Water Industry: Financial Resilience

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue of bathing water quality. Since privatisation we have virtually the best quality water coming out of our taps of almost anywhere in the world. We also have phenomenal results for our bathing water areas—93% are classed as good or excellent. He has concerns about his area, but I hope those beaches will soon be back up to blue flag status. The Environment Agency works closely on individual cases where concerns have been highlighted. I am happy to put him in touch with the Environment Agency or work with him to find out what those individual cases were, so that we can get those beaches back up to the fantastic standard that they deserve.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Today, not for the first time, most of my constituents have little or no water supply. Two years ago, not for the first time, hundreds of my constituents had their homes flooded with raw sewage. Year after year, Thames Water has failed its customers while obscenely rewarding its management and shareholders. No one will miss the asset strippers at Thames Water if it goes under. All we want is working infrastructure and good customer service at a reasonable cost. Is that too much to ask?

[Rebecca Pow]

That is what we want for all our customers. That is why we have launched our plan for water to pull everything together to ensure that we deal with any pollution incidents, water supply issues and the future of the water industry. It is why we have set our targets and produced our storm sewage overflow plan, and why the water companies will have to spend £56 billion on capital investment by 2050 to address that. Every water company, including Thames Water, has to make an action plan for each of its storm sewage overflows. Thames Water will do that.