Green groups bid for Special Measures Bill to enshrine the Water Restoration Fund

Nature coalition Wildlife and Countryside Link (WCL) has written to environment secretary Steve Reed to call for the Water Restoration Fund (WRF) to be formalised in the Water (Special Measures) Bill, which is now at Committee stage in the Commons.

The Fund was announced by the previous Conservative Government in 2022 to ring fence all water company pollution fines to pay for remedial work on waterways and their catchments. WCL said the principle is “exactly right” but “implementation has been slow, with decisions on 2024 grants still outstanding”.

In written evidence to the Bill Committee, WCL elaborated to say 20% of water company fines for 2022-23 have failed to make it into the Fund, and that Defra declined to commit to the £140m of 2024 fines entering the fund in full, “stating that the Treasury was involved in deciding how such funds should be spent. This strongly suggests that ringfencing is no longer being applied.”

The letter said: “The WRF is a very important funding stream to remediate the impact of pollution and to deliver the Environmental Improvement Plan. Discontinuing the Fund would be a major setback in restoring our freshwaters to good health and it would put the Government’s manifesto commitments on restoring the water environment in doubt. Guaranteeing the future of the fund, ensuring that polluter fines will be used for nature recovery, would help cultivate a strong pipeline of projects and attract more investment in river and estuarine restoration.”

Shadow Efra minister Dr Neil Hudson has tabled amendment NC2 to establish a legislative basis for the WRF and specify which fines should be paid into it.

The WCL written evidence also supported other tabled amendments which it said would improve the Bill. These were:

• Amendments NC1, NC9 and NC27, relating to the use of special administration for breach of environmental and other obligations.

• Amendments NC5 and NC10, on introduction licence conditions regarding the deployment of nature-based solutions. 

• Amendments NC14 and NC13, to prevent chemical pollutants and PFAS entering the water environment. This would primarily affect non-water company interests, notably manufacturers.

• Amendment NC15, seeking government funding and datasets to support citizen science.