Thames Water: Bids

Debate between Baroness Hayman of Ullock and Baroness Altmann

Monday 28th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I shall feed that back to the commission.

[Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the water industry serves a public good and putting it into private ownership needs very careful handling. It seems to me that Governments over successive years have not paid sufficient attention to the financial dealings that were going on, extracting dividends, not just profits, from these companies. In addition, the companies know that the regulator is not sufficiently resourced to check sewage discharges, for example. I know the Minister is very concerned about that herself. Can she give some reassurance to the House that any new owner of Thames Water would inject sufficient equity capital into the structure and not just debt and would be charged with investing sufficiently and being monitored sufficiently to make sure that past practices are not repeated?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Clearly, as I have mentioned, this is a private company and it is the company’s decision around this, so the Government cannot comment too much on what is happening. But in order to resolve the situation we have come into regarding sewage spills and the quality of our lakes and rivers, we need to ensure sufficient investment. I would very much hope that any company coming into our water industry would come with the intention to make that investment. After all, the price increases we have allowed water companies to make to their bills through the PR24 is on the understanding that that investment will take place.