Julie Girling, on behalf of the ECR Group. – Madam President, good-quality water is a priority for us all, but we have to be realistic about what we can achieve and the timeframe in which we should be achieving it.

I have always been against the Commission’s inclusion of the three pharmaceuticals in the list of priority substances, due to what I believe to be the unjustifiably large costs of treating wastewater to remove them. In the UK alone, the cost was estimated at EUR 35 billion over 20 years. I have to disagree with the Commissioner when he says that incontrovertible scientific evidence was put to us. If that were the case, we would all have been voting for it. It simply was not the case that it was incontrovertible.

Inflicting such costs on households, through high water bills, at a time of economic difficulty is unacceptable. This proposal also highlighted the lack of consistency between the Water Framework Directive and other pieces of EU legislation. I am glad to say that on these key issues favourable compromises were reached at trialogue and acceptable agreements were reached on timetables for implementation and the watchlist. So I am happy to be able to vote – and for my group to be able to vote – in favour of this report.