Category: Environment

Well, I should say thank you very much, first of all, Matthew for allowing us to be here. I’m also very grateful to the Prime Minister. I think people try and say that the Prime Minister is not interested in nature, far from it. He’s very interested in our environment. I remember when I was first in Defra as an environment minister and he was in local government, we worked together on the litter strategy, we talked about how these sorts of things affect people’s lives, about how they respect their local environment, and extending that, of course, through his support for all our things like the development of the Local Nature Recovery Strategies, as well as representing one of our most rural constituencies in the country. I think it’s critical to remind ourselves of what he did say in Egypt last year, when he talked about tackling climate – that you can only tackle climate if you also help restore nature.

So I want to assure everybody here, that this is very much still the government’s environmental improvement plan, and that we continue to go from strength to strength I believe in that regard. If I think back just over six months ago, back in chilly January, it was sunny, the sun came out to greet us at the inspiring Camley Street Natural Park in the heart of London, just down the road as I launched that plan. Here we are today in the middle of one of the most splendid parts of our capital of our country. And as Matthew has pointed out, this isn’t just a place to come and see. It’s a place that is constantly thinking about nature around the world. And that is why the extent of what Defra does – in partnership here in the United Kingdom, across Europe and indeed around the world – is really important for our global future.

Defra is at the heart of what we are trying to do and I think what is really important, it’s our Defra family, but also today, here we’ve got a really wide range of people, people who care about birds, people who are dealing with farms, people who are looking after other aspects of wildlife. And they all are part of this tapestry, this picture, this plan to make sure that we as a Conservative government leave the environment in a better state than we inherited it. I’ve been Member of Parliament for thirteen years now and this is my second time in Defra. I’ve said this before, but my years as a member of parliament for Suffolk Coastal felt like the perfect apprenticeship for being a Defra minister, because the part of the world that I’m blessed to represent is rightly famous for its farming, and for its precious habitats on land and offshore. My love for coastal and blue habitats is something that continues to grow. And coming back into parliament, I’m really keen to push all the work that we’re doing with the blue planet fund and indeed what we can do domestically.

I think we’ve shown that in a number of ways already, by designating formally our first three highly protected marine areas which is going to be good for the conservation of fish but it’s also great for what we can do in terms of protecting a precious environment. That’s where we see the interplay between nature, our seagrass, protection of seahorses, marine conservation zones, and how that all helps in protecting our planet. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m mad for mangroves, but sadly we just simply cannot have any in this country. But I’m happy to support them around the world. Indeed, one of the things that I’ve been particularly working on recently is and what more we can do to stimulate our salt marsh, which is our version of mangroves. And I hope that we can continue to develop that. Since 2016, I guess I got my first taste. Within a month, I think I was off to the CITES conference in Johannesburg, and then going to Kruger seeing the different things of what we were doing in terms of that element. This is also an important element of how the Environmental Improvement Plan must play a part in preserving nature, but also working with people and communities in order to make sure that they work together. That’s been the beauty of it.

We need to go even further in how our Environmental Land Management Schemes are working together, working with local communities working with our farmers, who I call the original Friends of the Earth, in order to make sure that we have that interplay. You can see that here in the UK, but also it’s absolutely critical in what we do in many of our international programmes. So tackling illegal wildlife trade around the world was one of my priorities then and making progress on clean air. Using precious finite natural resources more sustainably and designing waste out of our systems, tackling flooding and so much more. Of course, we set out our vision on the 25 Year Environment Plan for that plan for a quarter century, and we are publishing the last of our progress report specifically on that plan today. Now in one of my first speeches as Environment Secretary, I said, I was determined that nature would no longer be the Cinderella of the story any longer in terms of our broader elements and what we’re trying to do to save our planet, because it’s never been clearer that we do rely on nature for everything – for our economic prosperity, our food security, and wellbeing. And nature is at the core of our communities which is why we are committed to leaving it in a better state. I think it’s fair to say when I came into the department, it felt like I had a tough hand and people might remember I was told when I would walk in, you’re going to break the law on Monday by not having these targets ready. It’s great to see Dame Glenys here, by the way. But nevertheless, it was a department that was really fighting hard to deliver multiple elements of what we were trying to do to improve the environment, as well as those legal deadlines. But we had those legal deadlines and we met the one for the Environmental Improvement Plan, thanks to the three massive pieces of legislation that we introduced in the years after Brexit.

These were the Agriculture Act, the Fisheries Act, and of course, the absolutely world leading Environment Act. But we should all rightly be proud of what the United Kingdom has delivered in the last six months since we published our Environmental Improvement Plan, working closely with many of you as our delivery partners, and I know that you want to do more, and I want you to do more. I want us to do that in a collaborative way. But also look at what we’ve achieved since over perhaps a decade. If I think that plastic packaging recycling is up by nearly twenty percentage points in a decade, annual sales of single use plastic carrier bags down by 1.62 billion since 2016. That’s a reduction of 77% and counting, with more bans on the most littered single use items coming later this year. And on air quality, we should also recognise we’ve seen real improvements, including a 73% fall in sulphur dioxide emissions since 2010 and our new plan sets out the next phase of action right across pollutants. We’ve enhanced over ten thousand miles of rivers in the last seven years with much loved species like seals returning to our estuaries. There’s less cadmium and mercury in the water environment. Phosphorus is down 80% and ammonia by 85% in our rivers, compared to 1990 when water companies were privatised. The biggest environmental infrastructure investment from the water sector ever will now help us target action for protected nature sites as part of the new Plan for Water, which is designed to make polluters pay to sort out their mess, and have the clean and plentiful water that we need for people, for farmers and wildlife alike. That’s why we’ve created and restored over a quarter of a million hectares of priority habitats since 2010. That’s an area the size of Dorset, and 28% of the UK now designated as protected areas.

But even beyond protected sites, we’re investing £268 million to create and restore habitats in the last financial year. We’ve also made a positive boost for nature mandatory for all new developments as we build homes across the country. Now in the last planting season alone, we’ve put well over three thousand hectares under canopy. That’s a new record and I understand it is about four million new trees, up 40% on the previous year. We will also extend the public forest estate providing even more woodland and it’s great to see William Worsley here today as well.

So a few weeks ago, I was delighted to announce the new £25 million Species Survival Fund to support thousands more wonderful species, water voles, lapwings all the like by creating connecting and restoring habitats like grasslands, woodlands and wetlands, and the 48 local authorities are being funded to work closely with local communities, landowners and experts and those recovery strategies will map out the areas where our efforts can achieve the greatest impact. Already our schemes supported more than 450 species backed by a five fold increase to £10 million a year for Natural England’s dedicated programme. So with our new duty on public authorities to help conserve and enhance biodiversity, for the first time nature is now absolutely embedded in the heart of decisions that government will take. That is there for the long haul and it is guided by the Environmental principles that we have set out.

As I say, this is thinking about what we’re doing at home but of course our role is around the world as well. So whether it’s our world renowned Darwin Programmes that have been supporting species and communities, pangolins, snow leopards, St. Helena’s rare Cloud Forest, to some of the most important seabird colonies in the world on Gulf Island. We’ve been doing that across 140 countries since 1992. And our £100 million Biodiverse Landscapes Funds is working on some of the world’s most important biomes from the Lower Mekong to the mighty Kavango Zambezi where five countries are working together across the River Basin. We created over one hundred marine protected areas in the last decade and taking us to 178 MPAs, covering 40% of English waters. And I’ve already mentioned the three new highly protected marine areas. Alongside the brilliant blue belts that protect an area of ocean greater than India over the UK overseas territories, from the South Sandwich Islands to Tristan da Cunha. We’re pouring that expertise and experience into the Blue Planet Fund, including support for the vast trans boundary collaboration, protecting over 500 square kilometres of the eastern tropical Pacific. That first made headlines in Glasgow at COP26. That was thanks to a historic collaboration between Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Costa Rica.

And having led the UK delegation to the conference in Montreal, where our brilliant UK team helped to get a new global nature agreement over the line, we continue to co-lead. And that is a critical way of making sure that this isn’t just about the north, telling the global south how to protect nature when they’ve got a lot more of it than we have. This is about supporting the global ambitions of coalition committed to making sure we secure the action and the finance needed to bring it to life, to bring it to life around the world. Whether that was our global summit at Lancaster house, the very kind reception undertaken by the King at Buckingham Palace. Engagement with the financial sector, we had various receptions at Number 10 and in the city, and launching with our French friends, a new initiative on high integrity, biodiversity credit markets in the recent summit that President Macron hosted. Frankly, I challenge you to find a comparable country anywhere in the world that has done as much as we have domestically and internationally.

One of the things that I’m really clear on is that we need to make sure that we continue that activity. Of course, other people’s minds might turn to the election next year, but we’ve got to keep our eye on the prize and what we can do for the long term. That is why our 25 Year Environmental Plan that we’ve updated is absolutely critical to that. As I said, we talked about biodiversity net gain, that should be in place by November, so that every development puts 10% back more into nature.

Now, one of the things that Defra ministers have been doing a lot of very recently is not necessarily going to zoos, or some of the other activities. But actually we’ve been going around the country to our agriculture shows. And while Trudy, Rebecca and I have just had a little bit of a treat, seeing mummy sloth with a little baby sloth. Or indeed seeing the Sumatran tigers and our other ministers, Lord Benyon and Minister Spencer are undertaking parliamentary activity so they’re mad jealous of our experience. But we have been going around the country and speaking to farmers, because I’m very conscious that the change of the transition that we are seeing with Environmental Land Management schemes is a big one. And it needs to succeed. And of course, farmers will listen to other farmers. That’s why it’s great. Three of our ministers are farmers, and the other two of us we represent very rural constituencies. We know these communities, we know the decisions that they’re considering.

That is why it’s important that we continue to listen to the people who look after 70% of our land in this country, and why we work with them to make it work. Because if we don’t then nature will lose out and we cannot afford for that to happen. Going to Groundswell it used to be like the Woodstock or the Glastonbury of farming, it’s now gone very mainstream, but that’s great because we want what we do to be mainstream, and we will want to bring more farmers with us as we go. I can assure you will like Countryside Stewardship Plus when we put out the details later this year, and a further round of landscape recovery as well as more grants and partnerships, getting cutting edge kit out of labs and into the fields where farmers can really put it to the test.

But their bottom line will always be about producing food. It’s critical that the health and welfare of the animals they tender is top notch and also for the natural environment on which they depend, as well as us too. We will continue. we are undertaking all the work necessary to bring in our due diligence obligations on forest risk commodities, protecting global forests, we will publish the map and the framework about our 30 by 30 commitment. And we will continue to say more about what we’re going to do to restore our vital blue habitats. I’ve already said that I’m passionate about aspects of this, I’m going to do G20 next week in India, in Chennai, and will continue to promote this as being absolutely critical. And I think I’ve got the treat of going to the world’s second largest mangrove forest. I can’t tell you how excited I am. But we need to keep that journey going and that’s why we’ll go to UNGA, we will go to COP28, we’re getting the global environment assembly, we’re seeing the launch next month as well of the fund to accompany the CBD. And we will continue to not just think about the world but to deliver our Environmental Improvement Plan, to deliver the plan for water, and we will not let up on those who harm our environments, who pollute. And we’re relentless in driving improved performance from water companies. Because I expect this better, the public expects better.

While there are many other things I could list, and I’m sure Matthew will give me a list of the things that I haven’t mentioned, one of the things I’m also want to stress is that I will ensure we invest properly in science, and research and evidence that is absolutely vital, to make sure that we continue to understand the measures that we do and the impact that they have. This isn’t about trying to fiddle around with the numbers. This is about making sure future generations have an environment, thinking of our climate changing right around us. Forty plus degrees only 100 miles away in France, while we’ve got rain in July. But nevertheless, it’s why we have to adapt. It’s why we have to be agile. It’s why nature itself adapts. And that’s why we need to continue to make sure we have our focus on this precious Earth. This precious planet. And it’s great we’ve got precious people here who are going to help us deliver. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much Nick and I really appreciate that warm welcome. It is true I have come from Cabinet this morning. But I want to start by saying a huge thank you to the Countryside Alliance Foundation organising committee for today’s event. I know many people have made a contribution today, indeed everyone who’s given up their time to participate in this important discussion on the future of our countryside. And also particularly in this great estate – thanks to Lord and Lady Salisbury in particular – which as we already know has played such an important role in many chapters of our national history.

The countryside is the bedrock of our own story, rightly famous around the world for its beauty. And absolutely at the heart it is a part of what makes our country such a great place to live. It has nourished generations of painters, poets, authors, composers, who brought the countryside and nature to life, whether that’s Elgar, Beatrix Potter, Gainsborough, Jane Austen, I can even add Clarkson’s Farm which has opened up the world of agriculture to a new audience who may be connecting for the very first time on what a challenging and rewarding life being a farmer is. And from the patchwork quilt of fields, hedgerows and the dry stone walls that characterise our landscapes to the woodlands that have kept watch for generations and the ancient stone circles that still keep us guessing about how they got there, we are so fortunate that we have these wonderful touchstones of our shared heritage to hand. Our countryside makes up over 90% of our land. This is a living, breathing, vibrant place that adds so much to the health and happiness of millions every year and over £250 billion to our economy in England alone – thanks to the hard work and dedication of the nearly 10 million people who are proud to call this home.

Just a few weeks ago, I was delighted to present the Countryside Alliance awards – the rural Oscars as they’re known – to several brilliant businesses from across the United Kingdom, who’ve been chosen from over 15,000 entries. It was a joyful, brilliant celebration of a thriving, vibrant countryside that we all know, that we all love, that we all cherish, and that we want to continue to prosper.

Now I know how government has already helped businesses – rural business rate relief, financial support to keep things like the network of rural post offices open. We’re continuing to do so. We’ve got £3.2 billion a year supporting farmers, £2.6 billion in the Shared Prosperity Fund and indeed the extra £110 million of the Rural England Prosperity Fund that we are deploying. And that’s just to name a few of the initiatives that we’ve undertaken. This morning, sitting around the cabinet table, we were discussing these important rural matters, and most of the cabinet ministers represent rural areas. My team of Defra ministers certainly do. And we know why people love living and working in the countryside. We live and work there ourselves. We know the potential, but we also know the challenges that our rural communities can and do face. As a government, we have established the rural proofing policy so that every department has to consider policy through the rural lens. And that’s why also we started presenting the annual rural report, the next version of which will be published later this year.

To complement that today, and because of that potential we know exists, I’m pleased that the government is publishing Unleashing Rural Opportunity, which outlines some of the work we’ve already done and some new initiatives to help – to help grow the economy, to help increase connectivity, to help introduce affordable housing, and to help strengthen our rural communities.

Securing a fine and prosperous future for our countryside is not a niche concern. Far from it. It is a national priority. As Secretary of State for Rural Affairs, I make my pledge to you, indeed to people living and working in the countryside, that we will always champion the countryside and cherish rural ways of life. Those of us with mud on our boots, we may roll our eyes when we hear newcomers to the village complain of the clanging of the church bell or the smell from the spreading of manure. But we also know that with time comes a really growing understanding that these are the things that make the countryside so special, and that we take them for granted at our peril. So I am delighted – as we think about the next generation in particular – we’ve recruited none other than Shaun the Sheep to help us promote respect for the countryside through the Countryside Code.

And it is that respect for the hard work it takes to keep the countryside beautiful and healthy, that respect for the countryside and for the people living and working in it, that I really want to reinforce today. Those of us who are fortunate enough to live and work in the countryside know the many benefits that spending time in the great outdoors can bring to our lives. Indeed we made a pledge in our Environmental Improvement Plan to provide access to green or blue spaces within 15 minutes from everyone’s home.

We have over 140,000 miles of public rights of way in England and Wales alone and we are extending the deadline to 2031 to register more. When complete next year we will have the longest coastal path in the world, the recently rechristened King Charles III Coast Path, and that level of access is extraordinary. But I do believe that access needs to be carefully managed, carefully respected, to protect our ground-nesting birds, to keep dogs on leads to stop sheep worrying, and to allow farmers to farm. Which is why we, the Conservative government, will absolutely not be establishing a right to roam but we are reinforcing respect for rural communities.

Now I think we’ve made a lot of progress in supporting rural communities to prosper since 2010. We actually see very high rates of employment in the countryside. But it can hide pockets of poverty too and in particular on low pay, where there are some of the lowest salaries in the country – the council that’s represented by the Prime Minister has the third lowest median salary in the country. That is a challenge undoubtedly. And we are reviewing how we measure deprivation in rural areas so that the interests of rural communities are better represented in future policy.

We want everyone in rural areas to be living long and fulfilling lives with the sustained improvements to living standards and their wider well-being we all want to see, beyond what just the natural green of the countryside provides – so providing the tools and resources they need to actually shape their future and to be part of decisions that affect their lives as we work together to make the most of the countryside for everything we want to achieve. And of course that includes our farmers. I’m not intending to dwell on farmers today but they are a core part of our countryside. I’ve spoken about this at length in recent months and indeed, their dedication makes everything possible. I call them the original friends of the earth – they are certainly the custodians of our countryside. This was reinforced I hope when the Prime Minister made clear how important they are at the Food Summit that we hosted in Number 10 just a few weeks ago. And as I pointed out, our rural reporting is now an annual fixture. So combining the best of the rural resourcefulness that many of us enjoy, the stewardship, the husbandry, we do need to make sure that we future-proof our rural ways of life.

And some of this work needs to be undertaken and is being undertaken on a massive scale, including the £2.4 billion flowing into the rural economy through supporting sustainable and productive farm businesses in England alone. Yet, just as a host of small challenges compound one another in the unique context of the countryside, we need to have smaller targeted solutions and initiatives come together and make a real difference for the people who need them the most and expand the horizons of what rural life can be. I think in particular, when I think about the different ways that we can do that, it is about making sure that we are unlocking growth and unleashing that rural potential. And there are certain ways that we can try and make sure that happens.

So we have digital connectivity. You should be able to run a financial services company or an architectural practice at the top of remote valley just as well as you can in a town. And that in turn will help us create more of the jobs we need in the countryside, as well as making it easier to give young people the wider educational and vocational opportunities they need to take them up, close to where they live, paying more rather than having to factor in an expensive commute into their working day. I’m determined that we would keep at it and, as I pointed out already, whether that’s business rate relief that we have, support for schools, investment in post offices, making sure that people can access the services that they need. So in terms of setting out our initiatives, we’ve got four themes where we’re talking about how we can grow the economy.

But to do that, we also want to make sure that we are improving that connectivity, and not just mobile phone but indeed broadband, and also reinforcing what it is about when we live in homes that are the affordable homes that many of our younger people especially need, rather than having an exodus to the cities and then coming back later in life. But critically we also need to reinforce our communities and back the proven resilience, resourcefulness and agility that rural communities and rural businesses provide. So in terms of supporting growth in the rural economy, we will press on with making sure that we try to improve, as part of the levelling up agenda, supporting jobs, supporting education. whether that’s traditional rural strengths like farming, forestry, tourism, to make sure that we’re also capturing ventures into green industries and biotechnology, improving their skills, getting more people into better paying jobs, and just making things easier for people to do that.

We’re investing £10 million through the new Rural England Prosperity Fund, and we’re going to be helping those who have furthest to travel to college each day by increasing our funding for bursaries for 16 to 19-year-olds by 10% for the next year. In terms of transport and connectivity, getting to work is absolutely key and we should just accept that most people in the countryside do and will continue to drive. But quite rightly, we know that people want to be able to travel by buses too, particularly as people get older in life. But it can be astonishingly expensive. And that’s why I was delighted that we’re extending the £2 bus fare cap until the end of October, and then we’ll go up to £2.50 until November 2024. And I know it’s helping a lot of rural people already. If I think about a trip from Kendal to Lancaster, it normally costs £15.

People are already saving that money now with the £2 cap and I can see the difference it makes in my own constituency as well. So overall, we’ll see over £3 million in government investment to better protect our services into 2025 and keep travel affordable alongside the wider £1 billion being spent to improve the reliability, frequency and cost of buses. We’re also consulting on ways to better reflect the cost of operating rural bus services in subsidy payments to try and keep those fares low and the service levels high. So we want to protect vital rural routes. But even with the best will in the world, many people will know we can’t get a service everywhere, which is why we’ll be investing in more demand-responsive options as well.

The Department for Transport will be publishing later this year the Rural Transport Strategy and that will provide guidance for local authorities to use new technologies to improve access to services, tackle isolation and increase access to jobs and services in rural and remote areas. I was very pleased that we did issue a call for evidence last year on driving licences. Anybody here who got their driving licence before 1997? So most people in the room but actually not all. And if you did that there was a European regulation, which Britain fought hard for at the time, that meant you were able to keep your driving licence rights which actually involved being able to drive up to a seven-and-a-half tonne lorry – but also critically, and this is why it matters to me so much, a D1 licence and that is basically where you can drive community mini buses. And I see it quite regularly in my own constituency that you see charities investing money in people, about £2,500 to £3,000, to get their licence. I’m pleased to say that in the summary of the call for evidence that’s been published today, 73% of those who responded would like to reinstate those rights, particularly for mini buses.

Digital connectivity is now mission critical. And things have moved faster than any of us could have imagined. 75% of UK premises can now access gigabit-capable broadband. That’s up from 6% just at the beginning of 2019. And over 730,000 premises have already been upgraded in hard-to-reach rural areas as part of our five-day enhanced project in gigabit investment. And so by December 2025 we will have provided over 1.5 million premises with access to gigabit broadband, with fibre being laid up and down country. I remember it’s not that long ago, probably a decade ago, when we talked about Universal Service Obligation. That was when we were going to excitedly give everybody access to 10 megabits and now we’re talking about a gigabit and we will continue to invest in that as well – an £8 million grant scheme to improve satellite connectivity for those really hard-to-reach places, up to 35,000 homes in the remotest parts of the country, as well as tripling the value of vouchers available under the gigabit broadband voucher scheme.

So that will mean we’re investing over £1 billion in the shared rural network alongside industry to get 4G coverage and to get more people onto gigabit, and indeed we are planning through our Wireless Infrastructure Strategy to boost it by £40 million. There are a number of trials we are doing in the remote islands of the Shetlands or deep valleys and the new £7 million fund will help to see how we can bring together satellite wireless and internet connectivity. I believe that will help tourism businesses, it help farmers to access lightning speeds and reliable connectivity for the first time. I am delighted that Simon Fell is going to be our rural connectivity champion, and that will encourage innovation investment and advanced wireless technologies in rural areas.

We also want to make sure that people can get a home. The affordability of homes is really challenging. That includes making it easier for farmers to convert their disused farm buildings. We’re also funding a new team of rural housing enablers right across England to support new schemes and boost the supply of new affordable housing to rent for rural communities as well.

You already know some of the challenges that we have on second homes. That’s why local authorities will have the power to charge up to double the council tax on second homes, to help them to manage the impact that they can have on rural communities. And we’ll be consulting on the tools needed to address concerns about the proliferation of short-term lets. I know that we’ve already supplied quite a lot of money, particularly for those areas with high proportions of second homes, to build new homes. I had the pleasure of opening a suite of those in Southwold in my own constituency. But it is critical that people do not feel that they have to leave the communities in which they have been brought up and want to stay within.

I think also one of the things that doesn’t really get registered very often is crime. And we know that crime is generally lower in rural areas. But it’s also worryingly concerning around things like agricultural theft, in terms of equipment. These drills are not cheap to replace. These tractors are not cheap to replace. But they are being stolen and that’s why the establishment of the new National Rural Crime Unit with targeted funding, I believe, will do a lot to bring together best practice, but also a laser-like focus on making sure that it’s not just about fly-tipping, which is a blight, but also how this is impacting the incomes and the prosperity of the people who are the very custodians our countryside and put the food on our plate.

One of the things I am conscious about is that we want to see improve our access to things like health, the new dental plan. I’m expecting more work to be coming through on specifically on how we support rural communities. Coming back to the villages, the hamlets, the market towns, quite a lot of this is about is ‘the pub the hub?’ or ‘is the village hall the hub?’. As far as I’m concerned, it could be both and anything – anything that brings people together, brings communities together to enjoy that way of life, to be the volunteers, not just listening to The Archers every night – but so they can have it happening in their own homes, in their own communities.

We need to make sure that we tackle that rural isolation, that we support the different elements that make people feel special. It’s why we’re forming a new Public Library Strategy for England in 2024. We’re giving some funding to ACRE and its network of member organisations to help more people to volunteer and tackle loneliness. But also that’s why we continue to invest in things through the assets of community value. I think the Prime Minister referred in cabinet this morning to the pub that he helped reopen when the community had bought it. For locals, like with the Racehorse in Westhall in my constituency, just under £100,000 was the key bit in there helping them buy and keep their pub open.

And indeed we want to make sure that village halls endure, which is why we created a fund especially in celebration of Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee. And indeed I was in Herefordshire just a few days ago, where they were showing me how the support has made all the difference to making sure that their community hub is absolutely there.

Let’s be clear, our countryside needs to be living, working, vibrant and thriving. That’s why I believe there are still many opportunities to really unleash its potential. That’s why today, I am publishing Unleashing Rural Opportunity, and it’s why I’m excited for now and generations to come to be the Secretary of State of Defra, to be the person that bangs the table with my fellow cabinet ministers to make sure the countryside is not only respected, but cherished, valued, considered and continues to prosper for generations to come. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Rebecca. And it is great to be back here.

Sarah, thank you very much for letting us use this spectacular site. As Rebecca said we were here five years ago for the launch of the 25-Year Environment Plan. And as Rebecca pointed out, that partnership has been ongoing and I am delighted that it was Rebecca of course, who pushed the Environment Bill through Parliament that has led to many of the outcomes that we are seeking to make sure we can deploy today.

I am delighted to be launching our Plan for Water – our comprehensive and integrated plan to deliver clean and plentiful supply of water for people, businesses and for nature.

It’s built on a catchment-based approach to managing water including with nature-based solutions, and we will coordinate community by community on how to tackle pollution from every source, to have unlimited penalties on polluters, reinvesting those proceeds into local water restoration projects and to make sure we have sufficient supply for us at home, for businesses, for food security and for nature.

I have lived near rivers, near water, pretty much all of my life, from the Test to the Trent, from the Mersey to the Minsmere; and many others in between.

Every river, every stream has its own sense of magic, with its own special history, its own sense of life changing right throughout the day as that movement of water is critical for the very essence of life itself for us and for nature, and it has long been the lifeblood of our economy for centuries.

The Test, probably the most famous chalk stream in the world, filled with trout, the gravel bed glistening, wildlife and anglers in harmony – though the fish get a bit of a raw deal if the anglers are in luck.

Or the magnificent Mersey – once the extremely murky Mersey – which had its raw sewage pipes spewing out, but they were removed and the river was transformed thanks to the Mersey Basin campaign, a long term campaign. We now see it resplendent with its rich maritime history and the river still being a key economic lifeline for Liverpool

I could go on, especially as now MP for Suffolk Coastal, which is full of rivers and creeks, my constituency stretches from the Orwell river in the south right up to the Hundred, each with their own tales of yesteryear and being at the heart of the economy and nature today.

I have long been motivated by making sure that we do have clean and plentiful water, and access to that at home and abroad, critical to the health and wellbeing of everyone and every element of wildlife on this planet.

Before becoming an MP, I was a volunteer speaker for Water Aid driven by my desire very much for everyone in this planet to have access to safe, clean water.

That is why I am proud of our government’s work right around the world on delivering clean, safe, water for people and for food production, especially in this time of accelerated climate change where we are seeing desertification on a mass scale.

And we are seeing increasingly those problems at home too.

Last summer we hadreally significant drought, and parts of the country are still considered to be in drought, and we were reminded how precious and finite water really is.

One reason we tend to take water for granted when we turn on our taps is our Victorian water system. It has transformed our health, landscapes, our coastlines for the better, for generations, taking care of our needs in ways that millions of people around the world still lack.

Yet, the pressures have increased dramatically – both on the supply of water and our Victorian sewage network creaking with the increase in pollution.

Just like many other countries, we are now facing the challenges of securing clean and plentiful water for the long term.

We have growing demand on supply, when we already supply 14 billion litres per day, we have been told we need to plan for 4 billion litres per day more by 2050.

When climate change is bringing hotter summers, and wetter, stormier winters.

So, making sure we have a clean and plentiful supply of water is critical for people for business, for nature, and food security.

We do need to take care of water and our Plan is designed to do just that, building on the significant investment and action already undertaken.

Last year, I was pleased that over 72% of our bathing waters in England were classified as ‘excellent’, that’s up from 51% in 2010.

We have much loved species like seahorses, otters and seals returning to our rivers and estuaries.

We have taken on the micro and single-use plastics that wreak such havoc on our wildlife.

We introduced Farming Rules for Water to tackle pollution.

We designated marine conservation zones – our own Blue Belt – and are now designating highly protected marine areas.

However, we still have the scourge of sewage pollution that needs solving once and for all.

It was Richard Benyon, the Water Minister in 2013, who instructed water companies to monitor storm overflows.

Previous governments had not even thought to do this.

And as the lid has been lifted, their significant over-use has been gradually unveiled.

As we dialled up the monitoring, the public has been rightly horrified by how frequently they are now being used.

I agree it is completely unacceptable.

So, as well as leaning on water companies to scale up investment, we are tightening regulation and toughening up enforcement.

And that is why now is the right time for our new comprehensive Plan for Water

• Working systematically at a local level across catchments
• Tackling all sources of pollution and improving quality
• Penalising polluters
• Managing supply and demand for water, for our homes, for businesses and for food security

The scale, the detail and the deliverability of this Plan I think puts it in a different league to anything we have ever done before – and I believe that will make all the difference.

Collaboration and coordination, community by community, catchment by catchment, is critical to improving our water – both on pollution and supply – and we will support that with targeted funding.

Backed by government, strengthening our regulators, supporting our communities, I will make delivery of this plan as straightforward as I possibly can.

There will be nowhere to hide for those who continue to pollute our rivers, with support for those who want to do the right thing, with the system by default expected to say yes to help deliver those improvements.

We all agree pollution is simply not acceptable.

So, we will penalise polluters, making it easier for regulators to do that job, we will get farmers the kit and support they need to manage the slurry and reduce the run-off, and we will tackle every other source of pollution head on – including run-off from our roads, banning those wet wipes that have plastic in them. It’s great that some retailers have already got the message from previous signals and we are going to complete the job by delivering the regulation.

And I want to work with industry to have cheap, effective filters to stop microplastics leaving our washing machines – that’s a long running campaign by the Women’s Institute which I fully expect industry to deliver.

And we will also be banning chemicals that hang around in our rivers forever doing untold damage.

But, clearly, the penalties that have been deployed so far – even though we have now seen the largest, over £90 million, deployed recently – they have not been a sufficient deterrent for poor performance – so, I am going to make those penalties unlimited.

And with establishing a Water Restoration Fund reinvesting those penalties into local projects to help repair the damage, we will target efforts where they are needed most urgently, where we can achieve greatest impact – that’s on protected sites, chalk streams, peatlands, wetlands, we are going to tackle pollution, and support wildlife.

And, we will seek to use technology and innovation as allies in solving the quality and supply challenges that we face.

Now you may think I have spoken about pollution and sewage enough.

But we do need to keep talking about sewage and how to tackle it.

Our combined sewer network is about sixty-two-thousand-miles long – that’s enough stretch around the world two-and-a-half times, with over 15,000 storm overflows.

And while about 30% of pipes have been renewed since 1990, the scale and complexity of what we need to achieve is absolutely extraordinary.

We have already created the Storm Overflow Reduction Plan which will require the biggest ever investment in water infrastructure of an estimated £56 billion.

We announced this week the speeding up of spending from water companies on storm overflows and other schemes, with an additional £1.6 billion in the next two years, bringing forward projects, fixing problems with major new projects in Lake Windermere, the River Wharfe, Falmouth, Sidmouth, and Drake Reservoir in Warwickshire so we will see more improvement, faster.

I recently re-visited the Thames Tideway Tunnel scheme. Can you believe it was initiated a decade ago, that planning consent went in in February 2013, construction started in 2016, and it will still take till 2025 to complete at an estimated cost of over £4 billion.

But it is expected to reduce storm overflows by at least 94% a year – I would like it to be 100% – but it is just one part of the jigsaw needed.

And while London and the Thames may have space for its new super sewer, wider upgrades to the sewer network could mean years of costly disruptive works in our streets – and without careful management that could put hundreds of pounds on people’s bills.

Because the truth is that however much we all want to see this fixed yesterday, never mind today, there is no way that we can stop pollution overnight.

If there were, I would do it just as quickly – without hesitation.

And anyone who tells you that they can – or indeed get £56 billion of capital investment out the door and into the necessary improvements to fix everything within the next seven years – they are either detached from reality or being definitively dishonest with the public.

And I can, I am and I will use the full force of my powers to make sure that we tackle pollution as quickly as possible.

We were the first government to introduce new legal targets on water companies.

Our Environment Act requires water companies to publish information on overflows in real time, within in the hour, as well as to reduce them progressively.

Last summer, we published our plan for the toughest crackdown yet.

And I said recently that if we can go faster in our timelines, we will.

In February, I made it clear to water companies that they must set out exactly what they will do to clean up the mess – with the action plans on individual storm overflows due on my desk by the summer.

We will have a systematic approach and greater level of detail than ever before.

And let’s be clear.

The real challenge we face is pollution.

The source of it and the treatment of it.

And frankly we are all fed up. I was particularly horrified last week that one of the water companies seemingly did not know the reason for a single one of their overflows being triggered. That is absolutely shocking and reinforced the need for the detailed action plans.

So, I want to be unequivocal.

Water companies need to clean up their act.

Water companies must cover the costs.

And it is up to water companies to make sure they direct any profits they make from bill-payers’ hard-earned money into improvements.

I am not here to be an apologist for the water companies.

Far from it.

They are already subject to a criminal investigation.

But that level of investigation can be time-consuming.

So, we asked Ofwat and the EA what they needed to make improvements and what more they needed to tackle pollution in their role as the regulators – and we included the opportunities for those powers in the Environment Act and those tools are now being used to take on the fight against polluters.

So, as well as leaning on water companies to scale up investment, we are tightening regulation and toughening up enforcement.

We have already increased funding for the Environment Agency to increase enforcement, and now, through Ofwat, we are linking dividends to environmental improvement, to performance, and making sure shareholders cough up to cover bonuses at any company that fails to perform – because it can never be right for customers to be forced to foot the bill to reward those continue to pollute.

We are giving the Environment Agency the power to issue unlimited penalties for a wider range of offences without going through the courts.

That will happen by the end of this year – so polluters, you have been warned, you have to pay up, and pronto.

And in tackling pollution, we want to improve the ecological and chemical status of our waterbodies across the country.

But again this will take some time.

The impact of chemicals and mines long since banned or abandoned will take decades to break down – that is not my opinion, that is the scientific reality.

But as part of the process of formulating our new Plan for Water, I asked our scientists to help me understand why there is such a challenge when it comes to achieving Good Ecological Status in our waterbodies – and again we have been going to a level of detail, picking out is it the fish, is it the PH, is it different elements?

because frankly, I don’t think it is for a lack of effort. Indeed there has been quite a lot of investment going in.

But I have to say it turns out that achieving the gold standard for ecological status would mean taking us back to the natural state of our rivers from the year 1840.

That is neither practical nor desirable in many circumstances.

We are not going to take London back to a time before the Embankment was built, or remove the Thames Barrier – indeed we will need another before the end of the century – no one is contemplating dismantling half of Sheffield to let the River Don run free, but without that, it will never be scored as being ‘excellent’, even though salmon have returned to that part of the river Don for the first time in 200 years.

However, I do want to see systemic improvement, I want to see it delivered and it will be delivered through our catchment-based approach, with an action plan for every water body.

Of course that will involve tackling other sources of pollution.

While we crack down on the big polluters and make them pay, we will back those trying to make sure that they do the right thing and bring up their baseline, so we are tripling the money to help farmers manage slurry to £34 million, there will be another round of funding to help them store more water on their land, and more investment in the tech they need, so we support the sustainable food production that underpins long-term food security.

We are also doubling funding to £15 million, to cover all farmland in England under the Catchment Sensitive Farming programme.

We have seen groups of farms, businesses, and local councils working together and they have already leveraged in an additional £45 million from wider sources, so we want to back their ambition in tackling pollution.

Now while I said we can never stop talking about sewage and what we are going to do about it, I do want to turn to supply.

We are building on this – from making sure water companies have proper plans to improve our resilience to drought and flooding, to requiring them to invest billions of pounds in improvements, and in new large-scale water infrastructure – including transfers, recycling, and reservoirs.

We are publishing our National Policy Statement on Water Resources, which should streamline and speed up our planning processes, so we can build the infrastructure we need more quickly, and make sure our water system is fit for the future, bringing planning for flooding and water together – clearly investing more in improvements, more quickly is front and centre to this plan.

As well as setting an ambitious target for water companies to cut leakage in half, with financial penalties for those who fail to make timely progress, we are helping the water companies in some ways though by making sustainable drainage systems mandatory for new housing from next year.

The savviest developers have already discovered the magical powers of sustainable drainage – in many places they are known as a pond – the rain gardens – that help our sewer networks and provide a boost for biodiversity as well.

I have already mentioned food security and I am really concerned about the supply of water for food security.

I recognise we need to stop over-abstracting where it harms nature, we do need to make sure we have sufficient water for food production.

I see that very much in my role as an MP in Suffolk. Indeed challenges on abstraction has been pretty much the most critical issue there for my farmers since day one of being an MP.

Using water and careful irrigation techniques for many years, I recognise though that still the pressures are growing.

That is why the last time I was in Defra, I tried to bring people together to find a solution.

And I am pleased they did.

The result was the Felixstowe Hydrocycle and even now that is helping farmers make the most of precious freshwater to sustain their crops in the thirsty, sandy Suffolk soils, where both food crops and nature are desperate for clean water.

And I am pleased it restored nature too.

The salt marsh is recovering.

The extent of creatures there has grown – I have never seen so many swans in one place.

For me, the Felixstowe Hydrocycle is a blue print, not just of the technology but of the partnership approach that made it happen.

And we need that can do attitude replicated in other parts of the country where water supply is under stress. We will also be working with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to see what we can do to try to make it easier for farmers to have on-site reservoirs as well, recognising that they want the chance to try to store some water in the winter time.

Ladies and gentlemen, friends, I know a lot of people have put a lot of effort into making this come together today.

And I believe in setting out our comprehensive Plan for Water.

We recognise we have an interconnected system. We recognise we have a problem.

And in this plan we are setting out what we believe government, regulators, and water companies can do – to make sure standards and performance keep improving, as well as anticipating and preparing for further challenges ahead.

We are facing into this problem.

No one is shying away from it, because the public rightly expects nothing less – and I have to say to the public I am on your side, and fighting your corner.

Millions of us are already doing our bit on a daily basis at home, being careful with water, so my priority is making sure the water companies and regulators step up and do their bit too, so we make real progress on your priorities. And if we all pull in the same direction – in a sustained, national effort on a scale never undertaken before – we can do it.

So, my hope is that this ambitious, credible, deliverable Plan that I am proud to publish today helps us come together to address the issues we all care so much about, and get the job done,

So we can secure the clean and plentiful water we need, now and for generations to come.