Water Industry

Debate between Frank Dobson and Charles Walker

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Members who secured this welcome debate.

Until recently, there had been a general consensus that the privatised water industry was a success. That was a consensus to which I never subscribed, whether in government or in opposition. It is far from being a success.

We must not allow the water industry to get away with all sorts of technical explanations of why it cannot do its job properly and reasonably cheaply, because it has a simple task. It gets its raw material free: it is called rain. It collects the rainwater and pumps it along pipes to its customers. It then charges them for using the water.

[Mr Charles Walker]

That is exactly the problem. Our water companies are lousy at collecting water. When it is at its most abundant, they wave it down the rivers into the sea. That is why they need to be building more reservoirs. I am sorry to labour the point, but they are not collecting the water.

[Frank Dobson]

The next word in my notes is “reservoirs”. Every substantial reservoir that the water companies use was built when the industry was in the public sector. The private sector has not increased reservoir capacity in this country since privatisation in 1989-90.