MP calls to nationalise water firms that repeatedly pollute rivers and seas

A Bill that would take failing water companies back into public ownership offers a route out of Britain’s water “crisis”, according to the MP behind the proposals.

Clive Lewis said his Water Bill would mean any firms in England and Wales that have three major sewage spills would have their licence terminated and be nationalised, without owners getting compensation.

The private member’s bill would also compel the Government to ensure water is affordable, with the provision of free water “where appropriate”.

If a water company breaches the terms of its licence with a major sewage discharge it can forget shareholder payouts and piling on more debt

In a passionate speech introducing the Bill in the Commons, Mr Lewis (Norwich South) criticised the legacy of private ownership and said his reforms would send failing owners “into the sunset without a penny in compensation”.

The Labour MP said: “Under the Bill, if a water company breaches the terms of its licence with a major sewage discharge it can forget shareholder payouts and piling on more debt.

“Do it twice and you’re in the last chance saloon. Three strikes and you’re out. Licence terminated, on your bike, and those price gouging, asset stripping, river killing, vulture capitalist outfits, they’ll be rolled into the sunset without a penny in compensation.

“Oh and those water infrastructure they’ve been sweating for private gain, back into the public realm thankyou very much.”

Mr Lewis was critical of Margaret Thatcher’s privatisation, telling MPs: “Thatcherism’s shadow looms dark over our water system today.”

However, he added: “Yet whether we see ourselves standing on her shoulders or trapped in her shadow, one thing is undeniable. She proved that wealth can be made differently, and if it can be made differently once it can be made differently again.”

Water companies have faced in increased pressure in recent years, amid increased awareness of pollution being discharged into rivers and seas at the same time as a lack of investment in infrastructure by bosses. Bills have increased for many consumers as companies scramble for extra funds to pay for improvements.

Less than a fortnight ago Thames Water cleared the latest hurdle in getting a £3 billion rescue loan, which will allow it to operate for another year and restructure its debt of at least £16 billion.

“That money from Thames Water, that half a billion in interest payments, it will keep a rotten system afloat for just a little longer,” Mr Lewis said.

He added: “Here’s the great irony. The very greed, recklessness and contempt of the water industry, their excesses have cracked open the door and through that crack, we glimpse an opportunity.”

He was critical of the Government’s Water (Special Measures) Bill, saying it had been diluted and did not go far enough. Under the Government’s Bill, which was given Royal Assent in February, company bosses could face up to two years in jail if they obstruct investigations and regulators will have strengthened powers to ban bonuses if environmental standards are not met.

He quoted Environment Secretary Steve Reed: “One of its leading proponents has a particular rhetorical flourish they love to use when dismissing calls for public ownership.

The nationalisation argument sounds appealing to many on the face of it, but there is a cost, and it’s not a hidden cost.

“It’s a cost to those people who have bought shares in good faith, those pension funds that are investing, and there is a cost and upheaval to turning around an organisation

The nationalisation argument sounds appealing to many on the face of it, but there is a cost, and it's not a hidden cost. It's a cost to those people who have bought shares in good faith, those pension funds that are investing, and there is a cost and upheaval to turning around an organisation

“They would say ‘I’m more interested in the purity of our water, than the purity of our ideology’.

“I love this quote, I love it because it lays bare just how deeply the ideology of privatisation has embedded itself. So entrenched is it within our collective consciousness that we no longer recognise it as an ideology. We no longer see it for what it is, a systemic exploitation of a common resource for private gain.”

He went on to tell MPs renationalisation was popular, and that neither the Government nor the Conservative Party supporting it only increased public disillusionment with politics.

His Bill, which is being given its second reading in the Commons, would also mean the Government would have to publish a water strategy, establish a commission that would examine water ownership and value for money, and set up a citizens’ assembly on water ownership.

“It doesn’t live up to what was promised, and unfortunately it doesn’t live up to what is needed. It certainly, I’m afraid, live up to its name. It’s a start, but it’s not a solution,” he said.

He later said: “And as the desert-dwelling Fremen in James Herbert’s novel Dune believed, a man’s flesh is his own, but the water belongs to the tribe.

We are subsidising tax havens all over the world on the back of our polluted and privatised water industry

“It’s time our water returned to the tribe, to the people, to the public. We can do better. We must, and with this Bill we will.”

Labour former minister Dame Meg Hillier said: “The nationalisation argument sounds appealing to many on the face of it, but there is a cost, and it’s not a hidden cost.

“It’s a cost to those people who have bought shares in good faith, those pension funds that are investing, and there is a cost and upheaval to turning around an organisation.

“Where would you get the people to run a nationalised water company? It would probably be likely to be the same executives, if they were to take the pay cut, to do it. There isn’t a wealth of expertise.”

The MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch also criticised the Bill’s proposal to establish a citizens’ assembly on water ownership, saying only a “certain subset of society” would have the time to participate.

Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) said water, which is “an absolutely essential and basic need”, should be “completely in public hands”.

He told MPs: “Privatised water companies do not have their top line of conserving the natural world, the environment.

“They have as their top line, their middle line, their bottom line, their every line, the profits they can take out of it.

“We are subsidising tax havens all over the world on the back of our polluted and privatised water industry.”