After months of delay, Philip Dunne MP and I were at last able to bring the issues of water quality and the dire state of the River Wye to the floor of the House of Commons for a debate last Thursday.

The Environmental Audit Committee, which Philip chairs, has published a comprehensive recent report which identified a "chemical cocktail" of sewage, slurry and plastic in our rivers, only 14% of which meet good ecological standards.

In the debate, MPs across the House queued up to express concerns about OFWAT and the water companies over the levels of sewage discharges into our rivers.

But as I pointed out, although the sewage discharges are horrendous, a far greater cause of River Wye pollution -- amounting to some 65% -- is the leaching of phosphate and other chemicals that have built up in the soil over many years of intensive agriculture on both sides of the border. This requires a comprehensive, long-term approach.

In the debate I made three specific points.

First, three agencies are crucial to the clean-up:  the Environment Agency, Natural England and Natural Resources Wales.  All are key to any solution, together with OFWAT, which regulates the water companies, and with guiding support from the Welsh and UK Governments.  

But we need them to develop a single team and a joint long-term cross-agency strategy covering the river from source to mouth.  This will require testing, monitoring and enforcement.  But once the team and strategy are in place, we will have the framework needed to secure the necessary funding.

Secondly, I proposed that the Welsh and UK Governments look at an all-river arrangement for the Wye similar to that with the River Tweed, which straddles the border between England and Scotland.  

Issues of connectivity and shared responsibility were addressed in relation to the Tweed as early as 1807, and the Tweed is still regulated by its own Commissioners. So the precedent is there.

Finally, I repeated my call for a new National Rivers Recovery Fund, which would use all of the fines levied from water companies to improve water quality in our rivers. 

I am pleased to say that all these points were warmly greeted by MPs across the House of Commons.

I have been campaigning to clean up the Wye now for over two years. I will continue to press all these issues as we move forward in the next weeks and months.