Mims Davies (East Grinstead and Uckfield) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the ongoing interruption to water supplies in East Grinstead and the surrounding villages and support for people affected.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Hardy)
I would like to update the House on the ongoing water supply disruption across southern England, but before I do that, I pay tribute to my dad, David Mattinson, who passed away last Monday at Dove House hospice. I thank everybody at the hospice for the wonderful care they gave him. As a primary headteacher, he inspired so many people and was truly loved. He will be deeply missed by my sisters, my mum and me, and all who knew him. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I thank the nature Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry East (Mary Creagh), for covering me during my leave, and my friends and colleagues across the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. They met the chief executive of South East Water and numerous MPs last week and several times over the weekend. I really appreciate the teamwork and solidarity, so I thank them.
This is an unacceptable supply failure, particularly for residents in Tunbridge Wells, who face significant disruption for the second time in as many months. We are holding South East Water to account as the company responsible for the areas most affected. We have been clear in our daily meetings with the company that restoring supply must be the company’s absolute priority, that every possible measure must be taken to protect vulnerable customers, and that those affected must receive proper compensation for the disruption they have experienced.
Far too many people are unable to wash safely or have adequate sanitation in their homes. Far too many businesses are being affected. The supply issues in Kent and Sussex have been caused by several short-term factors, including a period of prolonged cold weather, which led to a large number of burst pipes and water mains across the network, and operational issues at water treatment sites caused by Storm Goretti. However, the disruption in the south-east comes against a backdrop of previous outages and continued poor performance by South East Water in maintaining a reliable service for its customers.
It is yet further evidence that the water system is broken. For too long, water companies have failed to maintain their infrastructure and build the resilience needed to withstand events like this. Customers are paying the price for years of under-investment, and the Government will fix this through our wholesale water reforms. Those include stronger rules on maintenance and resilience, backed by £104 billion of private investment for infrastructure upgrades and the creation of a new single powerful regulator.
Mims Davies
My condolences, Minister.
Again, we have no water across parts of Sussex and Kent. That is expected to continue at the very least until tomorrow in my area. Again, we have a shambolic response, with more than 16,000 households in East Grinstead, Ashurst Wood and some of my Wealden villages affected. Again, my constituents have been left with poor, misleading or no communication from South East Water, with too many vulnerable people—even those on the priority services register—left waiting. Again, we have livestock owners struggling to get water for their animals. Many businesses have shut, as have many schools and nurseries. Again, water bottle stations have been poorly organised, with little or no clear provision for hard-hit rural villages and areas, forcing residents to make long drives. There have been failures to open or stations running dry far too quickly, creating huge gridlock, frustration and anger. All this, unbelievably, coincides with East Grinstead train station serving as the terminus for Gatwick airport rail replacement buses, which demonstrates a complete lack of joined-up planning. The local resilience forums are in place, but the logistics are failing.
What penalties or sanctions will the water company face, and what level of compensation—which my constituents and, indeed, many other constituents deserve—will they actually receive? Given the numerous and repeated serious failings on the part of South East Water in just the last five years, does the Minister agree with me and with many others that South East Water urgently needs new leadership that is capable of addressing emergencies properly and, crucially, restoring much-needed confidence in the company’s ability to manage its systems, infrastructure and water supplies and to provide the service that is needed, now and in the future?
Emma Hardy
I am with the hon. Lady wholeheartedly. I completely understand the anger and frustration that she feels on behalf of her local residents who are once again experiencing problems with this company. As I have said, the short-term factor is the freeze and thaw, but the longer-term factors are the lack of resilience in the company and the fundamental problems that it has. We need to address that on a systemic basis: we need to set resilience standards, so that a maintenance system that is “fix on failure” becomes a proactive system.
The hon. Lady is right to raise the problems surrounding this company. It is already being investigated by the Drinking Water Inspectorate because of the earlier issues in Tunbridge Wells, and the inspectorate will conduct further investigations. I have met Ofwat representatives to discuss my concern about the company’s performance, and have asked them to look into whether it is meeting its obligations in respect of serving its customers.
Several hon. Members rose—
Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)
My constituency was affected by the water outage over the Christmas period, and I thank the Minister for her support over that period—for keeping me updated, and for briefing the water company. I really feel for the people who are experiencing these outages. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has been trying to learn the lessons from the incidents in my constituency, but it seems that the mistakes are still being repeated.
The report outlined the need for more water stations, the need to consider the weight of six 2-litre bottles for people who are disabled and on the priority list, and the fact that those learnings are not being taken into account by the water companies, as well as the need for hygiene: several days into a water outage, people cannot wash their hands, they cannot clean and prepare food and they cannot have a shower. What are the Government doing to put pressure on the water companies to heed the findings and the learnings from each of these outages in our constituencies, given that the lessons do not seem to be being learnt every time?
Emma Hardy
I thank my hon. Friend for the leadership that she showed in her constituency during the Christmas period. We had all hoped to have some time off, but she had to reopen her office to communicate with residents. She is right to say that we need to learn lessons. What frustrates me more than many other things is the fact that the same problems are being caused by the same companies when it comes to communicating clearly and adequately with residents and ensuring that they know who their vulnerable customers are. I want our forthcoming White Paper to consider whether we have all the powers that we need, but, as I have said, the Drinking Water Inspectorate will be conducting its own investigation of what happened in Tunbridge Wells over Christmas and what is happening currently, and I do not want to get ahead of that.
Dr Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) (Con)
May I, from this side of the House, offer my sincere condolences to the Minister and her family for their sad loss?
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question from my hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies). The shortage of water supplies in Sussex and Kent continues to have terrible impacts on local communities. Tens of thousands of homes have been without a water supply, schools and libraries are shut, businesses—in particular, hospitality businesses—have had to close their doors, farmers and horse owners fear not having enough water for their livestock, and some hospital appointments are being moved online. This is simply not good enough from South East Water, especially given its repeated failures, and given that this is the second major incident in a matter of weeks.
I understand the distress, anger and, frankly, exhaustion that many in the local area feel. They need clear communication, rapid action now and reassurance for the future, yet we have heard from my Conservative colleagues in Kent and Sussex repeated accounts of poor communication and logistics from South East Water, including bulk sharing issues with Southern Water. We have been told that constituents have travelled to and queued at vital bottle collection points, only to find that no water has been delivered.
Can the Minister confirm when the thousands of households affected by the shortage can expect their service to be restored to normal, and can she provide guidance on what is being done to ensure that homes can access adequate supplies, particularly vulnerable households in more isolated areas, where travelling to bottle collection points is not feasible? When will schools reopen, and what is being done to ensure that GP surgeries and hospitals can deliver their appointments and care? What measures have been put in place so that farmers and horse owners have enough water for their animals? Finally, given the Cunliffe review’s focus on ensuring water supply, can the Government confirm what they will take forward from that review to address this as a structural issue, to ensure supply and consumer confidence for the long term?
Emma Hardy
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments regarding my father.
We have doubled the amount of compensation available. That has had a huge impact, particularly in Tunbridge Wells, where for the first time people will be compensated for being on a boil notice. We are looking at tightening resilience standards. As I mentioned earlier, it is about moving from the system that we have at the moment, which is “fix on failure”, to proactive maintenance. Part of the reason for this problem—aside from the short-term impacts of freeze and thaw—is that there is not enough long-term resilience in the system. There are too many points at which it can easily fail.
The hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies) said that we need to make sure that we have bottled water in villages in more rural areas, and I have raised that directly with the company. As the shadow Minister rightly pointed out, it is difficult for some people to get to the bottled water stations, so we want to make sure that we have them in the right places. I have told South East Water that I expect it to communicate regularly with its Members of Parliament to make sure that the stations are in the right places and that it is sharing intelligence about that. I completely agree with him on communication: there has not been enough use of social media and the website has been too slow to update. There should be much more and much clearer communication going to Members of Parliament.
On when we expect the situation to return to normal, I sent the latest sitrep to all the MPs affected and I will continue to do that. We are having another strategic group meeting with everybody tomorrow to see where the situation is in the next 24 hours. I do not expect all this to be resolved in the next 24 hours, which is why I am holding another meeting tomorrow. South East Water should phone each individual Member of Parliament impacted and update them on what is happening.
Finally, livestock were mentioned by a number of colleagues on yesterday’s call. South East Water is supporting 11 farms with bottled water, and it has made some deliveries of alternative water to farms across the region, but the hon. Gentleman is right to mention that this is having a huge impact on the welfare of animals, so the water company needs to take it seriously. I hope that, following this urgent question, it intends to do so.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
About 16,500 residents have been impacted as a result of the latest water outage. GPs and schools have shut; vulnerable people, including those in care homes, are unable to access water; and people have been forced to queue for hours at water distribution sites. Unfortunately for customers of South East Water, this has become a trend: over the last five years, the company has ranked within the bottom three for water supply interruptions.
Experts have stated that the potential for water shortages in the area has long been known, but terrible strategic planning, a failure to cut leakage and decisions to divert money towards dividends have distracted from infrastructure improvements that should have been prioritised. Does the Minister agree with the Liberal Democrats that the continued tenure of South East Water’s chief executive officer is untenable, given the scale, duration and repetition of these serious failures? Will the Government commit to a full, independent investigation into South East Water’s operational resilience, governance and crisis management?
On behalf of myself and my Liberal Democrat colleagues, I offer my condolences to the Minister on the terrible and sad loss of her father.
Emma Hardy
I thank the hon. Lady for her kind words.
I completely share the frustration; it would be nice not to be talking about South East Water in the House. I feel I have come to know the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) very well for the sad reason that we seem to be meeting all too frequently about problems in that area. As I have said, the Drinking Water Inspectorate will be investigating the situation in Tunbridge Wells. One thing it will look at is bottled water and its supply to vulnerable people—has that been communicated well; has there been a sufficiency; is it in the right place?—because during a crisis it looks at whether people are getting the water they need, so that investigation will take place.
As I have mentioned, I have already met Ofwat to share some of my concerns about performance issues at the company. I will be asking it to look at whether it thinks this company has met its obligations in serving its customers, and I will be reflecting deeply and seriously on what it tells me.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
I thank the Minister for all the help she has given me and my constituents over the past month. Tunbridge Wells is yet again without water. We seem to roll from outage to outage. As we stand here today, 6,500 houses are without supply. Schools are closed, and even more are closing as more areas go out of supply.
The Minister knows from personal experience that the leadership of South East Water suffers from an optimism bias, with appalling risk management. The leaders have no idea what is actually going on. During the call the Minister and I were on just an hour and a half ago, they said two things that were immediately proven to be false. That is not necessarily because they are lying, but because they do not know what they are doing. Plainly, the leadership of South East Water suffers from groupthink.
Last week, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee showed the leadership to be negligent. The Committee Chair, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), accused the CEO of misleading Parliament and said his position was “untenable”. The Secretary of State in the Minister’s own Department has said that she is “shocked” by Hinton’s “lack of accountability”. Does the Minister have confidence in Dave Hinton, the CEO of South East Water?
Emma Hardy
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and yes, we have been spending a long time talking to each other. I watched the EFRA Committee with great interest, particularly when Dave Hinton rated himself eight out of 10. It is really important that the Drinking Water Inspectorate has the space to do its investigation. It is also really important that Ofwat has the space to have a look at this company. My priority here and now is trying to get people’s water back on and the system up and running, and that is where I want to focus my time, but there are questions to be asked about why we are back in this situation again.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
I offer the hon. Lady my condolences on the loss of her father.
About 5,000 homes in my constituency were without water this weekend. That on its own is bad enough, but then we have how South East Water responded—failing to deliver water to vulnerable people; sending elderly residents on a two-hour round trip to get bottled water, sometimes only to find that there was no water left; and ignoring the pleas from livestock owners for water for horses and other animals. This is a disgrace, and not for the first time. The chief executive of South East Water has shown us he is not up to the job. I urge the hon. Lady to use all and any powers she has to move him on and to get South East Water to appoint somebody who is up to the job.
Emma Hardy
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I know she raised on the call her concern about livestock and the impact on animals. Water companies have a statutory duty to provide wholesome water—it is literally their job to provide that—and their requirements are set out in the security and emergency measures direction. They have a duty to provide water, so during a supply outage they have a duty to provide water to vulnerable customers and people who cannot otherwise access it. The Drinking Water Inspectorate will be looking at where we have seen failings.
Quite frankly, this is outrageous and it is unacceptable. I accept that the company cannot be held responsible for the freeze and thaw, but if there is a problem with the supply for whatever reason, it can be held responsible for the way it has responded to the crisis. There is no justification for its failure to get water to vulnerable customers or people who need it, and I will be picking that up directly with the company as soon as we are out of this latest crisis.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
I sincerely thank all the Ministers for all their work over the past four days, supporting me and my constituents. My constituency has by no means had the worst outages, but a secondary school has been closed, multiple villages are out of supply, a hospital was out of supply overnight and 1,200 homes last night were out of supply. There are multiple points of failure not just in Mid Sussex, but right across the south-east. Frankly, I have been shocked by the fragility of the water supply system in our region. Quite simply, our infrastructure is not adequate to cope with normal weather events that we should all expect in January. We are on the edge of the supply area in Mid Sussex and East Grinstead. Will the Minister look at a duty to co-operate with neighbouring water authorities to ensure that those of us at the end of the pipeline are not cut off in the first instance?
Emma Hardy
The hon. Lady is quite right: it is a fragile supply system. We have had years of under-investment in resilience and there are too many points in the system where it can fail. It is not resilient. Other parts of the country are able to move water more effectively around their system, which creates much greater resilience. This system simply does not have the resilience it should. That is partly because of the historic problems around maintenance—historically, all water companies fix on failure, rather than undertake proactive maintenance—and partly because the system, as it is set up at the moment, does not allow the easy transfer of water across an individual water company. These are fundamental things that we need to address through our water reforms and changes in regulation. We can only build a resilient system if we are able to move water around some of the network. On the hon. Lady’s other points, the impact on schools is obviously appalling, especially at the moment as I know many pupils are doing their mock exams—my daughter has been doing hers as well.
Helen Grant (Maidstone and Malling) (Con)
I have no confidence whatsoever in South East Water. I have worked with it now for nearly 15 years. When things go wrong, and they often do in Kent and Sussex, its communication methods are absolutely atrocious: too little, too late and often very confusing. Often, all someone wants is to know when they can put the kettle back on or get in the shower. Yesterday, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Coventry East (Mary Creagh), who has worked extremely hard with the Minister on this matter, instructed that MPs be given two-hourly direct updates. That has not happened. She also instructed that a water station should be opened in Loose in my constituency, where over 2,000 people have been without water. That has also not happened. South East Water is not fit for purpose. Its leadership team is inadequate. It is out of its depth. I hope the Minister agrees that serious changes must be made, including the removal of the CEO, David Hinton.
Emma Hardy
I completely share the hon. Lady’s outrage. When communication was specifically requested by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, we asked for that information to be made available to Members of Parliament. A bottled water station was requested—it beggars belief, to be honest. As I have said, Ofwat and the Drinking Water Inspectorate will be looking into this matter. I will be reflecting seriously on the information and reports that both organisations give me.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
South East Water is failing Eastbourne. It is unacceptable that it left thousands of residents in Sovereign Harbour, Hampden Park, St Anthony’s and Langney without water supply this weekend; it is unacceptable that it refused my ask to set up a water collection station in Eastbourne, forcing residents to travel 35 miles to East Grinstead if they wanted bottled water; and it is unacceptable that many residents who are on the priority services register received absolutely nothing, including no information. Does the Minister agree that South East Water is a busted flush? Does she agree that it is a scandal that water bosses such as Dave Hinton dine out on enormous bonuses, salaries and the rest while failing the residents across our area? Does she agree that Dave Hinton needs to go?
Emma Hardy
One of the reasons we introduced the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 and the bonus ban was exactly to ensure that people who get a bonus have earned it and that people who have not earned one do not get one. That seems a pretty straightforward way of doing things in my mind. This goes back to the point made by colleagues across the House that water companies should be talking to Members of Parliament about where they need to put bottled water stations and what is the most effective place for that. Water companies have a statutory duty—it is not just that they can if they want to—to supply water to people in the event of supply outages. Two fundamental things the Drinking Water Inspectorate will look at are how well or otherwise the company has supplied water to people on the vulnerable register and how well or otherwise it has made bottled water available. Quite frankly, I am as outraged by this as the hon. Gentleman.
Katie Lam (Weald of Kent) (Con)
I was very sorry to hear about the Minister’s father.
Thousands of my constituents over the weekend in Headcorn, Staplehurst, Coxheath and the surrounding villages had no running water. It is vital in these situations that we are able to share accurate and timely information, but South East Water had no idea what was going on; there was supposed to be a bottled water station in Headcorn, and yet for the entirety of Saturday, nobody from South East Water could tell me if there was even any water there. We were given multiple conflicting pieces of information, most of which turned out to be inaccurate, and the only way my team and I could establish whether anything was provided was to go there ourselves. Does the Minister agree that this is unacceptable and that it makes a bad situation so much worse?
Emma Hardy
I completely agree. Poor communication is a theme that has run throughout this crisis; again, it is something that needs to be looked at seriously when the Drinking Water Inspectorate does its investigation, and something that I hope Ofwat will look at as well.