A proposal from the Lords to the Environment Bill that would have placed legal duties on the companies to reduce discharges was defeated by 265 MPs' votes to 202 last week.

Twenty-two Tory MPs including Harlow’s MP Robert Halfon rebelled against the Environment Bill which sought to place a legal duty on water companies not to pump sewage into rivers.

Sewage pollution is a key component of what MPs have heard is a chemical cocktail of pollutants going into rivers, with raw sewage being discharged into waters more than 400,000 times last year.

Many Conservative MPs posted almost identical statements on Monday, 25 October following a weekend of anger over the vote.

Mr Halfon told the Guardian why he voted against the bill, he explained: “If we did not have the overflow systems that are currently in place, then there would be flooding with raw sewage onto the streets.”

In a statement he said: “This amendment would have tried to create a new sewage system costing anything between £150 billion and £650 billion to build.”

"To put those figures in perspective, £150 billion is more than the entire schools, policing and defence budgets put together, and £650 billion is nearly twice what has been spent combating the Coronavirus pandemic.

“It would potentially bankrupt most water companies unless they passed on the bills to consumers or taxpayers. The cost works out at between about £5,000 and £20,000 per household.”

Mr Halfon voted to support these measures which will introduce a range of steps to address storm overflows and a requirement for the Government to produce a plan, by September next year, to reduce storm overflows.

He added that he “cherishes our environment, our green spaces, our canals and riverways.”

Labour voted against the government.

Luke Pollard, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, said:“We would all have sympathy with the ministers’ argument that in extremis, in the event of severe weather, raw sewage discharges into rivers should be permissible, but we need to ensure that that happens only in extreme circumstances,”

He described it instead as a “daily, regular, continual occurrence” that is “unacceptable.”

The Environment Bill will return to the House of Commons later this week.