minimum acceptable flows in the rivers in their area.
§ Mr. RidleyUnder the 1963 Act water authorities are required to consider for which inland waters minimum acceptable flows ought to be determined, but the setting of these is not mandatory and none has in fact been set. Repeal of the formal requirement has been proposed by the Government in their consultation paper on water and sewerage law, which was published last March and deposited in the Library of the House, but final decisions on implementation have yet to be taken.
§ Mr. Onslowasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the occasions within the last three years on which his Department has been asked by a water authority to approve the lowering of its own discharge consent conditions.
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§ Mr. RidleyFollowing the implementation of the main provisions of the Control of Pollution Act 1974 in January 1985 there has been a major review of water authority sewage treatment works discharge consents. Of the some 6,000 discharges in England, around 1,800 have been granted relaxed conditions, generally where there was expected to he no appreciable effect on the receiving water. In a small number of cases, which are subject to early review, the relaxed consents have been allowed pending already programmed capital investment. It is not readily possible to list the specific cases, but water authorities maintain public registers giving the details.