Raw sewage is dumped in Environment Secretary Therese Coffey's own constituency

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The Conservatives' failure to tackle the dumping of raw sewage has been laid bare by figures showing Therese Coffey had nearly 1,000 spills in her own constituency last year alone.

Ms Coffey is one of seven Tories to have led the department since 2015 – including Liz Truss, Michael Gove, Andrea Leadsom and George Eustice – whose constituencies have seen more of 15,000 total spills in 2022.

His Suffolk Coastal constituency was hit by 982 raw sewage spills during the year, according to a Liberal Democrat analysis.

The discovery follows calls for her to resign this week after figures showed there were more than 300,000 sewage spills in the UK in 2022. Ms Coffey has been charged with a "complete abdication of office" after claiming she could not end the raw sewage dumping scandal "overnight".

But the figures revealed how a succession of Conservative environment ministers since 2015 have failed to get the problem under control, resulting in their own constituencies being destroyed by sewage dumping.

They showed that the constituency of Mr Eustice's Camborne and Redruth saw 11,292 raw sewage spills last year. He was Environment Secretary under Boris Johnson between 2020 and 2022.

Ms Leadsom, who led the department between 2016 and 2017, represents South Northamptonshire. His constituency was affected by 1,890 sewage spills in 2022. His predecessor, Ms Truss, had 597 sewage spills in her South West Norfolk constituency last year.

And Mr Gove, who was environment secretary from 2017 to 2019, had 70 spills at Surrey Heath, where he has been an MP since 2005.

In total last year, the constituencies of the last seven Conservative Environment Secretaries have recorded 15,326 raw sewage spills - with sewage discharged for a total of 103,235 hours.

The Liberal Democrat Critic for the environment, Tim Farron, said: "Successive Conservative environment ministers have done nothing to tackle the scourge of dirty sewage dumped into our rivers and beaches. Now their own local communities are paying the price for this rotten legacy.

"Tory MPs are fooling the British public by rehashing old wet wipes adverts from years ago. It is laughable that three separate Conservative environment secretaries have all promised the same thing with no action taken.

"The Conservative Party is facing a massive backlash among rural and coastal communities who are furious about this s...