Combined Sewer Overflows

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend knows that there is a major investment in infrastructure, the largest ever, which is seeing many of those thousands of miles of Victorian pipes being replaced by modern ones. It is absolutely vital that any developments take into account the sewage infrastructure. That is why we are insisting on the entire impact of those, and any, developments being reflected in investment, and why we are front-loading a lot of the expenditure. We are requiring water companies to do a lot, but that is what their customers and the people of this country want. We have the right system by which to make that happen, and we want to encourage that expenditure to happen as quickly as possible.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the current system of private monopolies dates back to 1989, when Margaret Thatcher sold off the publicly owned water and sewage industry for £7.6 billion, debt free. Since then, average household bills have risen 40% above inflation, the companies are now £54 billion in debt and have since paid out £66 billion in dividends to shareholders. Of the bills that people are paying today, 20p in the pound is going to shareholders or to cover that debt. Given that the regulation of these companies and the economic situation are clearly failing, surely it is now time for the Government to at least set up the process of looking into how we can bring these companies back into public hands and run them for public good.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I may have misunderstood the noble Baroness, but I have certainly had it put to me in this Chamber that, when this system of private ownership was put in place, it was somehow an ideological Conservative Government that was doing it. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was done because we were the dirty man of Europe: our rivers were stinking, and a very small percentage of our beaches were compliant. Now, we have nearly 93% of our bathing waters in good or improving conditions. I am not naive; I know that there are serious problems. But if the noble Baroness is really suggesting that the way of dealing with this is to completely change it and require the taxpayer to pay billions of pounds to purchase these companies back, which would see investment in this country into the regulated utility sector fall off a cliff, that is very dangerous not just for our water industry but our energy companies and every other regulated utility.