Water Companies: Private Ownership

Baroness Blower Excerpts

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.