Thames Water

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I suggest to the noble Lord that the fact that we are talking about removing Ofwat and bringing in a single, more powerful regulator in the water Bill answers his question. It is not just about who the regulator is but about what the regulator’s priorities are: what is it setting for water companies to achieve? There has not been enough investment in infrastructure, and that has been one of the failures of regulation over the past 20 years.

[Lord Cryer (Lab)]

My Lords, when the water industry was privatised over 30 years ago, it was almost entirely debt-free. Since then, as the Minister said, debt has been racked up. The Minister said that there will be provisions in the new water Bill for creating a new regulator. Further to the previous question, because of Ofwat’s pathetically inadequate attempts to regulate the tide of corporate greed, will the new regulator be able to check racking up greater and greater debts, unless it is specifically for investment to serve its customers?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The detail of the regulator will be in the new Bill. The noble Lord has mentioned this to me a number of times. That companies have been allowed to generate debt to use the money has been a cause of many of the difficulties that we see today. The way that water companies have been able to increase the debt is not acceptable. That is one of the key things that we want to work on. If there was not as much debt, we would not have so many problems. That is one of the reasons why water companies are failing on all sides—whether investment or customer support.