Environment Agency needs return of £120m grant to protect rivers, says CEO

Cut of 80m hindering effort to monitor sewage discharges and farming activity, MPs told

The head of the Environment Agency has called for the government to reinstate a 120m grant to help increase surveillance of water companies and cut pollution in rivers.

Sir James Bevan, the chief executive of the agency, told MPs that water companies and the farming industry, the two main polluters of rivers, were not doing enough to protect the environment.