CORNWALL’S beaches and waterways could become cleaner after ‘landmark’ legislation was introduced to crack down on water bosses polluting rivers, lakes and seas.

The government’s Water (Special Measures) Bill will give regulators new powers to take tougher and faster action on South West Water “damaging the environment” and “failing their customers.”

The new legislation aims to deliver on Labour’s manifesto pledges to clean up the water sector, including significantly increasing the ability of the Environment Agency to bring forward criminal charges against law- breaking water executives.

It will create new tougher penalties, including imprisonment, for water executives when companies fail to co-operate or obstruct investigations.

The bill will also ban the payment of bonuses to water bosses if they fail to meet high standards to protect the environment, their consumers and their company’s finances.

Other measures in the bill include severe and automatic fines for a range of offences, including allowing regulators to issue penalties more quickly, without having to direct resources to lengthy investigations.

It will also introduce independent monitoring of every sewage outlet, with water companies required to publish real-time data for all emergency overflows. Discharges will have to be reported within an hour of the initial spill.

St Austell and Newquay MP Noah Law believes the bill is a major step forward in a wider reform to fix the “broken water system.”

He says the new legislation is the most significant increase in enforcement powers in a decade.

Mr Law became involved in the issue following numerous “raw sewage” pollution incidents in the constituency including Fistral, Porth and Pentewan.

“After 14 years of Conservative failure, raw toxic sewage is being pumped onto beaches across my constituency including Little Fistral, Porth, Par, Fowey, Charlestown, Pentewan, and Polstreath,” he said.

“That is why the Labour government has introduced immediate action to end the disgraceful behaviour of water companies and their bosses.

“Under this Labour government, water executives will no longer line their own pockets whilst pumping out this filth. If they refuse to comply, they could end up in the dock and face prison time."

Mr Law raised in Parliament the issue of sewage pollution and challenged the working practices of Pennon Group, which owns South West Water, paying £112-million in dividends and more than £160-million in other finance costs, with ineffective funding models for the water industry.

He has also met Surfers Against Sewage, landowners and constituents, for whom this is a critical issue. He also continually feeds into strategy discussions feedback from our constituency – one where good water quality sits at the heart of our tourism industry, as well as quality of life.

“This bill is a major step forward in our wider reform to fix the broken water system.

“The Labour government will outline further legislation to fundamentally transform how the water industry is run and speed up the delivery of upgrades to our sewage infrastructure to clean up our waterways for good.” he said.