Thames Water Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Julian Lewis
Main Page: Julian Lewis (Conservative - New Forest East)Department Debates - View all Julian Lewis's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Emma Reynolds
I certainly want to turn the page on the failures of this company that have affected my hon. Friend’s constituents and those of other Members. Thanks to the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, for which my hon. Friend voted, polluting water companies do not now receive bonuses. However, he is right to suggest that we need to resolve this situation and ensure that the improvements he has mentioned take place, and I have expressed my early concerns about this proposal because I do not want to see significant delays in such improvements.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
It is tempting to say that there is a particularly bad smell about this company, but that would be a statement of the obvious. Although I am not normally a friend of nationalisation, I have a feeling that this company is on a one-way journey to bankruptcy. Am I right in presuming that if that point ever arose, there would be no question of compensating shareholders for a bankrupt company that eventually had to be taken over by the state?
Emma Reynolds
The company remains solvent, but if it were to become insolvent it would be for the directors to apply to the court for an insolvency special administration regime, and then those questions would be on the table.