Water White Paper

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I think that much of what the noble Lord has talked about is what I need to feed back to the department. Obviously, this is a White Paper; it is not the final version of what any Bill must look like. The noble Lord makes some very important points, particularly on citizen science. I have a personal interest in this because before I ever came to this place, I was part of the Consultation Institute, which has worked in citizen science, so I appreciate what he is saying.

We have talked about working regionally. We have talked about working with stakeholders. We have talked about the importance of that local connection if we are to succeed in making the changes that we want. Citizen science—the noble Lord is absolutely right—can play a role in that.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in responding to the Front-Bench questions, the Minister said the Government are not opposed “in principle” to mutual or co-operative ownership. I am sure that will be delightful news to the Co-operative Party, which of course has been in an electoral partnership with the Labour Party since 1927.

That question of ownership is one we keep coming back to. The Minister also said that we will get a regulator with a tighter grip. But will that grip not be resisted and see coming against it the force of the damage of private ownership that the noble Lord opposite just referred to? The legal responsibility for the managers of private companies is to maximise returns to shareholders. That is going to come up against, as the Statement says, this reform being for customers and the environment, but those are set in opposition to the profit motive. Surely the only way we are going to get a water system that does indeed work for customers and the environment is if we have a public organisation managed for the public good.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, talked about science and there not being a lot of it. One thing we are going to do is bring in a new chief engineer to bring more technical scientific expertise to the new regulator, which, just to come back on his point, is important.

On the modelling, the difficulty in moving away is how you are going to do it, because any new model needs to work. The evidence has shown that where there have been problems around the globe, the model has not been the problem; it has been the way that the owners have managed and dealt with the company and any problems that arise from that. I do not think we can just blame the model. We can blame the behaviour of the companies, the fact that there was not enough done to stop that behaviour sooner, and the way that the regulator has been set up—these are the problems we now want to tackle. Rather than just focusing on the model, we should focus on how we can restore confidence to consumers, how we can improve the environment and how we can set up a new system that makes sure this kind of behaviour can never happen again.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments. It would be useful for me to perhaps have a cup of tea with him and understand specifically which resources he is referring to, because it could be very wide-ranging.

As I have said, we want to ensure that the new regulator is set up with the sufficient funding and resources to ensure that the water companies deliver what they are supposed to be delivering—what their contracts expect them to deliver.

As the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, pointed out, this is about a balance between proper consumer support, decent water and the environment, because consumers have been treated very badly by water companies over the years, as has the environment. We need to get that that right, and if those are the resources the noble Lord is talking about, that is absolutely what we are fixed on delivering.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, since there is time, following on from the question from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, about science and citizen science, one thing that some of that sampling is starting to expose is the level of contamination from new areas of concern, such as PFAS, pesticide contamination and microplastics and nanoplastics. My reading of this report is that it does not seem to focus on the way in which new science is uncovering new concerns for public health and environmental health from those kinds of contamination. Is that something the Government are going to look at as they go forward with the new plans?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I can completely assure the noble Baroness that these issues are being looked at outwith these proposals. These are concerns that we are taking very seriously in the department.