Labour pledges to end the ‘national scandal’ of ‘stinking filth in our waterways’ by throwing the government’s weight behind an £88 billion investment in water firms.
On the weekend that marks the start of the peak holiday season, Environment Secretary Steve Reed said the second biggest private sector investment of the Parliament—behind energy—would be devoted to cleaning up the nation’s water.
Writing in today’s Mail on Sunday, he promises to tackle ‘record levels of toxic raw sewage polluting Britain’s once pristine rivers, lakes, and seas’.
The government is supporting plans by the regulator Ofwat for an £88 billion spending package for water utilities between 2025 and 2030, originally financed by the city or through borrowing and then recovered through higher customer bills.
After the outcry over the millions paid to water bosses in bonuses despite multiple sewage spills, Mr Reed says the companies will in effect be placed in ‘special measures’, with water bosses potentially subject to criminal charges and a ban on bonuses when standards have not been met.
He writes: ‘Instead of protecting our waterways, the water companies paid out multi-million-pound bonuses. It was more profitable to let the pollution flow rather than fix the broken pipes, and regulation was too weak to stop them.’
He adds that ‘bosses responsible for repeated illegal sewage dumping will face criminal charges, and I’ll ban the payment of their multi-million-pound bonuses until they clean up their toxic filth’.
Pollution from sewage works, farms, and motorways has dominated the country’s rivers and coastlines, with water companies dumping sewage unchecked at almost 900 spots in protected natural sites in England.
The new Water Bill will also require companies to install real-time monitors at every sewage outlet across the country.
The plans are part of the government’s ‘audit’ of its inheritance from the Conservatives, designed to dodge blame for crises and pave the way eventually for tax rises.
Mr Reed has said tackling the sewage crisis is the number one priority for his department.
Nevertheless, this will not happen overnight. The infrastructure needs improving to stop it from happening, which takes investment. Unfortunately, these companies have decided to inflate profits over investment in these things.
The use of water has increased dramatically because we have more people entering our country, and it’s a strain on our Victorian sewer system that has not been upgraded for years, and the system just can’t cope with the present level. Unfortunately, this problem will not be a quick one to solve.
Most of the water companies are burdened with debt after decades of shareholders taking massive dividends instead of investing in modernization, and worst of all, they’re taking out loans, leaving the taxpayer to repay them.
The more inhabited our country gets, the more our rivers and seas will become unattainable. More people, more waste.
The simple truth is that our government is going to make the water companies spend £88 billion and because they know the city will not finance it, they’re going to bankroll it.
Shareholders will still get paid, and we, the people, will pay for it through even more increased bills, and that will not help anyone other than the water companies. It should be out of their pockets, not ours.
So, this is more money from a hidden, abysmal crater that Labour has discovered hiding under a gooseberry bush!
The taxpayer will effectively be bailing out the water companies while their CEOs and shareholders receive increased bonuses and dividends, and I’m sure that the shareholders will be laughing all the way to the bank on the news of government funding.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 