Independent Water Commission

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

This Government are going to do what works, rather than what is ideologically correct. We are not going to strip £100 billion out of public services like the national health service to give it to the owners of the water companies who have polluted our waterways; we are not going to wait years to get investment in while pollution in our waterways gets even worse; and we are not going to let the pipes deteriorate to such an extent that bill payers are hit with even higher bills in the future. I am going to act to deliver us lower bills and clean water in the fastest way possible.

[Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)]

What has happened to our waterways is a national disgrace. The state in which the Conservatives left our rivers, our lakes and the seas around Britain epitomises what they did to public services in general. Does my right hon. Friend agree that what has been lacking over the past 35 years of privatisation is a proper consumer representative to protect customers, and will he give a guarantee that that will be at front and centre of the new regulator?

[Steve Reed]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. In Sir Jon Cunliffe’s final report today, he makes recommendations for how customers can be put at the heart of the new model. There are several recommendations; I will not go through all of them, but one is to set up new regional entities, where customers will have direct representation in taking decisions about how water infrastructure investment will be spent to tackle the priorities in their own areas.