English water firms spend £16.6m on legal fees over environmental breaches

MPs on Commons committee describe figures as a waste and say money should have been used to fix infrastructure

English water companies have spent 16.6m fighting legal action against regulators and campaigners over environmental breaches such as illegal sewage spills.

Correspondence from the companies to the Commons environment, food and rural affairs (Efra) committee published on Tuesday reveals that millions of pounds of billpayers' money has been spent over the past five years on expensive external lawyers enlisted to reduce liabilities for regulatory breaches.