Here is what our legal team have been working on in December and January and what’s to come.
In November last year, the Information Commissioner’s Office issued a Decision Notice that means farmers’ pesticide use records are now subject to freedom of information requests. We had hoped that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) – who previously refused to disclose the records – would recognise that the general public has a right to know what pesticides are being used, on what land and in what quantities. Particularly when those pesticides end up being washed into rivers, lakes and streams and harm aquatic ecosystems.
Instead, the HSE has come back with a new argument and now claims that our request for pesticide use records in a tiny sub-catchment of the Welsh Dee is manifestly unreasonable (in simple terms, we have asked for too much information). We will, no doubt, have to go back to the Information Commissioner in due course.
A Tribunal has dismissed the appeal brought by WildFish and Animal Equality against the decision taken last year by DEFRA to allow the Scottish salmon farming industry to drop the word “farmed” from its Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) name. Disappointingly, this means that the industry can continue to refer to this intensively farmed product as “Scottish Salmon” instead of “Scottish Farmed Salmon”.
Also this month, we have referred RSPCA Assured Limited to the Charity Commission, asking the Commission to investigate whether RSPCA Assured Limited is operating within a charitable remit and reassess whether it should be registered as a separate charity from the RSPCA. (learn more).
We are still waiting to hear from the Information Commissioner over the joint refusal of DEFRA and Soil Association Certification to provide us with copies of their inspections of so-called ‘organic’ salmon farms, which we consider create the same issues for wild fish conservation as ‘conventional’ fish farms.
We were delighted to announce a big win in our campaign against sewage pollution at the end of last year.
In late December, the Office for Environmental Protection decided that Ofwat, the Environment Agency and Defra have all failed to implement the law on sewage treatment, allowing water companies to pollute English rivers unlawfully for years (learn more).
The OEP announcement on the complaint – with the OEP serving formal Decision Notices on all three bodies, under section 36 of the Environment Act 2021 – backs up what WildFish has been saying for years – that the regulators and their Ministerial masters have failed over years to comply with and implement the existing law, the Urban Wastewater Treatment Regulations 1994, which set down standards for sewage treatment.
It is now clear that Ofwat has a duty directly to enforce the 1994 law against water companies, which it has failed to do over decades, and that the Environment Agency also has a duty to secure compliance with the 1994 law by tightening the terms of the permits it issues to water companies under the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2016.
The Environment Agency must do that at once, as most permits issued to water companies do not currently restrict raw sewage overflow discharges to exceptional weather. Where works can be carried out, which would not require excessive costs, the Environment Agency is under a clear legal duty to amend permits, in effect to require those works to be carried out.
We were busy over the Christmas period preparing to lodge a judicial review claim at the High Court arguing that Buckinghamshire Council had made an error in loosening up a planning condition for 170 new homes near Maids Moreton. At WildFish, we believe that the planning permission variation is so late that the developer is out of time to “discharge” the condition that prohibits development unless there is capacity at the local Buckingham Sewage Treatment Works. Now it turns out that Ofwat has rejected the investment proposals from Anglian Water for the sewage treatment works because it is not complying with its permit. That means the local planning authority should not be signing off on the condition and the development should not go ahead.
This is an important illustration of how there is a complete disconnect between development proposals and sewage and water resource infrastructure at a time when the government is proposing to push through planning application for 1.5M new homes.
No fewer than ten amendments were tabled for us by peers in the Lords Committee stages of the Water (Special Measures) Bill before Christmas. The Bill entered the Commons in January where the government majority makes amendments less likely to succeed without government backing.
Sir Jon Cunliffe’s independent Water Commission will start its public consultation phase soon – keep your eyes peeled for details of our response and how you can have your say.
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