Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill

Debate between Jim Fitzpatrick and Frank Dobson

Wednesday 29th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Frank Dobson]

Will my hon. Friend bear it in mind, when talking about the extra expense, that Thames Water, over the past six or seven years, has made profits totalling £1 billion, which have been paid out to its currently Australian shareholders and before that its German shareholders?

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point that will be a matter for scrutiny in Committee. I expect it to be raised in Committee in due course.

East London assembly member John Biggs and I are seeking Thames Water’s latest considerations, and obviously the Bill would affect the building of the Thames tideway tunnel. The local community is resolute on this issue. My only concern about the choice between the Heckford street site and the Thames foreshore site is that building the interceptor to the sewer on the foreshore would mean much more traffic by water, on the Thames. If Heckford street is chosen, there will be several thousand heavy goods vehicles on the streets of Tower Hamlets and further east for several years. That would not be a welcome dimension, but these things are in the balance, and obviously we are pressing for the best possible outcome for the local community.

The second issue that I want briefly to mention is fire sprinklers. I pay tribute to the Minister, who is always courteous and efficient. I am grateful for the meeting that he afforded me and the officers of the all-party group on fire safety and rescue to discuss the matter only four to five weeks ago. There is a myth perpetrated by the media—mostly in adverts on TV and in the cinema—that when a fire in a building activates the sprinkler system, every sprinkler right across the building is activated and the whole place is doused in water and damaged. The reality, of course, is that the only sprinkler activated is the sprinkler head immediately above the seat of the fire, as the heat generated by the fire melts the soldered link, causing the blockage to fall away and allowing the water to act as an extinguishing agent. The problem with the myth is that people are frightened of sprinklers, because they think that if they install them in their building and they are inadvertently activated—we know that smoke detectors can go off because of burning toast—their home would be damaged. However, that is not the case, and the cost to society of not installing sprinkler systems in buildings includes the hundreds of millions of pounds lost to schools damaged by fire every year—a cost that is often passed on to local council tax payers, as most local authorities self-insure.