Water Supply Disruption

Debate between Peter Grant and Thérèse Coffey

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend is right to talk about leaks; the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) did so, too. We know that, as has been pointed out, companies are missing their leakage target. That is why we have tasked the companies to come up with plans for how they will put more investment into their infrastructure, including the sewerage network.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I thank the Minister for her statement. First, I pay tribute to all those who have worked on behalf of local authorities and other services over the past week—and even more so now —to deal with the unprecedented weather difficulties in Scotland and much of England. In Scotland, we had a red alert for snow for the first time since the current alert system was devised.

While there are still water supply difficulties in Scotland, there does not seem to have been the degree of systemic failure that we have seen in many authorities in England and Wales. Right here in London—one of the world’s greatest cities; many would argue that it is the world’s greatest city—in the 21st century, it is beyond the wit of the Government and the water authorities to provide one of the most basic essentials of human existence to tens of thousands of citizens.

I hope that the Minister will respond positively to demands for a public inquiry to find out what went wrong. It might also find out what lessons can be learned from the water service in Scotland, which has faced the same weather difficulties. There have been supply interruptions, but nothing on the scale or to the extent of what we have seen elsewhere.

When I checked the Scottish Water site immediately before the Minister stood up, the areas still affected were parts of EH10 in Edinburgh, as well as Dalwhinnie, South Ronaldsay, Burray and Lybster. If Members check those places on a map, they will see that all four of them have very substantial remoteness issues, so we would expect it to take longer to fix any problems there.

As the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) pointed out from the Opposition Front Bench, there are problems in England with poor customer service in an industry that has paid out £18 billion to shareholders and pays out between £2.5 million and £3 million each to some chief executives. Customers in parts of England are paying £150 a year more for their water than those in Scotland, and the service is not being provided to them. The reason for that may be that the service in England is profit-driven and shareholder-driven, whereas in Scotland—thanks to the foresight of successive Governments of all parties in the Scottish Parliament—we have retained a Scottish water supply under public ownership and public control.

Will the Minister undertake, in the public inquiry that she must surely now accept, that nothing will be off the table, and that part of the remit will be to examine whether the ownership model that applies in Scotland would be beneficial to customers in the rest of the United Kingdom?

[Dr Coffey]

We have a well-established pattern of water provision in England. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that I am not responsible for Scotland. I do not know how much has been invested in the Scottish water industry in a comparable timeframe, but I would point to the fact that the £140 billion figure is considerably higher than the amount invested prior to privatisation. There is no doubt that there have been a lot of benefits not only in service to customers, but—dare I say it?—to the environment. We will not allow that progress to stall. On other matters, I stress that I do not pretend to be a water engineer; it is the job of Ofwat, working with my officials, to come back to me on them.

I understand that Mr Jonson Cox, the chairman of Ofwat, is a constituent of yours, Mr Speaker. You will know, I am sure, that he is a fine fellow, and he will not be taking any rubbish. I am sure he has taken some lessons from you.