Water Companies: Executive Bonuses

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

The hon. Lady makes a very important point very eloquently. She is a tireless campaigner on these issues and I am sure that many people who care about the state of our rivers will be grateful to her for leading on that work.

I am sure all Members will be concerned about this point as well. Despite some of the highest levels of illegal sewage discharges in history, water bosses awarded themselves nearly £14 million in bonuses between 2021-22. At the same time, they were planning to increase average household bills by £156. All that was signed off by a broken regulator and Conservative Ministers. That is an absolute abuse of consumers and Labour will stop it. Labour will give the water regulator the power to ban bonuses for water bosses until they have cleaned up their toxic filth.

The Conservative dogma that regulation is anti-business is economically illiterate. Fair regulation applied across a sector is pro-business and pro-growth, as well as being pro-nature in this instance. Businesses want certainty and predictability. If they are left to compete against others who undercut regulation and get away with it, we end up with a race to the bottom. Good businesses and investors need and deserve a level playing field, but this Conservative Government have distorted that. A regulator that is too weak to regulate leads to weak self-monitoring, cover-ups, financial corruption, and our waterways awash with stinking sewage.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

I have been here for quite a long time, and the situation has been the same for the 23 years for which I have been a Member. I accept that things have got worse. What I suspect we need to do is take the main board of each water company and hold them accountable. South West Water, for instance, which serves Devon and Cornwall and the edge of the Minister’s constituency of Taunton Deane, covers up by using a sub-board which runs the company. It is the main board with which we should deal, and the same goes for Wessex Water and every other company that we need to go after. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that action must be taken, although the situation including bonuses has been the same for the past 23 years.

[Steve Reed]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s recognition that the situation is indeed getting worse. That should stimulate all of us to find ways of taking action to protect water quality for all our constituents, who really do deserve better.

I was talking about uncertainty in the regulatory field. The current level of uncertainty does not attract much-needed investment in our water industry; on the contrary, it deters it.