The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has said that improving water quality is her biggest priority.

Emma Reynolds visited the Shoreham Flood Wall site on Thursday (April 16) where she met with Tom Rutland, MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, as well as councillors and Labour supporters ahead of the local elections in May.

Mr Rutland is a Parliamentary Private Secretary to Ms Reynolds in her role as Secretary of State for Defra.

The Shoreham Adur Tidal Walls Flood Defence Scheme reduces the risk of tidal flooding to residents and businesses within the town.

In a speech addressed to supporters, Ms Reynolds said she was “really passionate about driving water quality” and said one of the biggest “scandals” left by the Conservative government was the level of sewage pollution in the country’s waterways.

She highlighted Labour’s introduction of the Water (Special Measures) Act which has banned bonuses for senior water executives who oversee poor environmental or customer outcomes.

She also spoke about local projects, including the planting of “4,000 trees locally and investing in local parks” and highlighted the multimillion-pound transformation of Old Barn Way, the former home of Southwick Football Club – which she said had been “opposed” by Reform.

“These sorts of amenities really are valuable to local people,” she said.

She also used her speech to take a swipe at the Green Party and Reform.

She criticised Reform-led Worcestershire County Council, which raised council tax by nine per cent earlier this year, and slammed newly elected Green MP for Gorton and Denton Hannah Spencer for not mentioning the environment during her maiden speech in Parliament.

“We can see the chaos and division when Reform do get into local government,” she said.

“Then the Greens – apparently they are the Greens, but they never talk about the environment,” she added.

“It seems like they have completely forgotten about the environment. I can’t remember hearing their party leader talk about the environment.”

She stressed the importance of a “Labour government and Labour council working together” to deliver for the area.

In an interview with The Argus, Ms Reynolds was asked about the argument for re-nationalising water companies.

“We inherited record levels of pollution in our waterways. It’s a huge priority for me; it’s my number one priority in my role as environment secretary.”

She talked about a water white paper which she submitted earlier this, describing it as a “once-in-a-generation reform of our water sector” to establish a new, independent water regulator which has “more teeth to hold these companies to account and to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas”.

She said the government was moving “even further away” from self-monitoring, the previous system of “water companies marking their own homework” .

“That was obviously never going to work,” she said.

“We’ve already hit a record number of inspections and investigations into water companies.

“What I would say about the Green agenda is that it’s very simplistic to say change the ownership, whereas what we’re trying to do is actually deal with the root causes of this problem.”

The Environment Secretary was then asked to comment on the country’s food sufficiency, which stands at around 60 per cent today – meaning that around 40 per cent of the country’s food is imported from overseas.

Ms Reynolds pointed to a report into farming profitability by Baroness Minette Batters, former president of the NFU, which was commissioned by the government last year. One of her recommendations was to set up a farming and food partnership, which met for the first time last month.

She said Defra was looking to develop horticulture as it is “one of the areas where we’ve seen a decrease in the amount of domestic food consumption”.

“In horticulture, we know we could be growing more of our own food and veg so that is something we are working with the industry on,” she said.

“But I would say that there are no shortages of food and people should go about their everyday lives as normal.”

Ms Reynolds was then asked about rewilding projects and about whether they could be considered a “luxury” and whether by replacing productive farmland with rewilded land the country is increasing its reliance on food imports.

“People do love nature and there are some good by-products of nature,” she said. We’ve released beavers into the wild; they’re natural dam-builders – that’s good for flood defences.”

She added: “By having a strong natural environment that makes us more resilient as a country so no I wouldn’t say it’s a waste of money and I do think it’s something people care about.”

The MP for Wycombe was asked about the increase in flytipping in the country, both on a smaller scale and the illegal supersites in Bickershaw and Kidlington.

“As a government we are bearing down on these waste criminals,” she said.

She pointed to the government’s Waste Crime Action Plan, published last month, which aims to tackle the estimated £1 billion annual cost of waste crime in England through a zero-tolerance approach. The plan is structured around three core objectives: prevent, enforced and remediate.

She said the government was “toughening up the penalties for people who are involved in major waste dumping sites” as well as cracking down on smaller-scale fly tippers.

She said councils have been given new powers to crush and seize the vehicles of fly tippers and that the government is seeking to bring “tougher punishments”, including putting points on fly tipper’s licences as well as making them join clean-up squads.