Speeches by Hardy.

“I know how much my hon. Friend cares about this issue. Indeed, we have visited some of the areas in his constituency that have been flooded. I remember the devastating loss in his constituency prior to the election; he was out there on the frontline, helping to lead some of the flood recovery work. On the impact of thi…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Sojan Joseph) for securing this debate, and for his excellent work on the Environmental Audit Committee. I am grateful to everyone who has spoken in the debate. In the time I have, I will do my best to answer as …”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I thank everybody for what has been a really good debate. It shows Parliament at its best when we all try to work together for the same aim, and that is really important. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) for secur…”

“Without straying too far from the debate that we are having, the question of inequality is very interesting, especially with the news that the Conservative party wants to get rid of the public sector duty. We are actually looking at whether to expand that duty to include class as an inequality issue. Maybe if class was…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for the passion with which she speaks about this issue. I reiterate that my focus has always been on the quickest and most effective way I can deal with some of the problems in front of me. There are questions over how much nationalisation would cost—we have heard them before—and we know that the…”

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“The right hon. Gentleman raises an incredibly important point. One of the things we have been doing through the water delivery taskforce is looking at all the potential barriers in the way of just getting stuff done. That is why it is so important that we have MHCLG on the taskforce alongside DEFRA, because it is about…”

“The hon. Lady is right to point out the record fine that was handed out for not having drinking water at an adequate standard, and I pay tribute to the Drinking Water Inspectorate and the work it has done—it does an incredible job of making sure our drinking water quality is among the best in the world. On ownership, t…”

“The hon. Gentleman raises a really important point, and the short answer is yes. We need clear resilience standards and asset standards, because we do not have them, but, importantly, as he pointed out, those standards need to be fit for the future and not just for today. When we look at what the standards should be, w…”

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“The Government are, of course, determined to tackle the sewage scandal head-on and clean up our rivers, lakes and seas for good. We want to address the root cause of pollution. We are shifting the focus to a dual approach, driving water company action and pre-pipe solutions, tackling sewer misuse and pushing for better…”

“My hon. Friend is right to point out how beautiful and rare our chalk streams are. In fact, they are often known as our rainforests, because England is one of the only places in the world where we find chalk streams. He is right to be angry about Thames Water polluting them. Under the rules that we have set under this …”

“I thank all Committee members for their support and their contributions. UK REACH is a complex but important framework that underpins how we regulate chemicals to protect human health and the environment while supporting industry and trade. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cheshire made an important point about the ch…”

“That was a record fine for not delivering safe and clean drinking water, but the hon. Gentleman is right that what happened there is a serious issue. Issuing fines is a matter for the independent regulators. On making the polluter pay, through our changes to the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 we can recoup the cost …”

“As summer comes, we all want to be enjoying our beaches, going for a swim, having a paddle and not having to think about checking an app to see whether they are polluted. My hon. Friend and his constituents are right to feel angry about the current situation. We have told companies that in delivering their storm overfl…”

“This Government are determined to build the homes that people need. I am sure that every Member has met enough people who are living in overcrowded homes and are desperate to move somewhere else—I know I have. In fact, just on Friday, I was talking to a constituent who lived with his wife, their six-year-old daughter a…”

“My hon. Friend raises an important issue, and I remember hearing about that incident. That is why under this Government, the Environment Agency has carried out over 10,000 inspections of water companies; under the previous Government, the figure was only 4,000, so we have increased the number of inspections. We are als…”

“The hon. Gentleman is right to say that South East Water’s communication with customers was frankly not good enough, and nor was its communication with Members of Parliament. One thing we are trying to do through DEFRA is to support the work with the local resilience forum to look at how we can improve that communicati…”

“My hon. Friend is right to be angry at the service that many customers have faced for years, and at the broken model we have had for a very long time. We need a fundamental reset—we have already made a huge number of changes since coming into government, and we as the Labour party should be proud of all those changes. …”

“The hon. Lady wrote to me about the specific difficulties her constituents have faced, and I have huge sympathy with them; that is not acceptable. The regulator will of course be taking a close interest because one issue that South East Water faces is that it is non-compliant with its licence because it was downgraded …”