Speech in Commons Chamber - Fri 28 Mar 2025 Water Bill
"May I make a more general point? If the Bill went into Committee, we would look at this in far more detail, but a big part of the Bill is about a mission and our direction of travel. It is about tackling the crisis in democracy, and trusting our fellow …..." Clive Lewis - View Speech
"Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 could have instructed Ofwat to take a far more rigorous approach to the payment of bonuses? At the moment, bosses do not get their bonus if they have a one-star rating. In the last 15 years, every …..." Clive Lewis - View Speech
"For how long does my hon. Friend think we should polish the turd—we can probably find that floating in most of our rivers—of privatised English water?..." Clive Lewis - View Speech
"If I could sum up the hon. and learned Member’s argument, he seems to be telling the public, “You’ve never had it so good.” I think many members of the public would disagree with that. I would also make the point that all the investment that has gone into our …..." Clive Lewis - View Speech
"With the leave of the House, I will not get back into a tit for tat over some of the comments that have been made at the Dispatch Box, because I would like to thank everyone who contributed to this fabulous debate on a critical issue. I think that most …..." Clive Lewis - View Speech
"I thank the hon. and learned Member for his contribution to the debate. Private water companies have invested less than nothing of their private equity in our water system since privatisation—in fact, we have £60 billion-worth of debt. I reiterate that taxpayers’ and bill payers’ money has gone into the …..." Clive Lewis - View Speech
"I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Around 50 years ago, Margaret Thatcher’s revolution tore up the rulebook on political and economic management. She rewrote it with a single …..." Clive Lewis - View Speech
"I thank the right hon. Member for his point. I will come on to this later, and I hope other Members will pick up on it, but the fact that the public are way ahead of this House on the issue of public ownership is one of the reasons why …..." Clive Lewis - View Speech
"No, I do not. We have a distorted electoral system. Bring on proportional representation, because if we had PR, we would have had a different Government in 2019 and most definitely in 2017. Sometimes politicians have to do what they believe to be right and lead from the front. I …..." Clive Lewis - View Speech
"I will make some progress and then give way, and I will also try to keep the volume down a little bit.
This is about the maintenance of a political and economic model that was never built to serve the public—a model designed to shield the wealth of asset holders, …..." Clive Lewis - View Speech