Andy Burnham becomes Prime Minister: here’s what he should do to protect angling and the environment

The state of our rivers, lakes, and seas were higher up the political agenda than ever before in the 2024 general election. Keir Starmer’s Labour party promised clean water in their manifesto, with a focus on blocking water company bosses’ bonuses, and tackling the surge of sewage spills.  

Just over 2 years into this Government’s term, Andy Burnham has replaced Keir Starmer in Number 10. With the country in the grip of an intensive drought, six water companies having already introduced water saving measures, and more expected to over the next few weeks the focus on addressing the country’s outdated and underinvested water infrastructure is in the spotlight and needs to be a priority for the new Prime Minister. 

In this blog, we’ll review what progress has been achieved, and what Andy Burnham’s administration must address with urgency to protect our freshwater and marine habitats, and the sport of angling.  

Freshwater 

The freshwater world anglers encountered in recent memory sounds almost mythical: rivers teaming with vast shoals of fish, mayflies dancing on the banks, and Ranunculus rippling on the surface above clear gravel beds. Many have fished the same waterways for decades and witnessed this world disappear with their own eyes.  

Gravel beds which once provided spawning grounds for fish are covered in silt, invertebrate populations have plummeted, and fish catch rates are down. Our freshwater habitats are under threat from pollution from sewage works, agriculture, road runoff, and chemical contaminants, exacerbated by climate change and over-abstraction. 

In their attempt to tackle the problems facing our freshwater habitats, by far the most significant and welcome development during Keir Starmer’s reign was the Independent Water Commission, which made 88 recommendations to fix the broken water sector, spanning water company governance, agriculture, and planning reform. The Water White Paper set out the direction of travel the Government will take – including committing to several recommendations which the Angling Trust and Fish Legal advocated for during the consultation – but we are still awaiting the legislation which will put change into practice through the Clean Water Bill, expected by the end of 2026. 

The Angling Trust and Fish Legal welcomed several of the commitments made by the Government, including: 

• Replacing Ofwat with a single integrated water regulator in England, combining functions from Ofwat, the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Drinking Water Inspectorate.  

• Creating a separate integrated regulator for Wales.  

• Establishing regional water authorities. 

• Regular ‘MOT checks’ on water company assets 

We have advocated for years for Ofwat to be scrapped, and for root and branch reform of the regulatory system of our privatised water industry, and constantly highlighted the crumbling infrastructure which leaks untreated sewage, and hundreds of billions of litres of treated water every year.  

With the Clean Water Bill not yet finalised, there is still a huge amount to play for if it is dto deliver the ‘once in a generation’ reforms promised by Starmer’s Government. To deliver change, the new ‘super regulator’ must be well-funded and have new powers, rather than simply a combination of those shared amongst different bodies until now. Any attempt to streamline regulation must not involve weakening it, and there must be the democratic involvement in decision making within the Regional Systems Planners. 

The new regulatory regime will need to be prepared to act decisively in the public interest.  For example, it shouldn’t have to require multiple expensive trips to the law courts to prevent the Environment Agency behaving unlawfully – it has a legal duty to protect the environment which it should be complying with as a bare minimum. 

To achieve this, Andy Burnham and his ministerial team must approach the final stages of the Clean Water Bill with the following 5 priorities in mind: 

1. Ensure no regression of the Water Environment (Water Framework Directive) (England and Wales) Regulations 2017 , including the replacement of River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs). Should the government choose to replace RBMPs, any new approach must meet the legal duty to provide waterbody-specific, time-bound measures (as confirmed by the Court of Appeal in R (Pickering Fishery Association) v SSEFRA and EA [2025] EWCA Civ 378).

2. Provide a significant uplift in funding for the new regulator beyond that of the four bodies it replaces, funded in large part through the polluter pays principle.

3. Ensure there are clear guardrails to ensure the regulator’s independence under the new company-specific supervisory approach.

4. Integrate citizen science data into official monitoring systems to create a powerful collaborative monitoring network.

5. Use, and improve the Special Administration Regime (SAR), clarifying clear guidelines for triggering SAR and allowing alternative ownership structures to be considered when companies have failed in their legal duties. 

Marine 

Ask a sea angler what the coast used to give up and you’ll hear about mackerel shoals thick enough to snag on every hook, cod through the winter months, and bass in the surf on a summer evening. Much of that is now memory. Our seas are squeezed from every direction – by decades of overfishing, by a seabed still being dragged inside so-called protected areas, by sewage and agricultural pollution washing into the estuaries where fish spawn and grow, and by the growing competition for space between energy infrastructure, conservation designations, and the people who fish. 

Recreational sea angling sits at the heart of this. More than 700,000 people are estimated to fish from our shores, boats, and charter vessels in England alone, supporting around 15,000 jobs and generating an estimated £1.5 billion in direct economic activity every year – value that lands in exactly the coastal towns this Government says it wants to revive. Yet time and again, sea angling is treated as an afterthought in marine policy. 

What Starmer’s labour committed to: 

Labour’s 2024 manifesto was notably thin on the marine environment, containing little more than a general commitment to protect our seas – with no specific policies on marine protected areas, sustainable fisheries, or marine restoration, and no mention at all of recreational sea angling. What followed was largely built in office rather than promised at the ballot box:  

• A commitment to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030, and, at the UN Ocean Conference in June 2025, a consultation on prohibiting bottom-towed gear across approximately 30,000km² spanning 41 offshore Marine Protected Areas. 

• A £360 million Fishing and Coastal Growth Fund, announced alongside the UK–EU reset deal which granted EU vessels access to UK waters for a further 12 years.  

• An Action Plan for a Thriving and Sustainable UK Fishing Industry, still awaited. 

What’s been achieved: 

There has been real progress, much of it driven by the angling community itself. But the gaps are glaring: 

• The MPA measures still aren’t in force. The bottom trawling consultation closed in September 2025. Ministers have yet to act on it, and the Government has already ruled out whole-site bans as “disproportionate” – meaning even where measures do arrive, other damaging gear types will continue inside protected sites. 

• The Marine Policy Statement remains the 2011 version. The Environmental Audit Committee has called it outdated and not fit for purpose, and the Government has declined to update it.  

• Recreational sea angling is still not recognised as a fishing sector. The £360m Fund appears designed entirely around the commercial catching fleet; while our sector is eligible on paper, there is no tailoring to its needs, and that creates continual barriers to access. The EFRA Select Committee’s April 2026 report on fishing communities barely mentioned us.  

• Enforcement remains invisible. The MMO has been told to resume publishing its inspection and enforcement data, including three years of back-data – anglers who follow the rules on bass, bluefin, and mackerel and more deserve to know that everyone else is being held to the same standard.  

• Bass management risks a return to boom-and-bust. Despite a fragile recovery, both the UK and EU agreed major increases in commercial bycatch limits for trawlers and fixed-net fisheries – expanding catches at the first sign of recovery rather than consolidating it. 

Priorities for Burnham: 

The Angling Trust is calling on Andy Burnham and his ministerial team to adopt the following five marine priorities: 

1. Finish the job on Marine Protected Areas. Bring the delayed bottom-towed gear measures into force without further prevarication, extend protection to whole sites where the evidence supports it to meet the 30×30 commitment.

2. Recognise recreational sea angling as a fishing sector in its own right. Name recreational fishing explicitly in the forthcoming Sea Use Framework and the Action Plan for fishing, and create a tailored strand within the Fishing and Coastal Growth Fund for shore-angling infrastructure – slipways, piers, accessible pontoons, parking – and for charter boats, which face the same pressures as the small-scale inshore fleet but are excluded from ring-fenced support.

3. Manage recreationally important species for value, not just tonnage. Allocate fishing opportunity in proportion to the economic, social, and environmental benefit generated, adopt long-term ecosystem-based approach strategies for fisheries management, and resist the pressure to fish beyond sustainable limits.

4. Fund the science and the enforcement that management depends on. Commit long-term funding for collaborative recreational data collection through science partnerships with the recreational sector, require the MMO to publish enforcement data, and resource genuine at-sea enforcement across all sectors.

5. Join up clean water with clean seas. The Clean Water Bill must reach the coast: estuaries and transitional waters are the nurseries for bass, mullet, and migratory salmonids, and no marine recovery is possible while sewage and agricultural pollution continue to degrade them. 

Angling Manifesto 

Ahead of the general election in 2024 the Angling Trust sent a copy of its manifesto for Angling – ‘Vote for a Fishing Future’ – to every political party. Whilst Labour, under Keir Starmer has made some welcome progress on the regulation and control of the water industry there remain many areas of concern which the new Andy Burnham government must address.  

For example on water infrastructure Labour has recognised the need to speed up the building of infrastructure to improve water storage and reduce abstraction from our rivers and aquifers by saying they will:  “make the changes we need to forge ahead with new … reservoirs, and other nationally significant infrastructure.” 

However, we are yet to see much progress in this area. 

But at the same time Labour wants to reform the planning system and want to build 1.5 million new homes which, if not done properly, may impact on our water environment. They say they will ensure: 

“… planning authorities have up-to date Local Plans and reform and strengthen the presumption in favour of sustainable development…….The release of lower quality ‘grey belt’ land will be prioritised, and we will introduce ‘golden rules’ to ensure development benefits communities and nature.” 

We are yet to be convinced that sufficient measures are in place to protect our rivers from over abstraction following this huge increase in house building.  

There are huge challenges for the Burnham government if it is to stay true to its promise to improve our waterways. Angling is reliant on a healthy water environment, and the new Burnham Government must also take into account the immense economic and social value angling provides.  

Angling produces economic activity in excess of £3 billion a year and significant social benefits by offering active outdoor recreation for people of all ages, and a significant investment of time and resources by participants into the improvement of water environments. Estimates of the number of active participants range from 1.5 to 4 million.  

When entering office, the Burnham Government should keep the following priorities in mind: 

1. Ensure that all new housing and infrastructure developments (including nuclear and datacentres) have local plans which protect the environment, with sewage treatment works capable of dealing with increased flows, and abstraction permits kept within sustainable bounds.

2. Ensure government, including devolved and local government, support policies that protect and promote angling and maximise the economic, social and environmental benefits angling delivers.

3. Support actions aimed at supporting broad and diverse participation in angling through schools, community centres, youth clubs, and social prescribing.

4. Support the rights of all anglers to go fishing and protect and develop angling access.

5. Recognise recreationally important species in sea fisheries management and the socio-economic benefits sea angling brings to coastal communities. 

We think this body of measures represents a reasonable and proportionate approach to healthy waters and the sport of angling which is enjoyed by millions.  However, the only real test of progress for the Burnham government will be a meaningful and rapid improvement in the health of those waters and the wildlife within them.