Water Companies: Duties and Accountability

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 4th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We are asking water companies to make all kinds of provision that will address the points the noble Lord has raised. Storm waters have flooded into our rivers for hundreds of years. The difference today is that there are areas of high population dealing with infrastructure that is seeking to catch up. That is what we are investing in. Through the very strict targets we have introduced in the Environment Act, through measures that our regulators are imposing on water companies, and through the delivery of record fines for water companies when they get this wrong, we hope to see—indeed, we insist that there will be—a dramatic reduction in storm overflows.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

Throughout the many years that these very companies have been discharging raw sewage into our rivers, their customers have, in contractual terms, been paying them to treat that sewage and release it safely. Surely, what they have been doing is not only a breach of contract, but fraud. They knew full well what they were doing but were charging people otherwise. Surely, accountability requires compensation for people who paid them to treat and dispose of this sewage properly, and an investigation into whether the directors and executives, who knew what they were doing, were behaving fraudulently.