Future of Thames Water

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of Thames Water.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mrs Harris, and I thank the Minister for attending this debate to listen to my constituents’ concerns. What better way to start the year than to debate the future of Thames Water? But—let me be frank—I do not believe this company has a future. If Thames Water had been genuinely subject to market forces over the years, it would have collapsed many, many decades ago, but instead, a broken regulatory system and chronic mismanagement have repeatedly let businesses and customers down.

Consider this: last year, Robert, aged 81, from Abingdon, received a water bill for—wait for it—£39,000. Thames Water later revised it to £37,688.64. He and his partner Patricia said, quite understandably, that they had become ill from stress because of the bill. It took two months, an intervention and a BBC story to cancel the absurd charge. That case epitomises the incompetence and disregard for customers that has eroded public trust in this company.

Another example is 70-year-old Morna from Botley, who suffered repeated floods in her house due to a blocked Thames Water drain. I visited and saw for myself the strain it took for her to fight for over a year with Thames Water for it finally to unblock it. The delays and inaction are just unacceptable.

I have one last example: Len and Jenny are in their 80s and in frail health, and they lost basic sanitation to their home in 2023. A blocked pipe caused sewage to enter through air bricks and they were left with no toilet, no washing facilities and no power. All they had was a portaloo in their garden and a tanker to pump out sewage. Foul waste continued to bubble up through the basin in their bathroom. We are now in 2026, and Jenny and Len still do not have the recommended non-return valve, a firm date for the maintenance or compensation. If Thames Water cannot even do those basics, what can it do?

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Lady for bringing this debate to Westminster Hall. Thames Water is £20 billion in debt, and it needs £20 billion to service the investment that is necessary. The chief executive has had substantial payouts and dividends. Is it not time for the Government to intervene, take over and get the job right?

[Layla Moran]

Thames Water’s repeated mismanagement is why the Liberal Democrats have long called for all of the water company bosses not to receive that level of payout. We will continue to campaign in that vein.

Locally, we have been campaigning on the issue for many years. Along with Safer Waters, Thames21 and local activists, we secured bathing water status for Port Meadow in Oxford, only the second inland site in the country. That has forced Thames Water to monitor and report on water quality there, but for the last three years, that rating has been “poor”. Residents in Oxford, like others across the country, continue to risk their health every time they swim.

One would think that poor quality would logically lead to action, but it seems not to have done. In a debate just two years ago, I called for legally binding targets on sewage pollution, so I was pleased when the Government promised last July to halve sewage pollution by 2030. Today, I urge the Minister and the Government to move faster and to take all legal and financial steps necessary to make that change happen, because, as we have heard, Thames Water customers experience poor service, flooding, sewage in their homes and sewage in their rivers, and for this, they are being asked to pay more—indeed, 31% more in 2025-26 than the year before.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is giving an excellent speech on a topic that is very close to every Liberal Democrat heart. Thames Water is in £17 billion of debt, yet the company continues to progress with the Teddington direct river abstraction in my constituency, with a plant that would be operational for just six weeks a year at a cost of £1 billion. The project is strongly opposed locally on environmental, social and economic grounds. Does my hon. Friend agree that Thames Water should scrap the project and use that money to cut bills?

[Layla Moran]

I do not trust Thames Water to do anything, and I will come on to an example of an even bigger and even worse project. We want investment and change, but the problem we have is that there is no longer any trust that this company can do that on time and on budget, and in a way that is actually going to deliver real change. That is why 2,507 local residents across Oxfordshire backed a Lib Dem petition calling for these price hikes to be scrapped. If this were a proper private company, it would not be asking customers to pay more for this level of service, yet that is exactly what it has done, and it has frankly given them no say in the process.

While I am lambasting this company today, I am not having a go at its hard-working staff. We need to be clear that they are not to blame for the current woes and dismal performance. In July, I visited Abingdon sewage treatment works, and friendly and knowledgeable people who had worked there for decades told me how the system is supposed to work: tanks remove the sludge, microbes digest bacteria and clean water is discharged. It was so clean that I could have drunk from it there and then—in fact, a heron strutted around the wetland ponds showing exactly what would have been possible. Sadly, that summer idyll is all too frequently shattered when the rain falls, the floodgates open and raw sewage pours out.

At this point, I should acknowledge the role that we and the public can play in helping to reduce pressure on the system. We have seen with our own eyes those mountains of wet wipes being removed from the pipes, and that skip full of rubbish that should never have been flushed down the toilet in the first place. Do the Government have plans for a public information campaign on this matter—paid for, of course, by water company profits? If we saw as many adverts on this issue as we do on things such as fast food, it would help everyone in protecting our rivers.

However, I do not want to downplay the institutional failings that we see in the company. We need additional capital investment; in Abingdon specifically, the staff were asking for another set of tanks to filter and clean the sewage to help that problem there, but it is the same everywhere. Last year, Thames Water admitted that £19 billion of its assets were deemed “poor” or “failed”, posing a risk to thousands of homes.

[Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)]

My hon. Friend speaks of the under-investment in sewage treatment works and other assets. Nowhere is that truer than in Oxford sewage treatment works, which serves residents in my constituency outside of Oxford city. The site already cannot cope with the amount of sewage that it has to deal with. Does my hon. Friend also find it strange that the Environment Agency suddenly dropped its objections to developments, days after receiving a letter from lobbying interests around Oxford? Does she share my scepticism that Thames Water can deliver on the upgrades before the homes are built?

[Layla Moran]

My scepticism about Thames Water is basically the theme of my entire speech, and I completely agree. We absolutely need more houses in and around Oxford—on that I am clear. However, if that work is one of the things stopping those homes from being built, we must of course ensure that it is done to the highest possible standard. It sounds like something has happened there, and I would love to understand better why the EA withdrew that objection with no further change.

More than half of sewage treatment facilities are operating below their required capacity, while raw sewage discharge doubled between 2023-24 and 2024-25. That is a symptom of chronic underinvestment, and we need serious capital to fix the problem. Instead, Thames Water chose to funnel profits into dividends. As recently as March 2024, the company paid £158.3 million out to shareholders. This is a company that is hanging on to a lifeline of creditor goodwill, having already raced through £1.5 billion of the emergency cash that was injected 11 months ago. The scale of the mismanagement is staggering.

No one doubts the need to take steps to secure our water supply for the future in the context of the climate change, but I now come to the local example that I promised my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney). Thames Water presides over leaks to the tune of over 592 million litres a day, which is nearly a quarter of all the water it manages—it is unbelievable. My residents have justified questions about the validity of the arguments underpinning the south-east strategic reservoir option, also known as SESRO, which lies just outside Abingdon. It is estimated to cost £7.5 billion and counting, and we should remember that it started at £2.2 billion, and barely nothing has changed since then. If such a major project must go ahead—the Government say it should, fine—then can the Minister tell me something that I just do not get? Do they really trust Thames Water to get this done right? It is like running a bath when a hole has been punched through the plughole. I would not trust Thames Water to run a bath, let alone deliver a project of this size.

Will the Government also make clear what residents can expect from this project, should it go ahead? Will there be genuine community benefit? As it stands, the company is promising lots of lovely things—sailing clubs and all sorts—but when questioned on the matter at a recent drop-in event, the promises seemed to be nothing more than an artist’s impression. Will the Minister therefore intervene to ensure that the local villages and towns that will have to suffer the disruption get something out of it, beyond higher bills?

Time and again, constituents are being let down by chronic under-investment. For decades, every Government of every colour have presided over some form of this mess. But I do not want to blame; I just want solutions. As a result, I have some questions. What are the Government doing to prepare for when Thames Water exhausts the £1.5 billion of emergency funding? Have they considered the Liberal Democrats’ plans to turn it into a public benefit company? That is not public ownership, which others call for. The taxpayer would not take on the debt, but the profits would be invested back into infrastructure and fixing the problem, not used to enrich the likes of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and the China Investment Corporation.

Will the Government promise a full response to the Independent Water Commission report and the creation of the new regulator with teeth? When can we expect the White Paper? Will we all, together, make a new year’s resolution—that this is the year we sort out Thames Water’s mess, for the sake of people and our planet, once and for all?

[Carolyn Harris (in the Chair)]

I remind Members to bob if they wish to speak, so that we can ascertain whether we need a time limit. I will call the Front Benchers at 5.08 pm, with the Minister rising at 5.18 pm.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran]

I thank you, Mrs Harris, and all Members for their contributions to the debate. I am not totally sure we got all the answers we were hoping for. Soon, I hope, means soon. I look forward to seeing the detail of what is in the White Paper, where many of the answers will be.

I am sure the Minister and the officials will have heard that the scepticism on both sides of the House is pretty strong. I would argue that the company is not and has not been meeting its obligations for quite some time now, either financially or to its customers. We will see what the conclusions will be. I rather suspect that, sooner rather than later, they will land on the place where we have been for quite some time. I thank all Members for participating.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the future of Thames Water.

Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords]

Layla Moran Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 28th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I pay tribute to the Minister and the Bill team from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs who are in the Chamber, as well as to all my colleagues who sat on the Committee for what was a genuinely enjoyable and collegiate experience. I hope they will forgive me for making a few criticisms in the next few minutes.

We tabled 44 amendments in Committee, but only 34 today, you will be delighted to know Madam Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] I know—I am failing. I will not speak to all of them for blindingly obvious reasons. We tabled those amendments because we in the Liberal Democrats, humbly yet enthusiastically, have taken on the mantle in this place and beyond of being the voice for many thousands of campaigners, volunteers and citizen scientists who continue to lead the way in exposing the failures and injustices in the water industry, and fighting for meaningful change. We are immensely grateful to those people all across the country.

Our water industry has become a money-making vessel for speculators, who appear to care little for the quality of our rivers, lakes and seas—something I can tell the House is a source of great fury in England’s precious Lake district. The water companies have accumulated £70 billion in debt since privatisation, while still managing to pay out £83 billion in dividends. That is more than a third of the total spent on infrastructure during that time. In the last year, water companies paid out £9.3 million in executive bonuses, and Thames Water’s bonuses doubled to £1.3 million that year. Money leaks out of the industry, infrastructure is failing, and it is our constituents who pay the price.

Meanwhile the regulatory framework has failed utterly and is not fit for purpose. As I speak, £164 million in fines has been levied against water companies by Ofwat, following an investigation that began four years ago, of which it has so far failed to collect a single penny.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

Thames Water has had an increase in the number of pollution incidents, which went up 40% in six months last year. It has been issued with fines, but that has not changed anything. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need regulation with proper teeth, and that new clause 25 would do exactly that by putting water companies into special measures when they fail our constituents?

[Tim Farron]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. The water companies simply do not fear Ofwat, or indeed any other part of our fragmented regulatory system. They dwarf Ofwat in terms of resources, they flout the limited regulations that they face, and they run rings around the regulators and obviously get away with it. There was the outrage of the water companies being permitted, just before Christmas, to increase water bills by 36% by 2030, and what makes it even worse is that a third of customers’ bills are being spent just on servicing the debt—a debt that was in part run up to fund excessive dividends.

Water companies are already passing on the consequences of their complete financial mismanagement to our constituents—their customers—but this Bill could enable that to go further and to be even worse. According to the Government’s explanatory notes,

“following the provision of financial assistance by the Secretary of State to a company in special administration”,

clause 12 of the Bill, as drafted, would

“require a water company to raise amounts of money determined by the Secretary of State from its consumers, and to pay those amounts to the Secretary of State to make good any shortfall”.

In other words, when a water company goes into special administration, there is a cost to the Government of ensuring that supply is maintained, and the Government need to recoup that cost. That sounds reasonable at first glimpse, but it does not seem reasonable that bill payers should have to pick up the tab, despite bearing none of the blame for the financial mess a water company finds itself in.

My hon. Friends and I are keen to press amendment 9, which would make it explicit that it should be the creditors of the companies—the big financial investors that have loaded debt on to the water companies—that cover those costs instead. The amendment would strike out the Government’s provision in the Bill that opens up bill payers to carrying the cost of paying off company debt, even in the event of bankruptcy.

Flooding

Layla Moran Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question and for joining the call that we held with all the different organisations on the Friday. I anticipated that I might be pushed on that question, and I have to admire her persistence on it. Of course, I understand the importance of Flood Re and of businesses having insurance. The Flood Re scheme was originally designed in a very specific way, but I am always happy to take further representations from my hon. Friend.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I received an email from Laura, a constituent in Abingdon. She lives in an area that has been flooded three times in the past year—in fact, there is a flood warning for the River Ock again today. She says that the flooding means she cannot sell her house—nor can any of her neighbours —as estate agents say that it must be five years dry before they will even consider it. As a result, my constituents stand to lose millions between them and some have lost jobs because they cannot move. What work is the Department doing with estate agents and the building industry to ensure that newly built houses are built well, and that houses that need to be sold can be sold?

[Emma Hardy]

As I outlined earlier, we will ensure that any new homes are resistant to flooding and, importantly, do not contribute to more flooding in other areas—that is incredibly important. I do not know the details of the area and the constituents the hon. Lady mentions—such as whether a flood scheme is ready to be developed there or they have thought about property flood resilience measures—but if she gives me more information, I will happily look at it.

Storm Bert

Layla Moran Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

I empathise with the suffering that my hon. Friend’s constituents have experienced because of the recent flooding. We are reviewing the formula; we realise that it is not working as effectively as it should. Along with the floods resilience taskforce, we will be looking into how we can better improve co-ordination on the ground among the different agencies that have responsibility first for keeping people safe and then for helping communities to recover after flooding of the kind that my hon. Friend describes.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

Residents of south Abingdon have already been flooded twice this year, and tonight there is another warning. I cannot imagine what they must be feeling. When I visited them in September, they reported feeling very alone. They had been promised a flood defence, and then the Environment Agency said that it was not value for money; they had been promised sandbanks, which then did not show up. When we asked the EA today whether it would be on the ground, it told us that it could not send enough people—not because it did not have the staff or the money, but because not enough of them had completed a workplace assessment and training on how not to be assaulted by angry residents. Of course staff safety is everything and Environment Agency workers deserve our thanks, but surely an element of common sense needs to be applied. Surely the best way to help angry residents is to be there and help them in their hour of need.

[Steve Reed]

I am grateful for the point that the hon. Lady makes. I would be happy to raise it with the chief executive of the Environment Agency to ensure that when there is an urgent need for support and staff are available to provide it, that is what happens.

Rural Affairs

Layla Moran Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

No. The hon. Gentleman has already had his chance to ask a question.

The investment will help us to boost food production as we move to models of farming that are not only more environmentally sustainable but more financially sustainable, and it will help nature to recover—here, in what has become one of the most nature-depleted countries on earth, with nearly half our bird species and a quarter of our mammal species now at risk of extinction.

Our plans to upgrade our crumbling water infrastructure will help to bring in tens of billions of pounds of private investment, and will create tens of thousands of well-paid jobs in rural communities throughout the country. We will reform the planning system to build the affordable homes that our rural communities so desperately need, while also protecting our green spaces and precious natural environments. We are investing £2.4 billion over the next two years in the flood defences that the last Government left in such an unacceptable state of decay and disrepair.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I am extremely grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way on the issue of flooding. Anyone would welcome more money, which is desperately needed, but will he comment on the flooding formula? Many inland communities flood, but the Environment Agency continues to say that there is nothing it can do, because the flooding formula says it is not worth doing anything. Frequent flooding of smaller communities matters, too. Is the Department looking at that?

[Steve Reed]

We are looking at that, and we will be able to make proposals in due course. I know that the hon. Lady will be interested in taking part in a conversation about them when we do.

I am talking about the changes we are making more widely for rural communities. We will open new specialist colleges and reform the apprenticeships levy to help agricultural businesses and farms to upskill their workforce, and we will recruit 8,500 more mental health professionals across the NHS, with a mental health hub in every community to tackle the scourge of mental ill health in our farming and rural communities.

Thames Water: Oxfordshire

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)]

I will call Layla Moran to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the performance of Thames Water in Oxfordshire.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. I thank the Minister for being here to listen to my constituents’ concerns.

The River Thames is an integral part of life in Oxfordshire. Whether they are rowing, swimming, punting or walking, Oxfordshire residents love spending time outdoors and around our precious waterways. But our local environment is under threat, thanks in part to the shoddy performance of Thames Water. One constituent described Thames Water as a “disaster of a company”, and I am afraid to say that I completely agree. It dumps sewage in our rivers, fails to unblock drains, fails to fill reservoirs and does not deliver value for money.

It will come as no surprise that I start with the issue of sewage dumping. The statistics speak for themselves: across the network, Thames Water spilled sewage for 6,500 hours in the last nine months of 2023. Right now, sewage is flowing from treatment works at Combe, Church Hanborough, South Leigh, Stanton Harcourt, Standlake, Appleton, Oxford, Kingston Bagpuize, Drayton, Clanfield, Faringdon, Wantage and Didcot. There are 28—I will not go through all of them. It is like this every day. Sewage pollutes our waterways, damages the natural environment, and poses serious health risks to wildlife, pets and humans.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is making a remarkably important speech and delivering it very well. We know about the issue because of testing, yet the testing in her area and mine is done by the water companies themselves—in my area, the north-west of England, by United Utilities—so there is a lack of confidence in my constituency, and I suspect in hers, about its reliability. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is wrong for the water companies to mark their own homework, that instead the water companies should be charged the full cost of that testing, that that money should be given to the Environment Agency, and that testing should be done independently, so that we can rely on it?

[Layla Moran]

I thank my hon. Friend for his campaigning on the issue at the national level; my constituents are grateful to him. I could not agree with him more. I will talk about bathing water status in a moment.

Residents set up a huge citizen science group so they could do the testing themselves. They worked with Thames Water at the time, but they wanted the Environment Agency to be properly funded so that it could do the testing and they could have that reassurance. It is not right to ask residents to do that work, and I share my hon. Friend’s scepticism about the water companies sticking to their word and doing the testing 100% correctly, given that it is in their interests to make it look like the issue is getting better.

A mother got in touch with me after her son was admitted to hospital with a water-based bacterial infection on his hand. He is a keen rower, and a blister became infected by dirty river water from the Thames in Abingdon. It is not just about humans: a number of constituents also got in touch to say that they are worried about their pets. Matthew recently contacted me after his much-loved greyhound, Roy, sadly passed away. Matthew is convinced that that happened as a result of Roy going into raw sewage as he was frolicking along on his normal walk, and the vet said that contaminated water cannot be ruled out as the cause of death. There has been a spate of such deaths in Oxfordshire, including in Eynsham and Wolvercote, and I wonder whether there have been any elsewhere in the country. We have tried to interrogate the Department and Thames Water about the issue, but they do not monitor how many animals—that is, pets—are getting ill. Thames Water has biodiversity targets, but to the best of my knowledge the Department does not look at the issue at all. I urge the Minister to do so.

Just beyond Oxfordshire, in the village of Charvil, in Wokingham, a local fisherman described seeing raw sewage float past the end of his fishing rod. It is just disgusting. When we think of frolicking about in boats and the classic English countryside, we do not want that image. Rowers should be worried only about freezing temperatures at this time of year, dog walkers should be worried only about how muddy their pets are when they get home and fishermen should be worried only about their catch. No one should have to endure raw sewage floating past them or risk getting seriously ill by doing an activity that they love. The Government, despite their frequent protestations, are not doing enough.

In Oxford, local campaigners and I fought hard for Wolvercote mill stream at Port Meadow to gain bathing water status. I know the Minister has a keen interest in this, because the River Wharfe in Ilkley, which was the first to gain that status, is in his constituency. We were very proud to follow his constituents and become the second. Indeed, the then Minister with responsibility for water, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), came to wade in it herself when the announcement was made in 2022.

However, at every single data collection point so far, Wolvercote mill stream has been classed as poor. If the water quality does not improve in the next three years, we will lose bathing water status. Despite bathing water status placing a legal duty on water companies to clean up their act, Thames Water continues to discharge sewage from the treatment works at Cassington and Witney, just upstream of Port Meadow. That means that the levels of harmful bacteria, including E. coli, are dangerously high.

The regulations clearly are not working. In April last year, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs promised legally binding targets on sewage dumping, yet nothing has come to fruition. The Government talk about progress in monitoring, but it is not good enough just to monitor the sewage that is flowing into our rivers; we need to stop it altogether. Areas such as Port Meadow simply cannot afford to wait. If it loses bathing water status, the blame will lie squarely with this Government. Has the Minister considered tougher targets for water companies, specifically in areas such as his and mine that have bathing water status? Will he look at introducing a targeted plan for bathing waters that are rated as poor?

This is not the first time that I have raised the issue, or raised it with the Minister. I asked to meet him back in December, after Port Meadow was first rated as poor. I thank his office, and I am sure we will find a time in the near future to discuss it in more detail. However, I am afraid to say that sewage dumping is not the only thing that I would love to chew his ear off about, because it is not the only area in which Thames Water is failing. Almost no part of Oxford West and Abingdon was unaffected by the flooding after Storm Henk in January. It is one thing to see floodwaters lapping at the door, to be scared and to have to decide what to take up to higher levels while trying to get the water out. That is scary enough, but for the residents of Lower Radley, blocked drains meant that they were not looking just at floodwater but at floodwater and sewage in their homes. That was a direct result of Thames Water failing to clear drains that we had been alerting them to for months because they were blocked; in fact, it had been three years since Thames Water had cleaned them. One resident wrote to me:

“This has been going on for some years with zero remedial action from Thames Water…utterly appalling!”

One couple who are suffering are in their nineties. They simply should not have to go through that misery time and time again. Fields, gardens and homes were flooded with water; meanwhile, residents in Farmoor noticed that the levels of the reservoir were low. Thames Water claimed that the level was normal for this time of year, but residents were confused because it seemed that the whole of Oxfordshire was under water except the reservoir. Thames Water said that “dirt and debris” in the rivers prevented abstraction, but one resident described the situation as the water company

“pooing in their own nest”.

Filling reservoirs in periods of heavy rainfall is vital for drought preparedness, but Thames Water’s refusal to invest in infrastructure and fix leaky pipes is putting that at risk. In the south-east, we regularly endure hosepipe bans in the summer; in the summer of 2022, the village of Northend in south Oxfordshire was forced to survive on emergency rations after its water supply stopped entirely. Yet Thames Water loses an estimated 630 million litres of water to leaks every single day—the highest it has been in five years. Thames Water cannot seem to put anything in the right place: there is sewage not in the rivers but in people’s homes, and water is leaking out of pipes while the reservoir’s level drops. It is not just gross; it is gross incompetence across the board.

My constituents are incredibly concerned that, despite that litany of errors, Thames Water is planning to embark on an enormous infrastructure project called the south east strategic reservoir option—known locally as the Abingdon reservoir. It is vast. It will cover an area of 7 sq km and have a volume of 150 million cubic metres. Local campaigners, such as the Group Against Reservoir Development, have raised a number of questions about the water demand projections used to justify this project, the environmental impact of the project and the safety measures that are in place to mitigate any risk of a dam breach. So far, Thames Water has failed to answer those questions. More importantly, however, my constituents simply have no faith that Thames Water has the wherewithal to undertake such a significant infrastructure project. In December, its auditors even warned that the water company would run out of money by April of this year without a serious cash injection from shareholders. Thames Water has been horrifically mismanaged, and there is no sign of that turning around. That is why I am calling for a public inquiry into its super-reservoir plans, to ensure rigorous scrutiny and transparency in their decision making.

It is all the more galling, in the middle of this cost of living crisis, that Thames Water announced late last year that water bills were set to rise by a whopping 60% over the next six years. That increase is to allow water companies to invest in infrastructure, which is something that they should already have been doing, and that they are now asking bill payers to do in their stead. The average household water bill will go up from £456 a year to an expected £735 a year by 2030. The price hikes are going to hit this year: water bills will increase by 6% above inflation in April.

People cannot afford it. They are already struggling; they are on their last 50p, if they even have that. They cannot cope with this. That is why Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats have started a petition calling on Thames Water to scrap this unfair price hike. What conversations has the Minister had with his departmental colleagues and the water company about the fairness of this hike? Is support in place for people who will simply not be able to afford the increase? We are not just talking about people who are on universal credit anymore. We are talking about people who go to work every day. They are in work, but they are in poverty, and this will just make the situation worse.

Do the Government seriously think that it is acceptable for taxpayers to foot the bill for the historical failings of Thames Water? Well, the Liberal Democrats do not. That does not just go for Thames Water; the whole system needs to be fixed. We need radical action. We need to protect our environment and bring down people’s bills. The Liberal Democrats are calling for England’s water companies to be transformed into public benefit companies. That is a new thing for the UK: it is not a social enterprise, as such, and it would mean a complete shake-up of the boards. Public policy benefits would explicitly be considered in the running of the water companies, putting a stop to the prioritisation of profit over our waterways, without the distraction of renationalisation. We want to see environmental experts and local community groups on the boards to ensure proper scrutiny and transparency. The concept is radical and new, and I would like to know whether the Minister has looked into it seriously because, if not, I would urge him to do so. We are also calling for a ban on water executive bonuses until sewage dumping stops, a sewage tax to fund the clean-up of the most polluted lakes, rivers and coastlines, and, ultimately, an end to sewage dumping altogether.

In our view, the Government have acted far too slowly and limply, as our rivers get dirtier and our water bills get higher. Knowing that it is happening is not enough; it is time for radical improvement. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s remarks about what the Government are going to do about it.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Robbie Moore)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. I thank the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) for bringing this incredibly important debate on the performance of Thames Water before the House.

Let me be clear: Thames Water’s performance is completely unacceptable, and it must take urgent steps to turn this around. Its customers deserve better, and I want to begin by assuring this House that improving the performance of all water companies, including Thames Water, and ensuring that they deliver for customers and the environment, are top priorities for this Government.

As has been raised in this debate, the performance data for Thames Water is stark. According to Ofwat, Thames Water is failing to meet its commitments to customers on eight of the 12 common performance metrics, particularly on ensuring a consistent supply of water and on its pollution instances, as the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon laid out for all to see. The Environment Agency’s findings tell a similar story, with Thames Water’s environmental performance at the worst levels since 2013, with 17 serious pollution instances in 2022.

The Government and regulators do not take underperformance lightly. As a result of failing to meet its performance commitments, Ofwat has directed Thames Water to return over £73 million to customers during the financial year of 2024-25, which is in addition to £51 million returned to customers during 2022-23. There are also ongoing investigations into compliance at sewage treatment works under way by both Ofwat and the Environment Agency. While it would inappropriate for me to comment further on the specifics of those proceedings, as they are currently under way, they are a clear example of robust regulatory action to hold water companies to account by not only Ofwat but the Environment Agency.

Ofwat has directed Thames Water to produce a service commitment plan. That will require Thames Water to publicly commit to a plan for how it will start to turn its performance around. Please be assured that regulators and the Government will scrutinise those plans in detail to ensure that everything possible is being done to get the company back on track with its service delivery, environmental performance, and ensuring that customers rightly get the good supply they deserve.

[Layla Moran]

I have been meeting with Thames Water on this issue for years now, and every time we meet, it has a plan. Every time we meet, there is a new bit to the plan or the plan has progressed a little bit. I hear now that there is a new plan: what will be different about it? It is everyone’s interest in this House to get this to work. Can the Minister assure us that this plan will actually deliver what people want?

[Robbie Moore]

I want to reassure not only the hon. Lady but every Member who has customers of Thames Water that the Government will hold the water company to account through the use of the regulators—the Environment Agency and Ofwat. I will shortly meet again with the new chief executive of Thames Water, which follows a meeting that the Secretary of State and I had with the CEOs of Thames Water and other water companies very recently. It also follows on from a meeting that the previous water Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), had back in November. We want to take all these concerns seriously and deal with surge discharges, supply interruptions and internal sewer flooding, which was also mentioned by the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon.

I know that Thames Water is under no illusions as to the scale of the challenge. It has recently published its revised three-year turnaround plan to address some of the concerns raised today, and while we all understand that it will take time to turn performance around, I want to be clear that I expect to see clear and measurable progress being made by the company as swiftly as possible.

Storm Henk

Layla Moran Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore]

It was fantastic to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency at the weekend. I want to put on record my thanks to Jane Froggatt, who represents some of the internal drainage boards, and I commend the work that the boards do. In certain circumstances, they go above and beyond. It is clear, and noted at my end, that a different approach needs to be taken to Lincolnshire—which I know very well—and, as I said during my visit, I am more than happy to review what needs to be done in terms of dredging and removing vegetation from Environment Agency assets and the Delph, which we looked at. It is important that we are not only protecting urban environments, but looking after our farming community and ensuring that the land on which they rely to produce the crops that enable us all to eat the food we want to eat is protected as well as possible.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

Barely any part of my constituency was unaffected by the floods. It is not just about the sobbing residents; it is also about the chaos caused across the roads. The A34 was shut, the Abingdon Road was shut, and children could not get to Larkmead School in Abingdon. The Environment Agency has been promising a comprehensive plan since we were flooded devastatingly in 2007, and the Oxford flood alleviation scheme is in train but there is nothing for Abingdon. Would the Minister consider meeting me to discuss why the Environment Agency’s own plan for Abingdon has recently been axed?

[Robbie Moore]

My Environment Agency colleagues are working incredibly hard across Oxfordshire. The Oxford flood alleviation scheme is in place, but I am more than happy to meet the hon. Member to discuss what further action she would like to be taken. I want to reassure her that we are working around the clock to make sure that all households, businesses and farmers are protected from the implications of Storm Henk.

Oral Answers to Questions

Layla Moran Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

As a fellow east of England MP, I know what a fantastic champion my hon. Friend is for his constituents and how rigorously he will ensure that those points are made. He, as an experienced parliamentarian, will also know that many of those fiscal issues are for colleagues within the Treasury, but I am very happy to have discussions with him and to make representations where required.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

T7. Oxford was proud when Port Meadow was given bathing water status, yet just last week the water quality was again rated poor. With the Secretary of State meet me to discuss how we can hold Thames Water to account for its continual failure over dumping raw sewage in Oxfordshire?

[Robbie Moore]

I am happy, as the Minister responsible for water quality, to meet with the hon. Lady, but I will also say that, from the bathing water classifications we saw this week, 95.7% of bathing waters in England are rated good or excellent. That is up from 2010, when just 76% across England were rated good. This Government are taking water quality seriously, and I will endeavour to make sure that we go even further.

Animal Welfare (Kept Animals)

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 21st June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Trudy Harrison]

I cannot answer that question, but what I can say is that I was with Steve Tuckwell in Uxbridge, and he clearly cares deeply about animal welfare and the environmental improvement plan.

We will continue to take forward measures in the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill, successfully and swiftly, during the remainder of this Parliament. Having left the EU, we can and will ban live exports for fattening and slaughter. I am pleased to report that there have been no live exports of livestock from Great Britain for fattening or slaughter since 2020. People have long been rightly anxious for the export of farm animals such as sheep and young calves for slaughter and fattening not to start up again, so our legislation will make that change for good. We will take forward our plans to ban the import of young puppies, heavily pregnant dogs, and dogs with mutilations such as cropped ears and docked tails. We have already consulted on that, and a single-issue Bill will allow us to get on with cracking down on puppy smuggling.

I am pleased to inform the House that we launched a consultation just yesterday on the standards that must be met by anyone responsible for the care of a primate. As we have heard, the needs of these captivating creatures are extremely complex, and we saw in the media just yesterday how primates can be horrifically mistreated. By requiring all privately held primates to be kept to zoo standards, we will stop primates being kept as if they were pets.

There is much more besides, from publishing updated zoo standards later this year in collaboration with the sector and the Zoos Expert Committee, to considering primary legislative vehicles to take forward measures to tackle livestock worrying, and our wider work, including through the countryside code, to raise people’s awareness of how to enjoy walking their dog responsibly.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Trudy Harrison]

We are also taking forward measures to make it an offence to abduct a much-loved pet.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

In their manifesto, three and a half years ago, the Government promised a single Bill that would crack down on puppy smuggling, ban live exports, protect sheep and other livestock from dangerous dogs, and ban the keeping of primates as pets—a Bill that I think pretty much everyone in this place would have been in favour of and voted for. The Government seem to have time on their hands; we will probably finish at about 6.30 pm today, and we stopped at 4.30 pm yesterday, so it is no excuse to say that the agenda is packed. Parliamentary time is clearly available, so there is no excuse for the Conservatives having failed to pass the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill that they promised in their manifesto three and half years ago, in the general election of 2019. We are told that all will be well—that the Bill will be broken up into bits and delivered over the next year. We will see.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

Nearly 200 constituents have written to me about the Bill. They want it to happen, and are so worried that it will not. The plan is for the provisions to be put into private Members’ Bills, but given that Members, not the Government, decide what is in private Members’ Bill, and that there is no clear plan for how the measures will be apportioned to Members, I am not filled with confidence that this will get done before the next general election. Does my hon. Friend agree?

Water Company Performance

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

We have a regulator. Its job is to regulate the water companies. The Government sent a very strong policy statement to Ofwat to direct the water companies on a whole range of measures, not least putting the environment at the top of the agenda but also enabling the supply we need for the future population, so we can all have the clean and plentiful water we deserve. We now have an extremely comprehensive plan in place to deal with that.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

As the Minister knows, Wolvercote Mill Stream in Oxford became the second river in the country to get designated bathing water status. Can she therefore understand our frustration when the official designation for 2022 was poor and over the Christmas period 676 hours—nearly an entire month—of sewage was discharged upstream in Witney? Can she seriously say, in light of that, that she and the Government are doing enough? Why will she not set even stricter targets, especially in areas with bathing water status? Can she give a cast-iron guarantee to our community that we will not lose bathing water status because of lacklustre action by the Government?

[Rebecca Pow]

As the hon. Lady will know, I visited that site, and indeed I even paddled in the water. She knows full well that the system we have introduced will help to clean up bathing water areas such as hers, and the monitoring that we have introduced both upstream and downstream will deliver the change that we need.