Asked by: Lord Sikka (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to introduce legislation to give customers of water companies a statutory right to vote on remuneration paid to their directors.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Lord Chamberlain (HM Household)
While the Government has no plans to introduce new legislation at this time, we are supporting Ofwat’s current work to strengthen its powers over executive pay. The options Ofwat is exploring include making shareholders and not customers pay for bonuses going forward, where companies are unable to demonstrate their decisions reflect Ofwat's expectations, including on overall performance. This is set out in Ofwat’s Final Methodology for PR24 published in December.
Asked by: Lord Sikka (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will introduce legislation enabling members of the general public to prosecute directors of water companies for wilful neglect of their statutory duties.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
We have existing powers to enable regulators to hold directors of companies liable for offences committed by their company if consent, connivance or neglect on their part can be shown. In addition, Ofwat, as the independent economic regulator, protects the interests of consumers by ensuring water companies properly carry out their statutory functions. They will not hesitate to take enforcement action where these duties are breached. In recent years we have seen historic fines placed on water companies, including fines of £90m for Southern Water and £4m for Thames Water in 2021 for serious pollution events.
The Government has introduced a range of further measures through the Environment Act 2021, and we have been clear that if we do not see the significant changes we expect, we will take further action.
Asked by: Lord Sikka (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the speech 'A water industry that works for everyone' by the then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 1 March 2018 in which he said that water companies have "avoided paying taxes", what amount of corporate taxes have since been paid by each of the water companies.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
The amounts of corporation tax paid by water companies since 1 March 2018 can be viewed in the water companies’ published annual reports and accounts, which are publicly available.
Asked by: Lord Sikka (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to publish a table showing the harmful substances released by each water company into rivers and seas.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
In terms of releases to water, the relevant regulatory processes refer to hazardous substances rather than harmful substances; any substance could potentially be harmful. Within the context of this question, substances has been taken to mean chemicals.
The Environment Agency (EA) reports against a range of measures which assess hazardous substances in the water environment. Chemical classification is based on environmental data rather than the monitoring of discharges. The EA has recently published its report on ‘Regulating for people, the environment and growth’ which can be found here, which references some emissions information for different media including water.
The Environment Agency has worked with the water industry on a programme of research into chemicals in discharges from wastewater, including research into technologies that can provide treatment for chemicals. More information on the Chemicals Investigation Programme can be found here with data from the programme so far published and available here. Phase 2 of the programme concluded in 2020 following investment of £140 million and Phase 3 is currently underway. Phase 3 outputs will made available when completed.