Sandra Laville has been reporting on England’s sewage crisis for years. She answered your questions on the water privatisation scandal.

Guardian environment correspondent Sandra Laville’s reporting on the sewage crisis in English water has helped to expose a scandal of privatisation that has created a swell of fury across the political divide.

Sandra has now finished answering your questions. Read the Q&A and join the discussion below.

The government has put the cost of renationalising water at £100bn. But this is a disputed figure. Academics working with the People’s Commission on the Water Sector say this figure is ‘serious scaremongering created on biased evidence’ which was paid for by water companies. It is based on the Regulatory Capital Value of companies as determined by Ofwat, not the” true and fair value in law”, which reflects losses from market failures, like the cost of pollution or the monopoly profits taken by shareholders and banks.

The route to renationalisation could come via the system set up legally when the companies were privatised. Under the law companies can be put into special administration if they are unable to pay debts, if they breach licence obligations, such as on sewage pollution, or failing to supply water, and if it is considered in the public interest to do so. Special administration is a form of temporary renationalisation.

This is the million dollar question! While tackling separation across the whole network at once is considered too disruptive and costly, particularly in urban environments, the chartered institute of water and environmental management says moving towards separated systems is their key focus to address urban pollution and storm water sewage releases. New developments, for example, are now mandated to have separate pipes for foul wastewater and surface water run off.

They also want to see the increased use of sustainable drainage systems like water butts, and storage basins for existing properties, to reduce the amount of runoff into the system. Keeping gardens rather than paving them over, and creating so called sponge cities is also key to tackling pollution.

The UK was described as the dirty man of Europe back in the 70s and 80s, due to levels of pollution. For example in coastal towns there were no water treatment plants to treat sewage, raw sewage was just pumped and dumped into the sea. It was only when the EU directives came in that the clean up began. Chief amongst these was the Urban Wastewater directive, the Water Framework directive, and the Bathing Water directive.

Since leaving the EU there have been fears that these pieces of legislation could be watered down. James Bevan, as CEO of the Environment Agency, talked about changing the Water Framework Directive, essentially to make it easier for rivers to pass tests for chemical and biological health. Currently no river is rated as in good overall health under the WFD where rivers have to pass both chemical and biological health tests.

In the sparsely populated Queen Charlotte Sound, tourists can accompany the skipper-come-postman as parcels are dropped off via the scenic route. No heart rate check required

For a travel destination famous for offering the adrenaline rush of extreme sports, from bungee jumping to the parachute drop, it’s an unlikely tourist activity – but an irresistible one. If you’re travelling in New Zealand, don’t miss out on the chance to deliver the mail. By boat.

It happens in the Queen Charlotte Sound, part of the Marlborough Sounds in the stretch of water that separates New Zealand’s North and South Islands. For over 160 years, New Zealand Post has ensured the handful of families who live on the bays and inlets of the sound receive the same mail service as every other resident of the country, no matter that they live in isolated homes accessible only by boat. Six days a week, the mailboat leaves from Picton, the skipper doubling as postman for the three- or four-hour voyage – and these days passengers can come along for the ride.

It was the play that rocked a nation. The makers of the devastating drama, which transported theatre-goers from a Fife pub to a war zone, recall how it grew and grew

Within six months of its launch in 2006, the National Theatre of Scotland (NTS) produced a globe-conquering hit. Inspired by tragic events at Camp Dogwood in Iraq, Black Watch was a humane portrayal of young squaddies on the frontline. As a pool table transformed into a tank, the audience were transported from a Fife pub to a war zone where nothing was more heartbreaking than a letter from home.

Vicky Featherstone (founding artistic director): On my first day at NTS in 2004, I bought a Glasgow Herald. On the front page was an article saying Tony Blair was going to get rid of Scotland’s individual regiments and turn them into the Royal Regiment of Scotland. On page three, there was a sad story about three soldiers from the Black Watch regiment who had been blown up by an IED along with an Iraqi translator. In the gap between page one and page three was a story that had to be told. I called up Gregory Burke and said, “Will you follow this story?”

Struggling pubs reel from rising business rates, wages and energy bills, with customers at limit of what they will pay

Nick Evans is staring in vain at columns of numbers, trying to make them add up to a profit. He is a co-owner of the Old Crown Coaching Inn in Faringdon, Oxfordshire, a pub and hotel whose rich history is etched into its crooked wooden beams and cosy snugs.

Oliver Cromwell stayed here in 1645. A room believed to have been used by the notoriously severe “hanging judge” Lord Jeffreys to condemn rebels now stages happier encounters: it is the honeymoon suite.

The Lib Dems’ Sue Miller has spent most of her life trying to reduce the risk of nuclear war. And it’s not going well. Why are so few people talking about non-proliferation, let alone disarmament?

Almost the mildest remark that Sue Miller makes about nuclear weapons is also the scariest: “The last people to take a big interest in any of this were Gordon Brown and Margaret Beckett.” Those people seem such a long way away – Brown, of course, still campaigns valiantly against poverty, and Beckett is a working baroness, but as voices against the global buildup of nuclear arms, theirs are so historical as to be almost nostalgic.

Yet the Doomsday Clock, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ symbolic representation of how near the world is to destroying itself, has never been closer to midnight than it is now: 85 seconds (and this was prior to the current war in Iran). Russia has been making thinly veiled threats of “tactical” use since its invasion of Ukraine, while its drone incursions into Nato nations have “heightened European threat perceptions” (as the bulletin puts it), without those perceptions driving anyone’s thoughts towards nuclear de-escalation, let alone disarmament. Meanwhile, non-nuclear European nations are talking about developing “nuclear latency” – building the ability to develop nuclear capacity at speed.

Exclusive: Director says authenticity is key as time travel movie Rose of Nevada gets first UK screening in fishing town of Newlyn

The audience that turned out for the first preview showing of Mark Jenkin’s ghostly time travel film Rose of Nevada in the Cornish fishing town of Newlyn could hardly have been more supportive and attentive. But Jenkin admitted showing his work to a home-town crowd and taking part in a Q&A in front of people he knew so well made him a little uneasy.

“This is the greatest town in the world,” said Jenkin, who is from Newlyn. “I see Cornwall as being at the centre of the world. But the Cornish screenings are the ones I get most nervous about. I can’t control what people think of the film but I do have a certain amount of control over the authenticity of my work. If a local audience tells me a film doesn’t feel authentic, that would hurt. The Cornish audience is the most important.”

Lebanese PM says Israel is killing unarmed civilians as US president says country is not included in provisional ceasefire

• Israel hits Lebanon with massive strikes amid ceasefire uncertainty

• Hegseth claims Iran ‘begged’ for ceasefire

A genocidal threat, and then the US president, Donald Trump, blinked – without any apparently meaningful concessions from Iran. As in so much concerning the second Trump administration, the two week ceasefire “deal” that will see the strait of Hormuz reopened – if it can be described as such – is maddeningly vague and short on detail, apparently kicking the can on key issues down the road.

Iran’s nuclear issue, Trump said, would be solved “perfectly.” “It was a big day for world peace”, Trump posted on Truth Social. “Iran can start reconstruction” he added. “Big money” could be made. Yada. Yada. Yada.

As Iran and US agree fragile ceasefire, Israel’s conflict has turned out to be a bust and, say opponents, ‘a political disaster’

• Middle East crisis – live updates

In a war where there have been no winners, Israel’s prime minister looks set to be the biggest loser entering a fragile and vague ceasefire with Iran.

After years of Benjamin Netanyahu’s threats against Iran, his stunts at the UN’s general assembly, the dodgy dossiers endlessly wafted under the noses of the world’s media, and diplomatic pressure on successive US presidents to agree to a war against Iran, Israel’s conflict has turned out to be a bust.

Analysts expect only limited increase in shipping as vessels will still need to seek Iranian permission to transit

• Middle East crisis – live updates

There will be no “mass exodus” of ships through the strait of Hormuz, shipping analysts say, despite a two-week conditional ceasefire being agreed between the US and Iran with provision for the temporary reopening of the crucial maritime channel.

Tehran said on Wednesday that it would offer safe passage in coordination with its armed forces, though its coastguards said any ship trying to transit without permission would be “targeted and destroyed”.

Whatever happens next as US and Iran agree to a temporary ceasefire, some important lessons have been learned

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The world breathed a sigh of relief as the US and Iran agreed at the 11th hour to a two-week ceasefire after a diplomatic intervention from Iran. Hours after Donald Trump had threatened widespread bombing of Iran’s power plants and bridges, warning that “a whole civilisation will die tonight”, both countries agreed to a temporary ceasefire and Iran agreed to a temporary reopening of the strait of Hormuz.

For the British government, whatever happens next, the conflict has revealed some important – and sometimes painful – lessons about the UK’s geopolitical standing and military readiness.