World Water Day

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered World Water Day 2021.

I thank the co-sponsors of this debate, ahead of World Water Day on 22 March—the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law). It also has the support of the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) and my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson). I also thank the many organisations that have campaigned on this important issue over the years—to name just a few, WaterAid, UNICEF, Oxfam and Global Justice Now. UN Water has done important work, as has, more widely, the United Nations. I also pay tribute to We Own It, whose tireless work on water access in this country has drawn attention to the spiralling cost of water to consumers since it was first privatised in England and Wales under Margaret Thatcher’s Government in 1989.

The need for clean, accessible water is universal. It should not be a privilege for countries with the highest GDP or those that benefit from a geographical location that means they are safe from the ravages of climate change. It is a disgrace that almost half the world’s population is without access to clean water. It is even more shocking, given that we are in the midst of a global pandemic and a key factor in halting the spread of covid is people’s ability to wash their hands regularly. Despite that, figures by WaterAid reveal that more than 3 billion people are unable to wash their hands with soap and water at home, half of healthcare facilities in low-income countries lack basic water services, and 60% have no sanitation services at all.

That is set to worsen with the climate emergency, with warmer temperatures, rising sea levels, increased floods, droughts and melting ice affecting the quality and availability of water and sanitation systems. Forecasts show that, by 2040, a quarter of all children worldwide will live in areas with extremely limited water access. Data from Oxfam, which has done so much to help communities gain access to clean water, reveals that 2.4 billion people do not have access to a toilet, while a staggering 4.5 billion people lack safely managed sanitation services.

The lack of access to water is a killer. Figures from the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development show that unsafe water accounts for more than 1.2 million deaths each year. Every minute, a newborn child dies from infection caused by a lack of safe water and an unclean environment. That is backed up by WaterAid’s research, which adds that unclean births caused by limited water supply account for 11% of global maternal mortality, while approximately 20% of all global deaths are due to sepsis, which often arises from contaminated water.

This crisis is being exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic. More than half of all healthcare facilities in low-income countries are operating without access to hand-washing facilities. At present, according to WaterAid, just 5% of climate finance is spent helping countries adapt to climate change. Even less is given to the most vulnerable countries. Less than 1% of total global climate investment goes on basic water infrastructure and services. The climate emergency is the greatest challenge facing our planet, and that approach falls well short of what is urgently required.

Just a week after International Women’s Day, it is worth noting that 80% of people displaced by climate change are women. That means that, in the aftermath of disasters, women are more likely than men to be displaced and become victims of violence. Women are also more affected by droughts and water shortages, and often have to walk even longer distances to collect water. This also has enormous implications for global food production.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is listing some really important interlinkages of how water is vital to achieve all these other important goals. Of course, many of them are the sustainable development goals. Is he worried, as I am, that covid has put back much of our progress on the SDGs—particularly the water and sanitation goal—and that 2030 is looking further off than it did a year and a half ago?

[Navendu Mishra]

I fully share my hon. Friend’s concerns about the sustainable development goals.

The cost associated with tackling this issue is not prohibitive; far from it. The World Health Organisation and UNICEF estimate that providing water, sanitation and hygiene in 80% of healthcare facilities in low-income countries by 2025 would cost approximately $3.6 billion, of which $1.2 is capital costs. To put that in context, funding the initial infrastructure costs would account for just 6% of the US Government’s $20 billion budget they set aside for global health, and it represents a tiny fraction of the $732 billion the US spends on its military budget each year. And that is just one country.

In the UK, sadly, our funding has often worsened, not improved, access to water when it is linked to projects that privatise services. For example, research by Global Justice Now revealed that, over the past decade, UK aid accelerated the privatisation of public services in the global south. Overseas development aid was invested in for-profit schools, unaffordable private hospitals, water and sanitation privatisation and private sector energy projects.

That approach does long-lasting damage. For example, in the 1980s and 1990s, a wave of privatisation swept across much of the global south, with Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa particularly impacted. Many indebted Governments who turned to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to restructure their debts were subsequently forced to reduce public spending and privatise public services as a condition of future loans. Under dictator Pinochet, Chile enshrined water privatisation in its constitution, and 40 years later it continues to pay the highest rates for water in Latin America.

Despite reassurances from the Prime Minister when it was announced last year that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development would merge, the Government have since shelved their ring-fenced commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on overseas aid, cutting spending to 0.5% despite the Conservative manifesto commitment to maintain the higher target. At the start of the pandemic, DFID announced a £100 million campaign to support better hygiene practices, including access to water. At the time, the Government stated that the programme would work in 37 countries and help implement country-specific activities on safe water and sanitation. Separate funding of £20 million was also made available in a humanitarian support package. All this is now under threat.

In the UK, we are incredibly fortunate to have access to clean, safe water that has been treated and tested to the highest standards. However, in the past three decades, we have also seen the privatised model lead to spiralling costs that are not matched by investment in infrastructure and quality of service. Research by We Own It revealed that between 1989, when the UK water companies were first privatised, and 2016, water bills increased by 40%. According to the Commons Library, there were price hikes of up to 50% in the decade after water and other utility companies were denationalised—this despite UK companies paying billions to shareholders. Indeed, between 2013 and 2017 alone, UK water companies handed out more than £6.5 billion to shareholders, clearly prioritising profit over people.

While the water industry is always quick to argue that the increase in bills since privatisation has been accompanied by investment in infrastructure by companies and improvements in service quality, the reality is that the infrastructure is poorly maintained. That has resulted in the network haemorrhaging water, with more than 3 billion litres lost each day, equal to 53 litres per person, which is 21% of the water taken from the environment each day by water companies. The reality is that it is far more commercially appealing for private companies and their shareholders to buy new and often protected tracts of land to build new reservoirs, rather than fix the existing leaking infrastructure. That has led to parts of London and the south-east facing severe shortages, and responsibility for that must, at least partly, be laid at the door of water companies.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that Britain is the only country in the world to have dabbled in complete privatisation of water. In places where Labour has maintained power, we have mutualised it and renationalised it. Many customers in Britain will be seeing rising water bills because they have been at home during covid. Does he agree that something the Government could do to help the pound in the pocket of ordinary citizens is bring water back into a mutual, non-profit structure and make sure that the money goes to where it is deserved?

[Navendu Mishra]

rose—