Independent Water Commission: Final Report

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) on securing this debate, which is timely and very important. The Cunliffe report is seriously flawed, in that it did not consider public ownership of the industry or agriculture, which is a major polluter, as other colleagues have already pointed out.

Privatisation of water has been an absolute disaster from the very beginning, when many of us at the time warned against it. It has resulted in £72 billion being taken out of the industry in dividends and profits, and fantastic levels of executive pay. It has left behind pollution and flooding, with the cost of the pollution, flooding and foul water being borne by the public—our constituents—who are increasingly angry about it.

By any standard, river quality is appalling right across the country and is one of the worst anywhere in Europe. That is caused by the mixing of rainwater with sewage waste, and by agricultural run-offs that have a devastating effect. The River Wye is just one example of how awful the rivers can become, because of agricultural waste run-offs—hon. Members who drew attention to that are absolutely right. The waste of water from leaks is a huge problem, and I think I am right that the totality of leaks across the whole country would fill the whole of Loch Ness every year.

Therefore, instead of calling for new reservoirs to be built, should we not look at much better water management, rainwater retention and water distribution across the country? In England, the biggest water consumers are in London and the south-east, which is, broadly speaking, the driest part of the country. The wettest part of the country is the midlands and the north-west. Clearly, moving water from one part to the other makes a lot of sense. Can we not have some sense surrounding the organisation of water distribution?

[Anna Dixon]

Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that under the previous Government, light-touch regulation left our infrastructure crumbling? It is right that there will be asset mapping under the new proposals, so that we can finally know the state of the infrastructure and whether these investments are actually fixing the leaks.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Absolutely. The state of the infrastructure does need to be examined. Like many Members, my constituents have endless complaints about that. Thames Water is one of the most frequent visitors to my constituency; it digs up the roads frequently. With the resulting road closures—which are absurd—Thames Water is much better at traffic management than Transport for London, actually.

I would also ask that we look much more seriously at river basin management. I remember visiting York with the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) during the flooding at that time. We had a long discussion with the Environment Agency about planning for flooding, which would involve restoring peatlands, upland planting, reintroducing beavers and others into rivers—that has an effect on a small scale, with lots of rivers and streams—and restoring floodplains. Those sorts of things are some of the most important things we can do.

Water should be taken back into public ownership—not old-style public ownership, with a board of governors or directors appointed by the Government, but a popular form of public ownership that would involve the brilliant workforce in all those companies, and their knowledge. The directors would come from them, and from local communities, businesses, local authorities and unions, so we would have a locally and popular-based water industry in our society. We could do it. Why don’t we try that?

[Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)]

I call Charlie Maynard, but the bad news is that I can only give him three minutes.