"The Tories are now going for outright gaslighting on water quality"

Michael Gove has faced fierce criticism for attempting to defend his party’s reputation on water pollution by claiming Britain’s water quality has got cleaner, while stating standards had got higher.

It comes as the Levelling Up Secretary scrapped EU-era water pollution restrictions for new homes, which will see taxpayers picking up the bill for pollution caused by housebuilders.

In an attempt to justify the latest Tory assault on environmental regulation, Gove insisted on Times Radio that rivers are ‘cleaner than they have been in the past’.

“Of course our rivers aren’t as clean as they should be, but they are cleaner than they have been in the past,” insisted Gove.

When questioned if he was ‘content’ with the government’s environmental record, Gove said he was ‘never content’ and that, “I always think that we should do better.”

But when pressed by the presented that water pollution is now ‘worse than it was’, Gove hit back.

“I want to pick you up on that,” said Gove. “It’s a widespread myth that somehow the quality of our water has deteriorated. Actually, we’ve seen record levels of investment. Between 2020 and 2025 the UK, England will be spending more on improving its water than other European countries.

“And it’s also the case that if you look at the real levels of pollution in our rivers, for example at the ammonia, a key indicator of sewage in our waters, the ammonia being detected has gone down.

“Now, the standards we expect of our rivers have gone up. We’re being more and more stringent in what we expect. And at the same time were also being more demanding of water companies as well.”

He then claimed the new laws were being brought in to, ‘make sure we meet even higher standards’. Yet, the move has been blasted by environment charities like the Wildlife Trust who said we can ‘wave goodbye to saving our struggling rivers and wildlife’. Whist the RSPB England called it a ‘dismal approach’ that will see ‘wildlife suffer and our rivers will continue to die’.

Commentators accused Gove of lying and suggested the reason EU countries were spending less money on improving water supplies was because they do not need the vast scale of improvements required in the UK due to decades of water company mismanagement.

Singer and clean water campaigner Feargal Sharkey offered Gove some assistance in getting the facts straight.

“Let me help with that,” Sharkey replied. “Not a single river in England passes the chemical test, not one, they all fail, every single one.

“The ecology test? In 2009 25% of rivers were in ‘Good’ condition, 2016 fell to 14%, govt’s prediction by 2027 that will have fallen to 6%. Shame on you.”

Furthermore, recent analysis has suggested that illegal levels of toxic pollutant, like ammonia, released into rivers by water companies goes undetected due to a flawed ‘self-monitoring’ system by the Environment Agency.

Labour Councillor Matt Dent wrote back: “The Tories are now going for outright gaslighting on water quality.

“We’ve all imagined the shit in the sea apparently.”

Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay blasted Gove’s decision: “It is beyond credulity that the government’s answer to dealing with our toxic rivers is to water down regulations and allow even more filth to flow into them.”

While Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace UK, wrote: “Who would look at our sickly, sewage-infested rivers and conclude that what they need is weaker pollution rules? No one, and that should include our government.’”

It would be the first time in over 30 years that there has been a reversal in environmental legislation, pointed out Wildlife Trust CEO Craig Bennett.

What Gove also chose to omit was the major donor influence the property tycoons, who are set to benefit greatly from scrapping the ‘nutrient neutrality’ rules, has over the Tory Party.

As Dale Vince commented: “The house building industry are major donors to the Tory party and today they got a bung from Sunak and Gove – who removed water pollution protections from new house building, and dumped the cost on the taxpayer instead.  That’s how they roll.”  

The Tory Party have attempted to angle the move as a ‘Brexit freedom’, with Rishi Sunak saying ‘hangover EU laws’ were ‘getting in the way’ of building more homes, despite this not seeming to hold other EU countries back.

Or as The Guardian columnist John Crace put it: “Apparently the freedom to pollute our rivers is a Brexit bonus.”

Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward, focusing on trade unions and environmental issues

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