Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the cost of acquiring control of England’s water companies.

The Government has no intention to nationalise water companies.

Nationalisation would put a huge burden on the public purse at a time when public finances are already stretched and would not fix the root of the problem.

If the whole industry was nationalised, shareholders and debt holders would need to be compensated, which could cost over an estimated £90 billion [this is based on Ofwat’s Regulatory Capital Value 2024 estimates]

Instead, this government is focused on tackling the public’s immediate concerns to clean up the nation’s polluted waterways and turn around the sector’s performance, focusing on improving the privatised regulated model.