Water Companies: Pollution

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I refer the noble Lord to the Environment Act as a first measure, probably the most significant piece of environmental legislation that any country has brought forward. That brings with it controls and sanctions, alongside a new statutory policy statement to Ofwat, to give it more powers, higher enforcement fines and many other things that I have already discussed this afternoon. I hope that he can see, on reflection, that there is a plan, and that we are determined to end the shameful situation of illegal outflows into rivers, whether it is from sewage or from illegal pollution coming from farmland.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, those of us who watch this situation closely do not actually think that Ofwat is doing a very good job. A case in point is that it fined Thames Water £50 million, which was great—but Thames Water is now giving each of its customers £3.40 as a sort of recompense. Does that sound reasonable or fair?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

As part of this failure to hit its commitments, Thames Water will be returning to customers next year £51 million. An average household water bill to take all the fresh water into a household and remove all the dirty water is just over £1 a day, which is a lot of money for someone on low income, but in terms of household incomes, it probably sits well below energy costs, for example. This system of being able to return money to customers is absolutely at the heart of the kind of incentives we want to see.