Water (Special Measures) Act 2025: Enforcement
Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Tim Farron(1 week, 6 days ago)
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Mr Carmichael
Thames Water first paid out bonuses it said it would not recoup, and has subsequently said only that the payment of bonuses is paused. My hon. Friend knows that I am a nasty, suspicious and cynical person, but I am pretty sure the senior management, the chief executive and the chair of that company are heading for the door one way or another at some stage. I suspect that one of their last acts before they leave the office will be to press “pay” on those bonuses. Does my hon. Friend agree that if that happens, we can agree that whatever the good intentions behind the Water (Special Measures) Act, they simply have not worked, and we need to build a consensus on how to regulate these things more effectively?
Tim Farron
My right hon. Friend is neither nasty nor cynical; he knows Thames Water only too well. Well intentioned though the Act may be, it is clearly full of holes, and the water company chief executives and others are finding ways through them.
We contrast all of that with the fact that in 2024—the last time we had comprehensive figures—the water companies between them dumped sewage in our waterways for a duration of 3.6 million hours. My patch of Westmorland is now the third hardest-hit constituency in England for duration of sewage spills. In 2024 alone, there were over 5,000 sewage discharge incidents, amounting to more than 55,000 hours of raw sewage released into our rivers and lakes, from the Eden to the Eea and from the Kent to the Crake. In just the first 20—no, 19 and a half—days of 2026, there have already been 424 hours of sewage discharge into Westmorland’s precious waterways.
At the same time, water companies across the country are shamelessly slithering around the bonus ban. Their bonuses and dividends are being paid, for the most part, by bill payers. Indeed, water companies are wading in colossal debt, often incurred to pay those bonuses and dividends. In just 2024, £1.2 billion was paid out in dividends, mostly out of debt. In my communities in Westmorland, 11p out of every pound we pay on our water bills goes just to finance debt. Thames Water is even worse: customers are paying over 30p in the pound simply to service the company’s debts.
My message to industry leaders is this: bonuses are meant to be paid to folks who do a good job. If you are leading a company that actively pollutes our lakes, rivers and seas, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you are not doing a good job.