Ed Davey was seen falling off his paddle board on Lake Windermere, in an election stunt which he later admitted was on purpose.
The Liberal Democrat leader posed for a picture alongside Tim Farron before falling into the lake in a dramatic fall.
Asked if he fell into the lake on purpose, Davey said: "Once I did, the others I just kept falling in".
He added: "Its fun but there is a serious message: lakes like Lake Windermere are so precious.
Ed Davey was seen falling off his paddle board on Lake Windermere, in an election stunt which he later admitted was on purpose
PA
"Our environment and our wonderful country is so critical to so many people, and not just people who live near those lakes and rivers, people who visit them - it's important for public health, its important for the tourist economy.
"Here in the Lake District they need to make sure that the water companies are properly held to account.
"It wasn't just about paddle boating today, it was to launch our policy of making sure that environmental experts and local communities are ont he boards of water companies so they can't get away with what they are doing and they are properly held to account."
According to the Environment Agency, sewage spills into England’s rivers and seas more than doubled last year, with 3.6 million hours of spills last year.
This is equal to about 400 years.
In 2022, sewage spills amounted to around 1.75 million hours.
Earlier this month, water company United Utilities was engulfed in a scandal afert reports of a major sewage spill at Windermere in February.
They said the incident was caused by an unexpected fault on the third party telecoms cable network in the area, "which United Utilities was not notified about and which affected both the primary system and United Utilities' backup".
The water company said: "Engineers took urgent steps to resolve the situation and we informed the Environment Agency within an hour of the pollution being confirmed".
As part of their general election campaign, the Liberal Democrats unveiled plans to abolish water regulator Ofwat and introduce a new regulator to tackle the sewage crisis.
They have also unveiled plans to ban bonuses for water company chief executives.
Davey said: “Water companies are getting away with this national sewage scandal whilst Conservative MPs and ministers have just sat on their hands. These disgraced firms are destroying our treasured lakes and rivers with their filthy sewage dumping – hitting human health, harming our precious environment and damaging the local tourism economy all at the same time.
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"Local environmental experts on company boards could hold water bosses’ feet to the fire and local people would finally have a say in how their water company is run. Liberal Democrats will have the boldest manifesto plans to end the sewage scandal – from a tough new regulator to a ban on greedy exec bonuses to holding water bosses properly to account.
"This election will be about saving our country’s precious environment for the next generation, not least in special places like the Lake District."
