Water Sector: Public Ownership

Helena Dollimore Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy.

I pay tribute to the campaigners and citizen scientists—some of whom are in the Public Gallery—who have exposed the scale of the sewage scandal. It is only because of them and their campaigning that we are having this debate.

Our water industry is fundamentally broken. I sat with my hon. Friend the Member for Mid and South Pembrokeshire (Henry Tufnell) on the Select Committee and questioned the water bosses, and all we heard was excuse after excuse. We need a fundamental change to protect our failing water infrastructure. That is a top priority for our Labour Government and I welcome the steps that have been made so far to ramp up regulation and get tough on the water companies, but as I will outline, we need to go further.

Nothing enrages the people I represent in Hastings and Rye more than bills going up every year to prop up failing companies, while executives and shareholders try to find ways to evade bonus bans as their companies edge towards bankruptcy. We have already taken important steps, but we must go further to protect vital national infrastructure. In Hastings and Rye, we already see the impacts of the regulation that we introduced: more Environment Agency staff focused full time on monitoring Southern Water, more inspections taking place, and more enforcement notices issued. We are starting to see the results of that work, but there is still more to do. Those of us in the Chamber who favour a co-operative model believe it is the solution that would put people before profit in fixing our broken water industry.

I will talk briefly about the impact of our failing water industry on the people I represent. We have had two major water outages in the past couple of years, one lasting nine days and one five days; there was major flooding in Hastings town centre that ruined people’s livelihoods; and 300 million plastic beads washed up on our coastline—we found out that they came from a Southern Water treatment plant only because we got down on our hands and knees and exposed that scandal. Public health has been compromised and sewage is dumped in our sea regularly. Right now a digger sits on the beach in Hastings, an eyesore, because of Southern Water’s failings. I believe that the solution is to move to a co-operative model, which would be the radical shake-up that this industry needs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Savage]

I absolutely agree that we need to get upstream of the problem, and I assure her that I always try to step out of pubs carefully.

The supposed justification for private ownership was that investors would bring money into our water system. Instead, over those three decades, vastly more money has flowed out to shareholders than shareholders put in. Money went out, infrastructure deteriorated and debt piled up, and now customers are being told that they must pay to put it right. That is what makes the British public and me so furious. The water companies need to come clean and so does the Government.

[Helena Dollimore]

Does the hon. Member agree that some of our water companies operate in extremely murky arrangements? Often, there is a complicated network of different companies that sub-contract from each other, meaning that the customer who pays the bill has no idea what value for money, if any, they are getting.

[Dr Savage]

I absolutely agree—much like our water supply, these arrangements need to be more transparent and stink less.

Ministers have been talking about the forthcoming £104 billion investment programme as though the private sector has suddenly reached into its pockets and found that £104 billion to rescue our crumbling water infrastructure, but it has not. Ofwat has confirmed that that money will come through a mixture of customer bills and yet more borrowing and shareholder equity.

Thames Water

Helena Dollimore Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds]

I thank the hon. Lady for welcoming the fact that I have sent the letter with my early concerns. As I said, there are two different ways for a special administration regime. One is insolvency, which is a matter for the directors of the company and would have to go through the courts. The other is the performance tsar.

[Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thames Water is clearly failing its customers and the environment. I thank the Government for their action this week, which makes it very clear to Thames Water that it will not be allowed off the hook for fines, it will not be allowed off the hook for performance targets, and it must not be allowed to mark its own homework. I want to probe the Secretary of State on a specific aspect of its failure. We on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee asked Thames Water how much it had spent on the legal proceedings to try to avoid a special administration regime. The company replied:

“we estimate that our legal fees for work done in connection with our liquidity extension transaction, as implemented through the interim restructuring plan at the High Court and Court of Appeal, was approximately £67.6 million”.

That was last June. I will be writing to Thames Water to ask for an update on those costs. Given that shocking amount being wasted on legal fees—almost 3% of what customers are paying in bills—does the Secretary of State agree that Thames Water must spend its money on fixing broken pipes, not bonuses and not bumper legal payouts?

[Emma Reynolds]

Yes, we want Thames Water’s priority to be investing in the water infrastructure needed to improve the service it gives its customers and to drive environmental improvement.

Water Companies

Helena Dollimore Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy]

I thank the hon. Member for his question, but I think it is a misrepresentation—I am sure it was an accident—to say that the Government are doing any kind of deals. The Government are working closely with Ofwat, which is evaluating the consortium’s proposals. Of course, the Government will always have the best interests of customers and the environment at heart. As I have said many times in the House, we stand ready for all eventualities, including applying for special administration if necessary.

[Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)]

In Hastings, Rye and the villages we have had sewage dumped in our sea, two major water outages—lasting five and nine days—Hastings town centre flooded and, last year, as the Minister knows, 300 million plastic beads washed up on our beaches all thanks to Southern Water. Its failures are making people sick, damaging local businesses and tarnishing our livelihood as a seaside economy. That is why so many of the people I represent are fed up with Southern Water, while having to pay more in their bills. They welcome the action that the Labour Government are taking to ramp up regulation, ban bonuses and much more, but they want to know what more can be done. The water White Paper, which she has brought forward, talks about the importance of ownership and opens the door to the Government looking at not-for-profit structures. Could she say a bit more about that?

[Emma Hardy]

I thank my hon. Friend, who continues to be a formidable, incredibly impressive campaigner, as she was through her work on the Environment, Food and Rural Committee; honestly, she has been amazing. We have set out our White Paper, and a transparent process will look at whether a new model will go ahead. As the Secretary of State has also said, I have always been in favour of mutuals, and I do not have a problem with not-for-profits, but we need a clear look at the process to see whether that would be in the best interests of customers before any change goes ahead.

South East Water: Disruption of Supply

Helena Dollimore Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy]

South East Water is a water only company, not a sewage company, so we can criticise it for many things, but sewage pollution is not one of them. When the Government came to power we introduced customer panels on day one, and since then we have secured £104 billion of private investment, passed the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 and given the Environment Agency more powers to monitor water companies and uncover wrongdoing. In fact, the EA has done more than 10,000 inspections of water companies and uncovered 81 examples that have gone on to criminal investigations. I gently point out to the hon. Lady that under the coalition Government funding for the EA was cut by more than a half.

We have also introduced criminal liability for water companies, introduced automatic penalties, reduced the burden of proof, introduced cost recovery, banned the sale and supply of wet wipes, looked at reforming our bathing waters, established the water delivery taskforce and have abolished Ofwat. Yes, there is more work to do on top of that, but I stand proud on the record of the actions that we have already taken following years of inaction.

[Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) for securing the urgent question. The disruption caused by this incident has been extremely distressing for my constituents on the Sussex-Kent border who are served by South East Water. Many residents and businesses were impacted, and it is right that the chief executive and the chairman of South East Water have resigned. I urge the Government to look at the terms of the company’s licence and whether they have been breached.

We are here in the Chamber again discussing another major water outage—as the Minister knows, there have been two major outages in my patch—and we see the same mistakes and failures repeated time and again by the water companies. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee looked at the issue and found that the water companies need to have clear plans of action in place, including for providing water stations in the right places, such as those that people can get to without a car, and they need to think about the impact on businesses and maybe deliver water to them to keep them open. All of those things are forgotten every time, so will the Minister instruct all water companies in the country to have detailed emergency response plans in place for every constituency in the country and ask that they work with local MPs on them? We are the people who can get the contact details for the local headteachers and vicars, as I had to last Christmas eve, who can set up water stations, but the water companies need to do the planning before disaster strikes and people lose water. I urge the Minister to look at such measures.

[Emma Hardy]

South East Water has broken its licence conditions, and it is currently in breach of its licence. It has been downgraded by Moody’s credit rating agency because of its performance—I think it is the first time that a credit rating agency has downgraded a water company over performance rather than insolvency. Its licence is also being investigated by Ofwat under the consumer duty because of the supply outages in December and January.

My hon. Friend asked about emergency response plans. Water companies should absolutely have emergency response plans, but clearly the plans that South East Water has are inadequate. That is why we want to work with the local resilience forum, the water company and officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to ensure that those plans are improved before we have another short spell of hot weather.

Water White Paper

Helena Dollimore Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds]

I thank the hon. Lady for, I think, some support for the White Paper and what she has said. We both share real concerns about the status quo. On mutual ownership, I do not really hear a plan from the Liberal Democrats as to how to get to that point—[Interruption.] Hear me out. If it involves wholesale nationalisation, given that these are private companies, that would cost around £100 billion, would be legally complex and take years of wrangling through the courts. My focus is on improving the status quo and ensuring that we are tackling pollution, which she rightly says is still happening. Since January of last year, 100% of storm overflows are being monitored, so we are shining a light of some of the pollution. We still have a way to go, but we are bearing down on the pollution that she rightly talks about.

My solution to this crisis and this issue is to make sure that we have a complete overhaul of regulation, the regulators and the way that consumers are not, at the moment, put at the centre of things. That way, we protect the consumer in a much more meaningful way by introducing a water ombudsman with statutory powers. We are making some progress and we will make more. I know that she and I agree on some things, although we may disagree on some of the details. We are determined to deliver a system that provides better outcomes for consumers and the environment.

[Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)]

Those of us in this House who sit on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and grilled the water bosses know all too well how broken this industry is, so I welcome the Government’s commitment to addressing the failures of the industry with these important reforms. As the Secretary of State knows, in Hastings and Rye, we have faced major water outages. In May 2024, the main pipe supplying Hastings burst, leaving 30,000 homes without water for days. It also burst this Christmas, leaving people without water on Christmas day.

We have since found out that Southern Water received planning permission in 2007 to replace the pipe but sat on its hands instead. This month, it begins the work to replace the pipe because of the pressure that I and this Government have put on the water industry. The measure of introducing MOTs on broken water infrastructure will also be critical for preventing that kind of thing from happening.

One of the things that I campaigned on is having clear guidance in the event of an outage and on the conditions that water companies must comply with—not just bottled water, but hygiene facilities and portaloos. Indeed, the Committee has also recommended that. Will the Secretary of State look at that request so we can be better prepared if outages occur?

[Emma Reynolds]

I commend my hon. Friend’s leadership on this issue. I know that she was putting pressure on Southern Water on Christmas eve. She was concerned about the previous outages, but also about those that were likely to occur. She is absolutely right to say that we need more emphasis on ensuring that companies such as Southern Water are investing in the infrastructure that is needed to prevent these outages in the first place. We are moving from a system of “fix on failure” to one of prevention. That is what this White Paper is all about.

Water Supplies: East Grinstead

Helena Dollimore Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)]

My constituency was affected by the water outage over the Christmas period, and I thank the Minister for her support over that period—for keeping me updated, and for briefing the water company. I really feel for the people who are experiencing these outages. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has been trying to learn the lessons from the incidents in my constituency, but it seems that the mistakes are still being repeated.

The report outlined the need for more water stations, the need to consider the weight of six 2-litre bottles for people who are disabled and on the priority list, and the fact that those learnings are not being taken into account by the water companies, as well as the need for hygiene: several days into a water outage, people cannot wash their hands, they cannot clean and prepare food and they cannot have a shower. What are the Government doing to put pressure on the water companies to heed the findings and the learnings from each of these outages in our constituencies, given that the lessons do not seem to be being learnt every time?

[Emma Hardy]

I thank my hon. Friend for the leadership that she showed in her constituency during the Christmas period. We had all hoped to have some time off, but she had to reopen her office to communicate with residents. She is right to say that we need to learn lessons. What frustrates me more than many other things is the fact that the same problems are being caused by the same companies when it comes to communicating clearly and adequately with residents and ensuring that they know who their vulnerable customers are. I want our forthcoming White Paper to consider whether we have all the powers that we need, but, as I have said, the Drinking Water Inspectorate will be conducting its own investigation of what happened in Tunbridge Wells over Christmas and what is happening currently, and I do not want to get ahead of that.

Illegal Waste: Organised Crime

Helena Dollimore Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy]

The Government are aware of the appalling case of illegal dumping in the hon. Member’s constituency, and I absolutely share his constituents’ anger. I, too, have seen the photographs and videos, and it is no wonder that he feels moved to bring forward this urgent question. There is a criminal investigation under way, and an Environment Agency restriction order has been served to prevent access to the site and further fly-tipping. The local resilience forum has been notified to explore opportunities for multi-agency support.

I understand that the Minister with responsibility for nature, my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry East (Mary Creagh), has offered to meet the hon. Gentleman when she returns from COP, and I know that she is keen to fulfil that offer. I do not want to pre-empt the findings of the criminal investigation, but I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that the Environment Agency is working very closely with local partners, and that the offer of continuing the conversation outside the Chamber is there for him.

[Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller) for bringing forward this urgent question. As the Minister knows from her visit to my constituency last week, millions of plastic beads recently washed up there. After initially denying any involvement, Southern Water has admitted that it was responsible, and that they came from its waste water treatment plant. This is a huge environmental catastrophe, not least because we know that the beads pose a serious risk to wildlife, and we are awaiting further investigation of just how toxic they could be. At my public meeting on this issue last week with over 100 residents, Southern Water admitted that the use of these beads is outdated, and that there are better modern methods. I recognise that the Minister cannot comment on the live investigation by the Environment Agency, but does she agree that the Environment Agency must look at the use of these beads, and at how we can prevent such an environmental catastrophe from ever happening again?

[Emma Hardy]

My hon. Friend is formidable and impressive. Frankly, I am delighted and proud to be on the same side of the fight as her, and she has led an incredible campaign. I went to see these beads myself, and they are appalling. They are tiny plastic beads embedded in the sand. People are having to remove them with sweeping brushes and sieves; they are literally sieving the sand to remove thousands of beads, up and down the coastline. She is right to feel angry and upset about the issue.

As for the use of such beads being outdated, I will write to all the water companies to ask them who is still using these beads. If companies are still using them, I will ask what mitigations are in place to prevent them escaping, and what their plans are for looking at alternative methods. I agree with my hon. Friend that we do not want this to happen anywhere else.

Independent Water Commission

Helena Dollimore Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. Anglers are quite rightly furious about the level of pollution, which is destroying fish and other life in our rivers, but also about the impact of abstractions, particularly from chalk streams, so the new regulator will be engaging with them. Sir Jon has proposed new mechanisms for volunteers and campaigners to engage with the system that were not available previously. We will consult on those in the autumn, and move ahead with legislation following that.

[Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)]

I really welcome the water commission. The EFRA Committee has had each of the water bosses in, one by one, and each struggled to explain why their industry prioritises bonuses over fixing broken pipes. I therefore really welcome the action that the Government have taken to ban bonuses, starting with the bonus for the Southern Water boss, Lawrence Gosden. We were, however, disgusted to hear last week that he plans to take a doubling in his salary, an additional £690,000, after overseeing major water outages, flooding in Hastings town centre and massive sewage dumping. Does the Secretary of State agree that that is a slap in the face to my constituents, and that Lawrence Gosden should think very seriously about whether he takes that salary increase?

[Steve Reed]

My hon. Friend, who is such a strong campaigner on the water sector, makes a very important point, which she puts very well. I consider that pay rise to be outrageous, as does she. It turns out that he is receiving that pay increase under a scheme that was permitted by the regulator under the regime that the Conservatives had in place, and the payment he is getting this year relates to the last year of the Conservative Government. We have changed the law so that no similar payment can be made in future.

Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

Helena Dollimore Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Hudson]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

New clause 3, which His Majesty’s Opposition will again push to a vote, has at its heart the people we want to protect—the very individuals who this Committee has acknowledged are most affected: the consumers and bill payers. They are the pivotal reason why we have tabled the clause.

The clause would require the Secretary of State to make provision so that where a water company has faced financial penalties for failure to comply with the law, a financial amount equal to those penalties must be removed from the bills of that water company’s consumers. Of course, one might suppose that it is difficult to make an equivalence between the amount of a financial penalty and the amount to be reduced on the bills, but subsection (2) sets out that it must be calculated by dividing the total financial penalty by the water company’s number of customers. We have laid out a formula that the Secretary of State could follow in fulfilling the duties under the clause.

The Government might object that the clause would create additional duties for the Secretary of State on top of their existing ones, but the Opposition believe that the measure is relatively simple, can be calculated and is worth adopting for the very principle of accountability for which all of us across this House are striving.

I have already mentioned that, when the Conservatives were in government, we took action to set out that water bosses would be banned from receiving bonuses if a company had committed serious criminal breaches. The Bill copies that and takes it forwards, but the new clause takes the principle of accountability, which has been raised in the Committee’s last couple of sittings, even further.

[Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. The hon. Member referred to the record of his party while in government for the last 14 years, and said that it set the threshold for a water boss being denied a bonus at the level of criminal activity. Does he agree that many of our constituents would find it strange to set a bar for not having a bonus at the level of committing criminal activity, given that in many workplaces up and down the country a bonus is based on good performance and on serving customers? The last Government set the bar for banning bonuses far too high, and that is why, despite repeated failure, the boss of Southern Water still received a bonus, as the boss of Ofwat confirmed to the Select Committee.

Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Helena Dollimore Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 9th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers.

On behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition, I rise to challenge the Government on their plans in Government amendments 1 and 2. Before I go into the detail, I will make some general comments about the clause that are pertinent to the amendments.

The Opposition worry that the Bill, rather than taking original and new measures to tackle these issues, is purely an attempt to copy and paste the work done by our previous Conservative Government. In fact, many of the measures have already been copied from previous measures that we introduced in government.

[Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)]

In the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, we took evidence from the chief executive of Ofwat, who was clear that the bonus that the boss of Southern Water, Lawrence Gosden, received this year would not have been paid had the previous Conservative Government brought the measures in this Bill before the House. The Conservatives had 14 years to change the rules, but they failed to do so.

[Dr Hudson]

With the greatest respect, I sat on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in the previous Parliament, and we took evidence from the chief executive of Ofwat on some of the key measures that the Conservative Government brought forward. Our Government gave Ofwat teeth and powers, and we need to make sure it uses them.

As detailed in the explanatory notes, Ofwat already has wide powers to set the conditions of water company appointments and licences. The Conservatives worked hard to strengthen its ability and power to do that since this issue came to the fore in order to drive the regulatory change that was vitally needed to tackle the scale of the crisis that came to light.

I again remind Members on both sides of the House that when Labour left office in 2010, only 7% of storm overflows were monitored; when we Conservatives left office, 100% of outflows were monitored. We found the scale of the sewage problem and were the first party to start to address it. The Conservative Government’s Environment Act 2021 gave Ofwat the power to consider, when deliberating about dividends, the environmental performance of a company and its credit rating, whereby Ofwat could stop the paying of dividends if it felt that the firm faced financial risks as a result of its actions.

[Dr Hudson]

If the hon. Gentleman checks Hansard, he will see that in my speech on Second Reading and just now I said “storm overflows”. I gently remind the third-party spokesman that in the coalition Government the Liberal Democrats had a Water Minister who did absolutely nothing on this issue.

[Helena Dollimore]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tim Farron]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew]

I have expressed my concerns. It would be perfectly possible to achieve the object, which I share, of improving the voice of the customer in water companies, or of improving the implementation of the existing obligation on water companies to take account of the consumer interest. I do not think that the current drafting is the best that we can do. I raise these concerns so that they may be properly considered.

[Helena Dollimore]

I thank the Minister for all her work in introducing this Bill so quickly in the new Parliament. It is a Bill that my constituents in Hastings and Rye desperately need. As I have said many times in this House, our constituency of Hastings, Rye and the villages has suffered hugely at the hands of Southern Water. Litres of raw sewage has been pumped into the sea. Our town centre has been flooded twice, leaving homes and businesses under sewage water, and our taps have run dry twice in less than a year. We in Hastings and Rye felt the impact of 14 years of Conservative failure to crack down on water companies’ bad behaviour.

[David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)]

I agree with many of the hon. Lady’s points. Many of our constituents are feeling the same effects, but does she not agree that the reason why the Bill has been introduced so quickly in this Parliament with so few new ideas in it is that most of the work was done by the previous Government?

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[Helena Dollimore]

I think Opposition Members are slightly confused about the record of the Government of the past 14 years, of which both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives were a part at different points. My constituents in Hastings, Rye and the villages would find the hon. Gentleman’s assertion that the last Government fixed the crisis in our water companies very bizarre indeed. I draw his attention to the powers that this Government are introducing to ban bosses’ bonuses when they fail our constituents. The last Government left thousands of outlets unmonitored, and when there were monitors, they were reporting to the water companies themselves. What this Government are doing differently is not allowing the water companies to mark their own homework; we are saying that monitors should report directly to Government, not the water companies.

[Jerome Mayhew]

The hon. Lady says that it was the last Government who allowed the water companies—the undertakers—to mark their own homework. Does she not recall that it was actually the Labour Government in 2008 who specifically changed the rules to allow water companies to do just that in relation to their environmental performance?

[Helena Dollimore]

I am yet to hear an apology from the Conservatives for their failure to put monitors on any outlet in my constituency, their failure to make those monitors report to Government at all, and their failure to address the severity of the sewage scandal that has caused so much disruption for my constituents, for local businesses and for so many people up and down this country.

I pay tribute to campaigners in so many of our constituencies. Many are in the Public Gallery and they have done so much work exposing this scandal for what it is. We would not be discussing the scale of this scandal were it not for their hard work. In my constituency, Clean Water Action Group campaigners go out regularly of their own accord and out of their own pockets to test the water to expose what Southern Water is doing in our community. I pay tribute to them.

What we are discussing today is a measure to ban bosses’ bonuses, because it is so important that we do not see what we have seen over the last 14 years of Conservative Government—the continued failure to prevent Southern Water from rewarding bosses with bonuses. Laurence Gosden, the chief executive of Southern Water, received a bonus last year when we had seen repeated failure in Hastings and Rye under Southern Water’s watch. As I said earlier, the chief executive of Ofwat confirmed to the Select Committee that had the measures in the Bill been put in place last year by the Conservative Government, the bonus would not have been paid. Laurence Gosden only received that bonus because of the failure of the Conservatives to act when they had 14 years to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Helena Dollimore]

I will make some progress, because I know that we need to make progress in the debate.

In conclusion, I thank the Minister for her work on bringing the Bill before the House so quickly. I know that this is just the start of the change that we need to deliver on our water companies. This Government are acting where the previous Conservative and coalition Governments failed, and are working to clean up our water system.

[Charlie Maynard]

I have a question for you, Mr Vickers. This is my first Bill Committee and I am trying to understand how everything works. There are six amendments to clause 1, and our task is to do line-by-line scrutiny. My ambition is to understand why the Government support or reject each of those amendments. At the moment, in our debate of clause 1, we are swimming quite happily between those amendments. I would love your advice, Mr Vickers, as to how we work to understand what the story is on each amendment in turn, because I am not clear on that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emma Hardy]

We expect the commission to report to the Government in June. I reassure the hon. Member that when I respond at the end of every session, I will go through each and every amendment in turn.

I turn to Government amendments 1 and 2 to clause 1. The Government have carefully considered all non-Government amendments made in the other place and how they fit within the wider plans for reform of the water sector, including the amendments tabled by Lord Roborough and Lord Cromwell. I thank them, and indeed the other place, for their careful consideration of the Bill, particularly for the constructive way in which they worked with the Government during the Bill’s passage through the Lords. That collaborative approach enabled the Bill to be strengthened, for example, through the introduction of new requirements relating to the implementation of measures in pollution incident reduction plans. However, the Government have determined that the amendments from Lord Roborough and Lord Cromwell are not necessary and should be removed from the Bill.

Government amendment 1 concerns financial reporting. During the Bill’s passage through the other place, it was amended in such a way that required rules made by Ofwat under clause 1 to include reporting requirements on company finances. The Government strongly agree with the need to ensure water company finances are closely monitored, especially given the current financial issues experienced by some companies. However, having considered the Lords amendment in detail and having had further discussions with Lord Cromwell about the intent behind his amendment, we feel that it is duplicative of existing processes as well as conditions in water company licences.

Ofwat already has processes in place to monitor where a company may be heading towards financial difficulties. It is already a condition of water company licences that companies are required in their annual report to publish by a set date financial performance metrics, including interest on their borrowing, financial flows and analysis of their debt. Based on those reports, Ofwat sets out its observations on financial resilience across the sector in its “Monitoring financial resilience” report. Ofwat is also alive to the potential for financial engineering to occur outside of regulated companies and is thoroughly monitoring the financial position of all water companies. The Lords amendment would therefore duplicate existing requirements, with the potential to create confusion in what is already a complex regulatory landscape. This is important: we also retain concern about the potential for the Lords amendment to pre-empt forthcoming reforms following the independent commission led by Sir Jon Cunliffe. On that basis, the Government have tabled Government amendment 1 to remove Lord Cromwell’s amendment from the Bill.

[Helena Dollimore]

During the debate, we have heard a lot of words from the Opposition parties, but we had very little action during their 14 years in Government. We on the Government Benches have raised clear examples pointed out by Ofwat where it has not had the necessary tools to ban bonuses when it wanted to do so with Southern Water. While we are on that topic, I express my surprise that the hon. Member for Waveney Valley has not turned up to this sitting of the Committee.

[Emma Hardy]

I have to say that it is slightly disappointing that we do not have a full contingent for such an important Bill Committee, which matters so much to people up and down the country. There could be personal reasons, so let us reserve judgment, but it is a little surprising to me too.