Water Companies: Executive Bonuses

Debate between Jim McMahon and Steve Reed

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the impact he is making on an important issue that affects almost every community in the country. I am glad that he has taken such a robust line on the regulator, because it is the elephant in the room. We have focused our fire on the Government because they have failed and on the water companies because they have taken money and failed, but the regulators have failed as well, because it was on their watch that this has been allowed to happen. In the midst of all that, it cannot be right for consumers to end up paying twice, first for the dividends that have already gone out of the door and then for putting the system right.

[Steve Reed]

I am grateful for the work that my hon. Friend has led in exposing some of the same problems as my predecessor in this post. He clearly knows an awful lot about these issues, and he makes his point very well.

Let me move on to the broader issue of nature. The destruction of nature that this Government have encouraged is unacceptable. As a party, they increasingly position themselves against nature. On their watch, we now have one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, yet they have rowed back on their net zero commitments. They have broken their promise to fund farmers fairly to maintain environmental schemes on their land; they have tried to weaken environmental standards relating to nutrient neutrality to allow building alongside estuaries where the increased pollution would tip habitats beyond the point of recovery while refusing to build where the environmental impact could more easily be mitigated; and now they are turning a blind eye while our rivers are turned into sewers.

Economic growth does not have to stand in opposition to protecting and restoring nature. The two must go hand in hand. Labour’s mission to make this country a clean energy superpower will create thousands of good, well-paid, secure jobs, and part of it is a national mission to restore nature, including our polluted waterways. It seems that the longer the Tories are in power, the more nature suffers. They have little concept of the pride that the British people take in our countryside, of its importance to our sense of who we are as a nation and to our sense of belonging.