Water bosses could be jailed if they cover up sewage dumping under new law

Water bosses in England and Wales could be jailed for up to two years if they cover up sewage dumping, under legislation proposed by the Labour government.

At the moment, CEOs of water companies face fines for failing to comply with investigations by the Environment Agency (EA) and the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI), but there have been just three such fines since privatisation three decades ago.

Civil servants at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) told journalists on Wednesday that they planned to tighten compliance rules to force companies to hand over sewage data quickly, and that the maximum sentence for covering up this information or failing to release it would be two years.