Water Sector: Public Ownership
Debate between Neil Hudson and Sean Woodcock(2Â weeks ago)
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Dr Hudson
I will not give way at this point.
His Majesty’s official Opposition have been clear: we are not cheerleaders for this water company, but we do not want to see Thames Water fold. Although the water supply would continue, that would carry the serious risk of higher bills for customers and would not solve all the issues facing the company. Bizarrely, a few months ago the third party led legal action that could have sunk the company. With them, Reform—strangely their allies on this issue—appear to be happy for the company to go under, exposing taxpayers to billions and pushing consumer water bills sky-high. That is billions of pounds that we as a country simply just cannot afford, as the Government have admitted.
Outages such as the one I described in Epping Forest also highlight the real and present impacts of climate change and increased demand. We have outdated water infrastructure designed to cope with significantly less demand than it is now required to. Changing weather risks more leaks, bursts and breakages. The water outages that tend to follow have knock-on implications for people, schools, businesses and healthcare. It is important to know the economic and social costs of the outages that have occurred over the last few months and years. Will the Minister take this opportunity to provide some reassurance that existing infrastructure is being assessed to prevent leakages or bursts in the first instances and hold water companies to account for that?
The work of the previous Conservative Government in this area means that we now understand the severity of the situation surrounding the performance of water companies in the first place—[Interruption.] Hon. Members may laugh but I remind them that, when Labour left office in 2010, only 7% of storm overflows were monitored. The previous Government worked proactively to increase that percentage: by the end of 2023, it had increased to 100%. It went from 7% to 100%.
This is basic science: it is only when something is measured and vital data is collected that the extent of the problem can be seen. It was the Conservative Government that started that, and that started to put in place measures to address the situation—something they, and indeed the new Labour Government, have found to be complex and not easy to solve.
