Anglian Water has agreed to pay £50,000 to an environmental charity after a manhole overflowed with black sludge and grey liquid into a watercourse in Bedfordshire due to a blocked sewer.

An enforcement undertaking (EU) has been agreed with the water company, which has donated £50,000 to the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire.

The Environment Agency accepted the offer by the water company to put right any damage caused by the pollution and to donate to an environmental charity.

The money is to benefit the local environment of Nene Valley and Ouse Valley Living Landscape areas. Anglian Water also paid back the Environment Agency’s costs of £3,451.

Chris Tate, Environment Agency Team Leader, said:

Enforcement undertakings allow those who commit offences to restore the environment and to take steps to prevent a recurrence.

When appropriate, they allow a quicker resolution than a prosecution and help offenders who are prepared to take responsibility for their actions to put things right voluntarily working with their local communities.

Due to the pollution, which raised ammonia levels in the watercourse at Highfield Farm near Ravensden, the incident was classified as a category 2 by the Environment Agency.

The blockage in the sewer was in the branch from Yarlswood Immigration Centre and included single-use shampoo sachets which the immigration centre provided for its residents. There had been six blockages on the same stretch of sewer since 2011 when the sewer was transferred to AWS. It was not mapped onto the company’s mapping system until after this incident in June 2015.

Practices for checking the sewer and at the immigration centre have since changed.

A Downing Street spokesperson said:

“Prime Minister Theresa May hosted Prime Minister Xavier Bettel of Luxembourg for a meeting at Downing Street this afternoon.

“Prime Minister May began by providing an update on the Salisbury attack following her statement to Parliament earlier today and welcomed the strong support received from leaders across Europe. Prime Minister Bettel condemned the attack and those responsible.

“The leaders discussed the Mansion House speech and the Prime Minister’s vision for an ambitious future partnership with the EU after Brexit, building on the deep security relationship and economic ties the UK and EU have created together over the years.

“On Northern Ireland, the Prime Minister restated her commitment to the Belfast Agreement, to no hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland and to preserving the integrity of the UK’s own common market. She highlighted that officials from the Irish government, the European Commission and the UK are meeting to discuss practical solutions.

“Finally, they looked ahead to the March European Council next week. Prime Minister May noted the importance of reaching an agreement on the implementation period in order to provide the certainty to businesses and people across the EU and the UK.”

Mr Chair, Director General, when I spoke to this Council yesterday I asked your permission to address this Council Session again to update on developments concerning the use of chemical weapons in Salisbury, and the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal with a ‘Novichok’: a military-grade nerve agent developed by Russia. Based on this capability, combined with Russia’s record of conducting state sponsored assassinations – including against former intelligence officers who they regard as legitimate targets – the UK government concluded that it was highly likely that Russia was responsible for this reckless and despicable act.

We have engaged bilaterally with the Russian Federation. On 12 March my Foreign Secretary summoned the Russian Ambassador to London and sought explanations from his government within 24 hours. As my Prime Minister has said, we offered the Russian government the opportunity to provide an explanation. We explained to Russia that if it had somehow lost control of its stock, it needed to immediately provide full disclosure of the programme, and account for this loss. But their response has demonstrated complete disdain for the gravity of these events.

Russia has provided no explanation; and no meaningful response.

No explanation as to how this agent came to be used in the United Kingdom; no explanation as to why Russia has an undeclared chemical weapons programme contravening its obligations under the chemical weapons convention.

Instead they have treated the first ever aggressive use of a nerve agent in Europe with sarcasm, contempt and defiance.

As my Prime Minister said in the United Kingdom’s Parliament this afternoon, there can be no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian State was culpable for the attempted murder of Mr Skripal and his daughter – and for threatening the lives of other British citizens in Salisbury, including Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey. This represents an unlawful use of force by the Russian State against the United Kingdom.

It also represents a violation of the fundamental prohibition on the use of chemical weapons contained in Article 1 of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Russia’s attempt to hide behind a false interpretation of Articles in the Chemical Weapons Convention should fool no one. We asked for clarification on a matter of urgent national security for the United Kingdom, concerning a serious violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Russia has provided none. Instead of engaging on the substantive concern, Russia has sought to mire us and this Executive Council in procedural argument. Article 9 does not oblige states which are the victims of chemical weapons to refrain from seeking rapid response to their immediate and urgent concerns. Not only that, as you have all heard in this room yesterday, the Russians have stated that they regard the premise of our question – the findings of our investigation to date – as based on lies.

We have also been scrupulous in briefing the OPCW Technical Secretariat. On 8 March we notified the Technical Secretariat of the incident. My Foreign Secretary called the Director General on 12 March to update him on the facts of the case. I have briefed the Director General, most recently today, and my Prime Minister is writing to him with a further update. We have welcomed the offers of assistance from the Director General and the Technical Secretariat. And, as my Prime Minister said in the UK Parliament earlier today, we are working with the police to enable the OPCW to independently verify our analysis. This horrendous incident is now the subject of a UK criminal investigation, and we have legal obligations as a result to ensure that we share our information only in accordance with the law.

Russia will complain that we have not shared any samples. There are no provisions in the Convention that require the UK to share its samples collected as part of a criminal investigation with Russia in this type of scenario.

Mr Chair, British citizens have been endangered. It was an indiscriminate, brazen and reckless act against the United Kingdom, which put the lives of British citizens at risk. There is a real urgency to resolve this situation.

Given what Russia said in this Council yesterday – that our case was founded on lies and dirty information – it is clear that Russia does not plan to address our substantive concerns.

Mr Chair, nobody can doubt our commitment to the CWC, particularly at a time when there has been a use of chemical weapons on our territory against our citizens. We will continue to work with the Technical Secretariat, and will keep this Council informed of developments.

After the latest Joint Ministerial Committee this afternoon, the Prime Minister met with the First Minister of Wales Carwyn Jones.

Following on from discussions in the JMC, the First Minister and the Prime Minister agreed that they should continue to work together to find an agreement on the amendment to Clause 11 in the EU Withdrawal Bill.

The First Minister also raised the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon, the devolution of Air Passenger Duty and the recent developments of the United States’ position on steel.