Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords]

Catherine Fookes Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Tuesday 11th February 2025 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to be back talking about the Bill again. In Committee and on Report, the Liberal Democrats put down a grand total of 56 amendments. What is two more? We believe, as the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Dr Hudson) said, that this Bill is a good thing, and we wish to see it on the statute book, but we do not feel it goes far enough, and the two amendments before us today give us the opportunity to consider it a little more.

Through amendment (a) the Government want to introduce financial reporting requirements for water companies. The report, to be required once a year, should be a concise, intelligible and up-to-date overview of the financial position of each undertaker—a water company—including information on share capital and debt, and any significant changes that may have happened in the past 12 months or expected changes in the 12 months to come. We very much welcome the amendment. We tabled many similar amendments that contained aspects of those proposals, both in Committee and on Report. We are bound to say that they were better amendments—more ambitious and far reaching—but as with much of this Bill, these proposals are a decent start and we do not want to stand in their way.

To clarify, we have proposed a variety of amendments to the Bill up to this point, including calling for Ofwat to be made responsible for the financial stability duty on water companies. We called for the banning of bonuses for water company bosses whose companies were performing poorly, and not just on environmental duties but on financial stability and water quality. On the Floor of the House we pushed to a vote, with the permission of the Chair, a ban on water companies making customers pay for their debt at the point of bankruptcy, and instead for investors, who have taken risks, to pay for them. That was right, and we were disappointed that the Government voted against it and the Conservatives sat on their hands and did not support bill payers. This is an important and live issue. In Westmorland in the north-west of England, 11% of bills paid only service the debt of United Utilities, yet in other parts of the country such as the areas served by Thames Water, that figure is around 35% or potentially even more.

We have called for scrutiny not just of the finances of water companies but of other areas. The Bill has moved things in the right direction, but not radically enough. In Committee, we sought to encourage and persuade Labour and Conservative Front Benchers—without success—that it would be wise to have environmental experts on the boards of water companies.

On the Government’s laudable and positive move towards a live database that citizen scientists can scrutinise, we asked that it also be a historical database that is searchable in retrospect. Wonderful organisations in my constituency, which are replicated around the country, such as the Eden Rivers Trust, the South Cumbria Rivers Trust, the Clean River Kent campaign and Save Windermere, would monitor that database, but unless they look at it 24/7 and do nothing else in their lives, some things may get past them. For example, between 2021 and 2023, 120 million litres of sewage were pumped into Windermere lake without United Utilities reporting it. We are reliant on citizen scientists knowing about this stuff, and a great database will do the job only if it is searchable in retrospect. Scrutiny and transparency on finances and environmental matters are vital. We are satisfied that amendment (a) provides increased transparency on water company finances, and therefore we will not make a nuisance of ourselves today.

I turn to the second of the amendments in front of us. The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Dr Hudson) rightly highlights and reminds Members of my distaste for not having stuff in the Bill, and how statutory instruments are not the best way of doing things. Despite that, I am even more of a fan of ensuring that we in this place can properly scrutinise those who are meant to be scrutinising our water companies, namely Ofwat.

Throughout the passage of the Bill, Liberal Democrats have made good, radical, environmentally minded proposals that are in the interests of our constituents and our waterways. Although the Government have understandably stuck to their guns and voted against us, the official Opposition have, oddly enough, abstained on pretty much everything—including, it would appear, on their own amendment today, for which we want to vote, notwithstanding all our reticence about not having important matters in the Bill.

This amendment was proposed in the other place by my former neighbour but one—not the hon. Member for Epping Forest, who is also my former neighbour—the right hon. Lord Blencathra, a former Member for Penrith and the Border, and a very accomplished parliamentarian. In this amendment, he is seeking to require increased parliamentary scrutiny of Ofwat when signing off on water company bonuses. That issue is of huge concern to me, and, I think, to most people around this country—certainly in my constituency—because record bonuses are being paid to senior executives around the country.

[Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman put forward a veritable smorgasbord of amendments in the Bill Committee, and all those issues were discussed. It is so important that Ofwat retains its independence. It is extremely relevant to point out, however, that during the coalition years and the 14 years the Conservatives were in government, no Bills were passed to ban water company bonuses, and this Bill will do just that.