"The Government’s experiment of Water Company self-monitoring has been a spectacular failure. An end to self-monitoring is therefore welcome, but the responsibility to monitor will inevitably fall back on the Environment Agency which does not have the resources to deliver effective monitoring or enforcement programmes after more than a decade of cuts to its budget.

"This move must be accompanied by urgent new funding for the EA to hold water companies and other polluters to account, otherwise the situation could actually get worse by moving from self-policing to non-policing."

Mark Lloyd, The Rivers Trust CEO

Read the announcement here.