Middle-age kicks: Feargal Sharkey writes to every Tory MP urging them to back Labour’s water pollution bill

Feargal Sharkey has written to every Tory MP urging them to vote for Labour’s water pollution bill as the issue becomes a new election battleground.

The former Undertones singer, whose former punk band recorded the song Teenage Kicks, said water companies have turned Britain’s rivers into “open sewers”.

Now an environmental campaigner, he called on Conservatives to back Labour’s plans for automatic penalties for sewage dumping, and for a legal requirement for the monitoring of all sewage outlets.

Figures show that in 2022, there were an average of 824 sewage dumps per day in places where people live, work and go on holiday.

In the letter, written with shadow environment secretary Jim McMahon and a string of Labour parliamentary candidates, Mr Sharkey wrote: “Thirteen years of Tory government has taken our country backwards, allowing it to be treated as an open sewer.

“Not one English river is classed as being in a healthy condition, none meet good chemical standards and few meet good ecological standards.

“To make matters worse, not only have the Conservatives given the green light for water companies to dump sewage and neglect our vital water infrastructure, but they have also rewarded them for it, by allowing water companies to extract billions in dividends and with bumper bonuses for water bosses who are not delivering in the public interest.”

Mr Sharkey urged MPs to vote for a parliamentary motion Labour is putting down on Wednesday.

This would enable them to bring in their own legislation to end the sewage scandal by 2030.

Labour’s plan would set a legal requirement for the monitoring of all sewage outlets and penalties for failures in adhering to monitoring requirements, and impose automatic fines for sewage dumping.

It would implement a legally binding target to reduce sewage dumping events, and introduce a requirement for the secretary of state to publish a strategy for the reduction of sewage discharges and regular economic impact assessments.

It has been reported that Labour is planning to step up its attack advert campaign by releasing individual adverts directed at Tory MPs who reject the plan.