London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Monday, Oct 06, 2025

Lib Dems put sewage at heart of campaign as party eyes ‘blue wall’ seats

Lib Dems put sewage at heart of campaign as party eyes ‘blue wall’ seats

The party hopes to win over Tory voters at the local election disgusted with inaction over sewage dumping in rivers
Sewage has become a major battleground in the local elections in so-called “blue wall” seats, where the Liberal Democrats are challenging the Conservatives, from Guildford to Cambridgeshire.

The Lib Dems have put eliminating sewage dumps at the heart of their campaign, with the party leader, Ed Davey, planning to launch their fight at the River Wandle in Wimbledon on Wednesday. He is calling for a tax on sewage companies to fund the clean up of local rivers, which can see waste pumped out into the environment when there is heavy rainfall.

The Tories have been under huge public pressure over the issue since the government rejected a House of Lords amendment to put a legal duty on water companies to phase out pumping waste into rivers last autumn.

However, in a sign of how contested the issue has become, some Tory election material on social media has misleadingly accused the Lib Dems of “voting against a legal duty to clean up rivers”. Lib Dem MPs opposed the government’s plans in favour of stronger legal duties backed by opposition parties.

A Liberal Democrat source said: “Conservative MPs are clearly running scared of the huge public backlash over sewage. Their desperate new social media tactics just won’t cut it.”

The Lib Dems said internal polling commissioned by the party suggests that sewage dumping is one of the top issues likely to persuade traditional Conservative voters to no longer vote for the party.

Another poll for the party showed that 36% of UK voters said they would be less likely to vote for an MP who did not support a ban on raw sewage dumped in rivers, rising to 41% of those who voted Conservative in 2019.

Launching the campaign, Davey said: “Conservative MPs have voted time after time to let water companies keep on pumping their filthy sewage straight into our rivers. Rivers like the Wandle in Wimbledon, which now has the worst ecological rating possible. Meanwhile, water company bosses are pocketing millions of pounds in bonuses. All that must change.

“Every vote for the Liberal Democrats counts. It sends a message to the Conservatives that they can’t keep failing our NHS. They can’t keep hitting families with unfair tax rises and they can’t keep pumping sewage into our rivers.”

A Conservative spokesperson disputed the Lib Dem claims about sewage and repeated their claim that the Lib Dems had voted against government measures to clamp down on sewage discharges.

“Lib Dem claims about sewage are even less trustworthy than the bar charts on their leaflets,” the spokesperson said. “While we are taking practical steps to tackle the problem, Lib Dem plans would not have stopped sewage discharges and could cost every household more than £25,000.”

In fact, opposition parties, including Labour and the Lib Dems, voted for a House of Lords amendment to the environment bill last October that would have placed a legal duty on water companies not to pump raw waste into rivers, which was voted down by Tory MPs. It would have introduced a requirement for sewage companies to “take all reasonable steps to ensure untreated sewage is not discharged from storm overflows” and to “demonstrate improvements in the sewerage systems”.

The government argued that its own version of the amendment was strong enough, with a promise to reduce the number of “storm overflow discharges”, and won22 Tory would-be rebels. Ministers said their plan “represents a major improvement on the status quo” and argued that “complete elimination of sewage discharges through storm overflows in England, which many are calling for more broadly, is likely to cost between approximately £350bn and £600bn”.

In 2020, water companies released raw sewage into rivers more than 400,000 times over a total of 3.1m hours. The release of raw sewage via storm overflows is legal in exceptional circumstances such as extreme rain, but figures show that in many cases such discharges are happening more routinely.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
×