Future of Thames Water

Carolyn Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Layla Moran]

My scepticism about Thames Water is basically the theme of my entire speech, and I completely agree. We absolutely need more houses in and around Oxford—on that I am clear. However, if that work is one of the things stopping those homes from being built, we must of course ensure that it is done to the highest possible standard. It sounds like something has happened there, and I would love to understand better why the EA withdrew that objection with no further change.

More than half of sewage treatment facilities are operating below their required capacity, while raw sewage discharge doubled between 2023-24 and 2024-25. That is a symptom of chronic underinvestment, and we need serious capital to fix the problem. Instead, Thames Water chose to funnel profits into dividends. As recently as March 2024, the company paid £158.3 million out to shareholders. This is a company that is hanging on to a lifeline of creditor goodwill, having already raced through £1.5 billion of the emergency cash that was injected 11 months ago. The scale of the mismanagement is staggering.

No one doubts the need to take steps to secure our water supply for the future in the context of the climate change, but I now come to the local example that I promised my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney). Thames Water presides over leaks to the tune of over 592 million litres a day, which is nearly a quarter of all the water it manages—it is unbelievable. My residents have justified questions about the validity of the arguments underpinning the south-east strategic reservoir option, also known as SESRO, which lies just outside Abingdon. It is estimated to cost £7.5 billion and counting, and we should remember that it started at £2.2 billion, and barely nothing has changed since then. If such a major project must go ahead—the Government say it should, fine—then can the Minister tell me something that I just do not get? Do they really trust Thames Water to get this done right? It is like running a bath when a hole has been punched through the plughole. I would not trust Thames Water to run a bath, let alone deliver a project of this size.

Will the Government also make clear what residents can expect from this project, should it go ahead? Will there be genuine community benefit? As it stands, the company is promising lots of lovely things—sailing clubs and all sorts—but when questioned on the matter at a recent drop-in event, the promises seemed to be nothing more than an artist’s impression. Will the Minister therefore intervene to ensure that the local villages and towns that will have to suffer the disruption get something out of it, beyond higher bills?

Time and again, constituents are being let down by chronic under-investment. For decades, every Government of every colour have presided over some form of this mess. But I do not want to blame; I just want solutions. As a result, I have some questions. What are the Government doing to prepare for when Thames Water exhausts the £1.5 billion of emergency funding? Have they considered the Liberal Democrats’ plans to turn it into a public benefit company? That is not public ownership, which others call for. The taxpayer would not take on the debt, but the profits would be invested back into infrastructure and fixing the problem, not used to enrich the likes of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and the China Investment Corporation.

Will the Government promise a full response to the Independent Water Commission report and the creation of the new regulator with teeth? When can we expect the White Paper? Will we all, together, make a new year’s resolution—that this is the year we sort out Thames Water’s mess, for the sake of people and our planet, once and for all?

[Carolyn Harris (in the Chair)]

I remind Members to bob if they wish to speak, so that we can ascertain whether we need a time limit. I will call the Front Benchers at 5.08 pm, with the Minister rising at 5.18 pm.

[Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. I thank the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) for securing the debate and for her comments. As she said, the issues have been caused by many years of under-investment. In my corner of south-east London, constituents in Bexleyheath and Crayford continue to experience many problems.

Of course, I support the measures in the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, which this Government introduced following our election last year. However, as I have said on numerous occasions since my election 18 months ago, we continue to see the real impacts of a lack of investment in infrastructure over many years, particularly in Crayford town centre. We have now had four consecutive summers of major leaks in Crayford town centre. They have caused the closure of the road in the town centre for a week or two, impacting residents and businesses, and there is no real understanding of Thames Water’s long-term solution for these issues or how we will see investment in local infrastructure in the longer term.

As has been said, we have seen an enormous increase in bills this year. For many of my constituents, they have risen by 30% or 40%—my bill in fact went up by a higher percentage—but we continue to struggle to obtain information from Thames Water. I have told the company many times that, if we must have that level of increase, and we know the condition of the local infrastructure, it would be hugely helpful for me to be able to explain to my constituents why they are seeing that increase and to understand the programme of works for local infrastructure and where the money is being invested to put things right. It continues to prove very difficult to obtain that list.

I have supported the Government’s position, which is that they will continue to work to turn the company around in private ownership, but what will we do if the Government’s investment runs out? At what stage will we say to Thames Water that constituents cannot continue to see that level of increase and receive that lack of explanation on the local investment? At what stage will we say that enough is enough and we need to take a different direction?

[Carolyn Harris (in the Chair)]

I am imposing a three-minute time limit. Any interventions need to be short to allow all Members who are on the call list to speak.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance this afternoon, Mrs Harris. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) for securing the debate, for leading it so brilliantly and for standing up for her community so well for so many years.

I also pay tribute to those who have contributed to the debate from all sides, but I am bound to observe the concentration of Liberal Democrat Members present, which shows how well we as a group stand up for our communities—particularly those labouring under the yoke of Thames Water, which is, as has been demonstrated, a failing company, both financially and in its primary mission to serve its customers. But in truth, this debate is about more than one failing company; it is about whether a vital public service is to be run in the interests of customers, communities and the environment, or whether the public will once again be left to pick up the bill for corporate failure while the Government fail to grasp the opportunity to make lasting changes.

Thames Water provides an essential service that none of its 16 million customers—those it is meant to serve—can opt out of. It is staggering that a company so central to public health, environmental protection and the decent stewardship of such a vital resource now stands on the brink of collapse. Thames Water is currently operating with more than £17 billion in debt, which it admits that it cannot repay. Around one third of every customer’s bill on average goes not towards fixing leaks or upgrading infrastructure, but towards servicing that debt. Much of Thames Water’s borrowing has paid for undeserved bonuses and dividends, while its infrastructure literally crumbles. That happened under the nose of the previous Conservative Government and the pitifully weak regulatory system that they created.

At the same time, customers have faced bill increases of up to 40%—indeed more, it would appear, in some circumstances. And what have customers received in return? Polluted rivers, record sewage spills and chronic under-investment. The Government’s own data confirms that sewage was pumped into the waterways of this country for more than 3.6 million hours in 2024 alone, while shareholders received £1.2 billion in dividends as a reward for that failure.

Thames Water alone was responsible for 300,000 hours of raw sewage pouring into rivers and streams. In May, the company was fined £122.7 million for breaching rules on sewage spills and on shareholder payouts. But for customers and communities who have already paid the price, that fine came far too late. The company now survives only because of emergency funding from its creditors—funding that will soon run out. The US private equity giant KKR has walked away from plans to buy Thames Water, meaning that the company is surely at the end of the road.

The question is no longer whether the current model has failed—it plainly has—but who should bear the cost of that failure, and what should happen next. For Liberal Democrats, the answer is obvious: the Government must bite the bullet and make those who are culpable pay the price. A well-planned special administration would allow much of Thames Water’s unsustainable debt to be written off and put the company on a stable financial footing while protecting essential services.

Administration must be a means to an end, not the end itself. We want Thames Water to emerge as a fundamentally different organisation, mutually owned by its 16 million customers. That should be the beginning of a wider transformation of our water industry, which could then begin to migrate to a new, public benefit model of ownership where water quality, supply and competent administration come first, instead of the amoral profiteering we have seen across the sector for the last 35 years.

This crisis also exposes a wider failure of regulation. The Independent Water Commission, which reported last summer, laid bare a system that allows companies to pollute and profit with effective impunity. Liberal Democrats have been clear for years that Ofwat should be scrapped and replaced with a tough new clean water authority that brings together financial and environmental regulation. Our current regulators are too weak, understaffed and fragmented; these huge water companies run rings around them and play them off against one another. Bring the regulators together and give them more power; let us have a regulator that the water companies actually fear.

We want strict limits on dividends and bonuses, binding targets to end sewage discharges, consistent national social tariffs, and serious investment in smart metering and infrastructure. We have led the fight, both in Parliament and in our communities, against the sewage scandal. My hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) and I tabled 44 amendments to the Water (Special Measures) Bill earlier in this Parliament, and we look forward to doing the same with a new Bill, so when can we expect that new Bill? When will we get the water White Paper that we were promised before Christmas and are still waiting for? Will the Bill be in the King’s Speech?

I am not from the Thames Water region, but our communities in Westmorland stand in solidarity, sympathy and empathy with the customers of Thames Water. Water is deeply personal to us. We are the wettest place in England, which is fine because we have to keep all our lakes topped up—the lakes and rivers that define our landscape, provide water for our region and underpin our ecology.

[Carolyn Harris (in the Chair)]

Order. I call the shadow Minister.

Driven Grouse Shooting

Carolyn Harris Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Carolyn Harris (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to speak.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I question how the Minister defines sound advice, because the advice that I have seen, from people who manage the moorland, is that if Natural England gets its way and changes the definition of deep peat from 40 cm to 30 cm there will be half—

[Carolyn Harris (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

In Thirsk and Malton—

[Carolyn Harris (in the Chair)]

Order. Mr Hollinrake, you were asked to raise only issues connected to your own constituency.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I apologise, Mrs Harris, but this is about my constituency. In half of my constituency, the moorland will not be able to be managed. The fuel load will increase, wildfires will occur, and it will make my constituency completely unviable for grouse shooting. Is the Minister not concerned that Natural England has a hidden agenda that will affect constituencies such as mine?

Food Price Inflation and Food Banks

Carolyn Harris Excerpts

Wednesday 17th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Carolyn Harris (in the Chair)]

I will call Beth Winter to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.

[Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered food price inflation and food banks.

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mrs Harris. I am pleased to be able to put some points to the Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries, the right hon. Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer).

I would like to raise a number of points, so I hope the Minister will indulge me, even if I do stray into the Treasury brief. I sought this debate because of the growing concern about food price inflation and food poverty. It is a year since I conducted a cost of living survey in my constituency about people’s experience of the cost of living crisis. There was a major concern about the growing cost of energy—not then at its peak, but still a dominant issue at the time. The survey also showed that people were worried about the cost of food, with 36% of respondents, including 61% of those on benefits, skipping meals last year. Almost 50% of those asked said they would be cutting down on essentials, such as food, in the months ahead. It seems that that has been the case in the past 12 months.

The Trussell Trust food bank covering Merthyr and Cynon Valley, which opened in 2011, has been helping families since that time. In the past year, it provided a record 2,800 emergency food parcels to people in Cynon Valley—a 31% increase. That included more than 1,000 emergency food parcels for children, which is a disgraceful 33% increase. There has been a long-term increase in need over the past five years. Food banks in Cynon Valley have seen a 61% increase in need since 2017-18.

The Trussell Trust is not the only local food bank. The Salvation Army food bank in Aberdare has helped more than 1,600 people in the past year, and the numbers are growing. Those people often live alone, are elderly or have lost their jobs. Running food banks is getting harder and they need more support, including from local supermarkets. A volunteer at another food bank at Fernhill in my constituency recently told me about how they had to provide kettle packs—yes, kettle packs—for those reliant on a kettle when they cannot afford to cook. Women also regularly come in to pick up sanitary products.

The rise in food bank use can be seen across the United Kingdom. The Trussell Trust reported that it gave out 1.3 million emergency food parcels in 2017-18, but almost 3 million in 2022-23. What are the reasons? The Trussell Trust has said that the growth in the need for food banks is about a shortage not of food but of money: a long-term cut in pay, a long-term cut in social security, and bills accelerating ahead of incomes. That is a political choice.

Between April and August 2022, over half of food banks surveyed by the Independent Food Aid Network found that 25% or more of the people they supported had not used their services before. They are increasingly people in work in social care, the public sector and across sectors. Work does not pay, and that is the reason for in-work poverty.

Cost of Living and Food Insecurity

Carolyn Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

Having been born and bred in my Swansea East constituency, and having lived there all my life, I have always been aware of how vulnerable people are to food poverty, but a call from a local food bank during the first week of the summer holiday in 2016 really brought it home to me. The food bank needed me to put out an urgent appeal for donations, as its shelves were running empty. Without the free school meals that keep children fed during term time, demand for the food bank had rocketed. That summer, my team made sandwiches to deliver to free activities around the constituency, which is how my first summer lunch club was born and how I became the sandwich lady.

Each summer since, it has evolved and grown. During the lockdown in 2020, we adapted to feed those who were struggling, isolating or vulnerable. Every Christmas we run our “Everyone deserves a Christmas” project, delivering hampers, hot dinners and festive treats to those who otherwise go without. We reached more than 2,000 households across Swansea last Christmas, and even that was probably not enough.

Like in many towns and cities across the country, financial hardship has hit homes across Swansea. The pandemic certainly has not helped, but it would be naive to blame everything on that. My constituents have had to tighten their belts even more these past couple of years, but I assure the House that those belts were already buckled tightly.

This week’s newspaper headlines tell us: “Rising cost of living leaves 4.7 million Britons struggling to feed themselves,” “‘Deluge’ of families facing homelessness” and “Fears people will freeze to death at home as energy bills rocket.” Some would say these headlines create moral panics and do not reflect what is really happening in our country. They might explain them as media propaganda or fake news, but I promise it is the reality in Swansea East.

Alongside the big headlines, I see the real-life experience of families who are unable to escape food poverty as the cost of living soars and incomes come down. I hear the panic in people’s voices when they talk about their energy bills in the coming months, even people who, up until now, have managed to pay their bills and put food on the table.

I had a message on the evening of the hamper delivery last Christmas that brought home to me what some people are facing:

“Passing on thanks from a family who have just received a hamper. Thank you for making their Christmas this year—not just dinner but their entire Christmas. They usually rely on food banks and…whilst they are extremely grateful to the food banks…they said it felt amazing to…not feel like it’s charity stuff”—

tins with black marks—

“they felt overwhelmed at being able to give their children a proper Christmas dinner, without tinned potatoes. Their 2-year-old had never tasted a fresh potato, let alone Brussels and parsnips. One cake is already open, and they are enjoying the sugar rush.”

I defy anyone not to be moved by that text.

My constituents are facing a 54% rise in domestic fuel bills and huge increases in the cost of groceries and road fuel. At the same time, they are paying, on average, £155 extra in national insurance contributions. This is not just Swansea East’s problem; it is everybody’s problem. Somebody needs to step in.

We should not have two-year-olds who have never tasted fresh vegetables. We should not have children arriving at school hungry. We should not have pensioners who are too scared to put on the heating in the winter. And we certainly should not have a Government who react to all these things by taking from those who can least afford it and pushing more and more families into poverty.

This Easter, this summer and this Christmas, my continuing “Everyone deserves…” campaign will reach many more families. Nobody deserves financial uncertainty, fuel poverty and, worst of all, food insecurity.

Industrial and Commercial Waste Incineration

Carolyn Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie.

Like me, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) has a proposed site for a new incinerator in south Wales in his constituency. I therefore thank him for securing this important debate.

Clarion Close in Llansamlet, in my constituency, is on the Swansea Enterprise Park, at the heart of a small community. About 7,000 people live there, and the proposed site is close to a local school, Ysgol Lonlas, and to the Swansea Vale nature reserve. My great concern is about the effect of the incinerator on air quality, which is already a serious issue in Swansea. Only yesterday, the local press reported that Swansea has one of the highest PM2.5 levels in the UK, due to heavy industry in the city and the surrounding areas. PM2.5 are the tiny particles that cause the air to be hazy and, because they are so small, they are able to penetrate people’s respiratory and circulatory systems with ease. Those pollutants are incredibly dangerous and potentially fatal, in particular for vulnerable people such as the elderly and those with illnesses.

Llansamlet is located between the M4 and two other major thoroughfares through Swansea. Consequently, that further affects the air quality in this part of the city, and asthma rates among residents are disproportionally high. We do not need the threat of further health implications from an incinerator in the area, and I have no doubt that those living in the area would agree with me resoundingly.

We should be looking at recycling and reusing as much as we can, and at finding alternatives to waste incineration whenever possible. The proposed Swansea bay tidal lagoon, which would have brought clean green energy to our city and further afield, was scrapped in the previous Parliament. However, I have already been in touch with the new Minister in the Wales Office to invite him to Swansea to discuss the tidal lagoon again. We must stop ignoring environmental issues and start looking at what can be done to halt the climate catastrophe that we appear to be hurtling towards. We need to target spending on clean, sustainable and low-carbon projects. Building these toxic towers to incinerate waste is not the answer, not for now and certainly not for the future of our children, our towns and cities, and our planet.

[Stewart Hosie (in the Chair)]

I thank the hon. Lady for that wonderful three minutes.

Waste Incineration: Regulation

Carolyn Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[John Grogan]

I agree. Many residents feel that the Environment Agency’s job seems to be to try and do everything possible to nod through the application rather than rigorously interrogate it. Indeed, as I pointed out in my opening remarks, the Environment Agency has responsibilities under the Waste Regulations (England and Wales) 2011, passed by the coalition, to enforce the waste hierarchy, which puts reuse and recycling at the top. It fails to do this.

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

In my constituency of Swansea East, in the very pleasant community of Llansamlet, Biffa is currently attempting to get permission to build one of those incinerators and 2,500 members of the local community have come together to object. Does my hon. Friend agree that placing such a facility in the middle of a community is detrimental to its health, schools and homes and that we should be looking at other ways of disposing of our waste?

[John Grogan]

I am quite shocked by that application, but it mirrors an application in the centre of Keighley, to which I will refer in my closing remarks.

Lead Shot Ammunition

Carolyn Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered lead shot ammunition.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, in my first Westminster Hall debate.

An important petition is posted on the Parliament website and thousands of people from across the country have signed it, including eight in my constituency. The language is fiery and impassioned and the argument is clear: it points to an issue that concerns the House and has done for 100 years. I refer to the petition to keep all lead ammunition. About 20,000 people have signed the call to keep using lead in their guns:

“Lead ammunition has been used for hunting and shooting since the first guns were manufactured over three centuries ago. Never has there been a recorded death through lead ingestion.”

I take the matter seriously. I have constituents who hunt and shoot, as do other Members—in particular those who represent rural areas—and I recognise that sport shooting is a tradition and part of people’s way of life. Done sustainably, it can make a real contribution to the local economy and to the countryside. It is right to consider the future of the sport.

There is also another, quieter petition on the Parliament website in support of banning the use of lead ammunition in favour of non-toxic alternatives. Fewer people have signed it—about 3,000 to date—but that is the petition I commend to the Minister and to the House.

The case for using non-toxic ammunition is clear. Non-toxic alternatives to lead are effective, affordable and safer for wildlife and people. We have known the dangers of lead poisoning for thousands of years. The phrase “crazy as a painter” was coined centuries ago to express the awful effects that lead-packed paint had on people’s minds.

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

I have already given you my apologies, Mr Davies, but I might have to leave early. Does my hon. Friend agree that given that the known negative health effects of lead are well established and that, to minimise risk, lead has been removed from paint and petrol, it seems a tad ironic that lead remains in the shot used for killing birds that might be for human consumption?

[Gerald Jones]

I wholeheartedly agree. I hope to set out in the course of my contribution why that is such an important point.

Some people have even explained the fall of the Roman empire as having been caused by the Romans’ use of lead in pipes and cosmetics. More recently, the World Health Organisation, the Food Standards Agency and the Oxford Lead Symposium have all highlighted the toxicity of lead. Its negative human health impacts are scientifically established, even at the lowest levels of exposure, and lead poisoning is also a big problem for wildlife.

Much of the lead shot misses its target and builds up on the ground. It is then eaten by birds, which gobble up grit to grind up their food. The lead shot is dissolved in the digestive system and absorbed into the birds’ bloodstream. Scientists at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust have estimated that 50,000 to 100,000 wildfowl die of lead poisoning every year in the UK, along with many more game birds and birds of prey. Members might ask, “Where are all these dead birds?” but lead is known as the “invisible killer” because the poisoning is slow and distributed.

[Carolyn Harris]

I am sure my hon. Friend was as shocked as I was to discover that the existing regulations have a poor rate of compliance. In 2013 the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs commissioned a study that showed that 70% of ducks sampled had been killed with lead shot. The study was repeated in 2014 and showed that compliance had not improved, with an increased number of 77% of ducks sampled being shot illegally with lead.

[Gerald Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, which illustrates how the existing arrangements are unsatisfactory and in some cases ineffective, which is why they need to be updated.

Birds die gradually from lead poisoning, but die they do. The WWT found that one in four migratory swans seen at post mortem had died of lead poisoning. Other leading conservation organisations such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Wildlife Trusts have also highlighted lead poisoning as a major issue for UK wildlife. Yet we continue to spray about 5,000 tonnes of lead out over the countryside each year.

Why have more people signed the petition to keep lead? I could argue that it is a classic case of small interest groups rallying around to defend their privileges. I could blame the shooters for looking after their own interests to the detriment of wildlife and the general public. People are rarely vocal about long-term environmental consequences, or about widespread public benefits. By contrast, it is easy to portray the proposal to ban lead as an attack on country life, prompting a rush to oppose any change—but this is no attack on the countryside. The irony is that it is surely rural communities who would benefit most from a change in the law to phase out the use of lead ammunition.

Some people will point out that most of the lead that the public consume comes from vegetables. That is true, but people who eat game meat are far more exposed. It is not only the shooters themselves; we must also consider their families and the increasing number of people who eat game. Many game birds sold for human consumption have lead concentrations far exceeding European Union maximum levels for meat from cows, sheep, pigs and poultry. No maximum levels have been set for game.

Simply removing lead shot from the meat does not solve the problem, because particles of lead too small to be seen often break off or dissolve and are left in the meat.