§ Lord Pilkington of Oxenfordasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will provide a comparison of the annual number of water course pollution prosecutions carried out by the predecessor water authorities and those inaugurated by the Environment Agency. [HL3156]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Whitty)The Environment Agency has a robust enforcement and prosecution policy that results in a significant number of prosecutions being taken out each year.
Annual reports on water pollution incidents, including numbers of prosecutions taken, are published by the Environment Agency and previously by is predecessor, the National Rivers Authority. These reports are available in the Libraries of both Houses.
The following table summarises the information available in these reports for the years 1990 to 2000. For the years 1990 to 1999 the information recorded relates to pollution incidents that occurred in each year irrespective of the date of the court hearing. Following a change of reporting practice, information for the year 2000 relates to the cases brought to court in that year.
Information on prosecutions prior to 1989, when the National Rivers Authority took over from its predecessor water authorities, can only be made available at disproportionate cost.
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Year 1990–94 NRA 1995–2000 EA Number of Incidents Prosecuted Number of Convictions Number of Cautions issued 1990 592 553 not available 1991 488 470 55 1992 425 401 250 1993 364 338 206 1994 320 310 193 1995 280 275 149 1996 243 238 69 1997 254 236 49 1998 241 236 73 1999 230 227 113 2000 235 224 217