Water Companies: Private Ownership

Debate between Lord Katz and Baroness Blower

Wednesday 29th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question and indeed her interest in this area and the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. I do not think anybody in your Lordships’ House would really like us to go through the pain of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill again. That is not what we are going to do. It will be helpful for the House to set out that we have already announced five commitments in response to the Cunliffe review and Sir Jon’s report. We will be publishing a White Paper and hope to have a water reform Bill in the next Parliament.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak as a Thames Water customer. On 6 August 2024, Ofwat announced fines of £104 million on Thames Water, £47 million on Yorkshire Water and £17 million on Northumbrian Water. Almost a year later, the Minister said that Thames Water should pay the fine by 20 August 2025; has it paid up? Can my noble friend the Minister say why organisations with criminal convictions seem to be allowed to negotiate fines when other criminals would not get away with that?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. I will have to write to her about whether that fine has been paid. We have been very clear through the Water (Special Measures) Act and our response to the Cunliffe review that we are absolutely going to bear down on water company executives who take unjustified profits. We have already done that. We have already fined a number of organisations and cumulatively more than £240 million in wastewater enforcement fines and redress has been confirmed by Ofwat in 2025. We are serious about tackling the state of the water sector and very clear that water companies here are meant to secure investment and keep bills down, not take profits.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lord Katz and Baroness Blower

Tuesday 16th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, given that my noble friend Lady Lister is unable to be here this evening, it is my pleasure, with her permission, to read her speech to move this amendment.

It is an honour to move Amendment 463, which would extend the provision of relationships and sex education to young people aged under 16, in post-16 institutions in England. It is an honour because it has been dubbed the Massey amendment as a tribute to our late friend and colleague Baroness Massey of Darwen. Had she still been with us, she would have been the ideal person to move this amendment, given her experience and commitment to young people’s social health and well-being. It was to honour Doreen that I agreed to table this amendment, even though I do not claim any expertise in this area.

Another reason that I agreed to table the amendment was that I was so impressed by how Faustine Petron, who approached me, founded the Make It Mandatory campaign and enlisted the support of many important bodies such as Brook—of which Lady Massey was a former president—the Sex Education Forum and the End Violence Against Women and Girls coalition. She has received the endorsement for this amendment of 50 organisations, and has collected over 105,000 signatures for her petition. She says, in her own words:

“I am a university student and young survivor of domestic abuse. As an older teenager, I would have benefited from being provided with RSE after year 11 and an adequate education surrounding the early warning signs of domestic abuse, the different forms abuse can take, and places to get help”.


The third reason is that Faustine Petron has such a strong case: she has identified a real gap in the mandatory provision of relationships and sex education, which does not cover 16 and 17 year-olds, yet, under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, these are still children.

Since RSE was made mandatory in schools, it has begun to make a real difference. The Office for Students is making it into a condition of registration for universities that they intend to prevent and address sexual violence. Filling the gap in FE and sixth-form colleges would contribute to a preventative strategy on sexual violence among young people.

This would also help address the concern voiced by the Public Accounts Committee that,

“to date, the approach to tackling violence against women and girls has not put enough emphasis on preventative measures that are necessary to achieve long-term change”.

The committee emphasised the key role that education can play in tackling this issue, including in preventing children from becoming perpetrators in the future. Among its recommendations was that the Department for Education should set out how it intends to work with children and young people to prevent violence against women and girls, including further changes to the relationships and sex education curriculum. Some 77% of young people surveyed—

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness for interjecting relatively late into her remarks, but I am reminded that, in the Companion, it is fairly clear that Members should not seek to have their speeches read by other Members of the House. Perhaps she could rephrase her remarks in a way that makes it clear that she is speaking for herself, not on behalf of another Peer.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

I apologise to the Committee. Clearly, I and possibly the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, had misunderstood the rules relating to this.

As has been noted, national organisations backing the Make It Mandatory campaign, in addition to the Children’s Commissioner, all agree that the extension of relationships and sex education to this group would be important.

In conclusion, in a recent Commons debate on relationships education in schools, the Minister for School Standards emphasised the vital role that education plays in preventing violence and that the aim of relationships education is to support all young people to build positive relationships and to keep themselves safe. That education must equip them for adult life. It thus makes no sense that, just as they are at the cusp of adult life, they should not be assured access to relationships and sex education to help equip them. The Minister continued that, as part of the Government’s opportunity mission,

“we will equip our young people and children with the skills they need to form strong, positive relationships”.—[Official Report, Commons, 1/4/25; col. 112WH.]

Although she was talking about the school context, this is clearly important in terms of an extension to post-16.