Water (Special Measures) Act 2025: Enforcement

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon) on bringing to the Chamber an issue that has sparked vivid examples of the complete and abject failure of our privatised water companies. I welcome this debate, although the news that it brings is very disappointing, is it not? Our rivers are, of course, precious. The Tone runs through and unites almost all parts of Taunton and Wellington. It is a lifeline for biodiversity, for families and countryside lovers and for the whole natural world. When rivers are healthy, our communities and our nature flourish, but when they are polluted, we all suffer.

That is why the recent revelations about Wessex Water are infuriating. Just a few weeks ago, we learned that the company’s former chief executive officer, Colin Skellett, received a £170,000 bonus from the Malaysian parent company, YTL Utilities. Despite a Government ban on bonuses, the current CEO and chief financial officer received £50,000 in additional payments through the same route. Those payments came after Wessex Water’s criminal conviction in November 2024 for pollution that killed more than 2,000 fish, and after the company was fined £11 million for additional sewage failures. That is all in the context of the £4.25 billion paid out by Wessex Water to private shareholders since privatisation. I cannot think of a more graphic failure of the Conservatives’ privatisation programme. Imagine if that £4 billion had been invested in our rivers and infrastructure over that time. That is exactly the kind of behaviour that the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 was meant to prevent, but companies are getting around it by using parent company fee payments, fee payments generally and complex corporate structures to circumvent the rules.

In Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) warned that that would happen and pushed for a stronger regulator. We called for Ofwat to be scrapped and replaced with a regulator with real teeth. We also called for a new ownership model for water companies, for the public to be brought in through public interest companies, and for mutual ownership so that customers have a stake in the ownership and profits are reinvested in the company rather than going to private shareholders on the other side of the world. Many bill payers in the Wessex Water area would be surprised to find that that is where the money they pay ultimately ends up.

The fundamental problem is that while executives are exploiting loopholes to line their pockets, rivers are getting worse and dying. Customers are paying through higher bills, and communities are watching their local rivers fill with sewage. I checked just before coming to the debate, and north of Bradford-on-Tone and in Heron Gate and Lower Henlade in my constituency, sewage works are pumping sewage into the River Tone right now. Water company bosses should not be rewarded for that kind of behaviour through whatever corporate sleight of hand they are attempting to use. That is as real in my constituency as it is anywhere else.

As so often happens, volunteers have come to the fore. They banded together, and the Friends of French Weir Park and I applied for and got bathing water status to try to improve the water quality of the river, but we need investment.

[Tom Gordon]

My hon. Friend highlights the involvement of the fantastic community groups that have had to pick up the pieces of this broken system. Does he agree that, in an ideal world, we would not need organisations such as the Nidd Action Group in my constituency, even though the work they do is fantastic?

[Gideon Amos]

That is absolutely right. Water companies should be run in the interest of the public, not of the private shareholders’ pockets. That would be a welcome reform for communities in Taunton and Wellington and, no doubt, across the country.

In Taunton and Wellington, Wessex Water needs to reform and put this right. I welcome the action it is beginning to take, but we need real investment in the River Tone to improve bathing water quality, and water quality generally. Our sewage works must get the investment that they need. The Government must close the loopholes whereby bonuses are paid in all but name, and we need to ban the parent company payments that circumvent those rules. We need to strengthen enforcement powers, give regulators teeth and hold companies accountable so that communities such as mine can have confidence that the water they pay for comes from a company that is set up and run in the interest of the public, not private profit.

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (in the Chair)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, Tim Farron. I thank everyone for keeping to time.