Water (Special Measures) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Cromwell and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Report stage
Wednesday 20th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to both Amendments 39 and 40 in my name. I am grateful for the kind support of the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, on Amendment 39 and of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, on Amendments 39 and 40.

I am told that Amendment 39 is unwelcome because it is hard to determine when explanations can be expected. As the Minister knows, my catchphrase in Committee was “modest and proportionate”. I think that this very small amendment is modest and proportionate, but it is my further understanding from discussions that management plans will, once a year, give explanations of such discharges as part of their pollution plans. With numerous discharges happening across the year, that annual document will be a mighty task to compile and to read through. More importantly, it seems that people living with the discharges might have to wait 12 months or more simply to find out why a discharge has occurred and, presumably, what has been done to deal with it and prevent a recurrence. This invites not only discontent but accusations that nothing is being done and that people are being kept in the dark. Can the Minister take this away and see whether a government amendment can do better in addressing the concerns and rights to information of the public?

Amendment 40 in my name is essentially about trying to get information all in one place so that anybody from the public can access it. Since tabling this amendment, I have been advised by the Minister that Water UK, the body that represents the water companies, is to create a map of discharges that can be accessed by the public. That is very welcome, but unless the mapping is presented and run in a comprehensive and timely way, is sufficiently detailed to provide meaningful information and is periodically assessed for its quality of delivery, it will be of little use.

I have a number of questions which I would be very grateful if the Minister can address, either from the Dispatch Box or by letter. There are six of them—brace yourselves. Can the Minister clarify what information exactly this map will show? When will it be up and running? At that start date, will all future discharges be shown in close to real time? Who will have the responsibility for ensuring that Water UK receives the necessary information in real time? What will be the penalties for failure to supply the information and doing so in good time? Who will have the responsibility for auditing the online mapping performance of Water UK over time? Somebody needs to watch the watchers to ensure that this potentially rather colourful and enjoyable map is accurate, sufficiently detailed and up to date in real time.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I support these amendments. It is obvious that the public have a right to know when sewage is being dumped. Would the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, like to speak to his amendment first? If not, I shall carry on.

The water companies have this as real-time data and there is no reason why they cannot publish it in real time so that the public know whether the waterways are clean enough to swim in, paddle in, kayak in or even let their dogs run in. I simply do not understand why the water companies cannot provide that information. Well, I do know why—they will fight this tooth and nail because the true level of leaks of sewage discharges is so ridiculously high.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I thank the noble Baroness for supporting my amendment. To be clear, it requires an explanation of why the discharge has occurred, not that it has. The Minister pointed out that that might take quite a long time to establish.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

In that case, the noble Lord’s amendment is not radical enough for me, but I hope it passes anyway.

Water (Special Measures) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Cromwell and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage
Wednesday 30th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, following the noble Earl, Lord Russell, is very useful because I agree very much with his last few statements. This is an incredibly helpful group. The Labour Government would be very well advised to take all these amendments. They are so helpful, reasonable and sensible and bring in issues that I think have been left out without any rational reason.

I deeply regret not having signed Amendment 29 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sikka. I agree with him completely. In fact, I support most of the amendments in this group. I signed Amendment 78 because who does not want regulators of a public service to work in the interests of the public? That is a very clear statement to make, I would have thought, and it is quite necessary, even though it seems so obvious.

Amendment 84 is in my name. I admit that when I tabled this amendment to remove the duty of economic growth from water companies and regulators, I had not really appreciated that if I looked at it from a completely different perspective, possibly from the perspective of the previous Government, it was a remarkable success story over 14 years because we had huge growth in sewage and pollution—well done, guys—and it had a multiplier impact on gross national product. It is so gross that other countries see it as indicative of the UK’s approach to running privatised services—that is, not very good. When we have a river full of dead fish, the authorities buy more fish to replace them. That is economic growth—a huge success. When E. coli is found in our water systems, we get a double hit of economic growth. There is the extra spending by the NHS on treating all the cases of gastro-enteritis and all the extra money spent on plastic bottles of water handed out when consumers cannot drink from the tap. We even have the prospect of a rain-soaked country like ours spending millions on hiring supertankers to import drinking water from Norway. That is extra spending and extra growth. I can see that growth is a success factor in the previous Government’s estimation. Of course, we also cannot forget the staggering growth in shareholder dividends and CEO salaries. When these private water companies take money out of the hands of bill payers and help the rich to buy new private jets, that also adds to GNP.

My problem is that this kind of GNP adds to most people’s unhappiness. In fact, that is why the promotion of growth for growth’s sake is complete nonsense. I do not understand why anyone would advocate that. The more that rivers are polluted, the unhappier the lives of everybody using that space, whether they are dog walkers, anglers, wild swimmers or nature lovers. The more money that shareholders and CEOs get, the less happy the bill payers are about 40% of their money being spent on debt repayments and dividends. Growth is not an indicator of happiness or of the economy being run for the benefit of many. It is a nonsense soundbite for the economically illiterate and needs to be deleted from this legislation.

On Amendment 85, if Ofwat had been given a duty to protect the environment when it was set up decades ago, we would not be in the mess that we are. There would have been a clear connection in Ofwat’s role between signing off bill payers’ money to fund environmental improvements and ensuring that those improvements actually happened. Ofwat needs two sets of books open on its desk all the time. The first would show the real state of the industry’s finances, including the accounts of the big financial businesses that own the water companies, and the second would show whether those companies were environmentally solvent. By that, I mean whether they are capable of meeting the environmental standards on clean water and the obligations to maintain the health of the waterways.

Whether Ofwat is competent enough to carry out this new duty, or any other duties, is a completely separate debate. We have to remember that Ofwat was meant to be looking after the interests of bill payers but has completely failed to do so. It has allowed the water industry to become owned and controlled by a superstructure of financial institutions that use clever scams to fleece the bill payer in ways that Ofwat has appeared to be completely oblivious to.

We know that if this Government allow Ofwat to remain the main regulator of private water companies over the next few years, its role must include the environment. Fixing the regular discharges of sewage into our waterways, along with the polluting run-off from agriculture, is by far the biggest financial challenge the industry faces. If Ofwat does not understand that duty, the regulation will not match up to the challenge.

I am afraid the Government did not turn out very well on climate change and our ecological crisis in the Budget. They do not seem to understand how climate change comes down to the lowest level and affects every single individual, and I would be really happy to help explain that. It is time to put this particular duty on the environment into the legislation.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, a thread that runs through many of these amendments is the divergence between the environmental objectives and the clean water consumption objectives. A number of times, we on these Benches have raised the issue that there are two regulators with those responsibilities separated between them. That is something with which the Minister is going to have to grapple in her reply. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, who made the point that time is of the essence, and that waiting for the review may be too late. There is a choice to be made about giving Ofwat these objectives now or making a more fundamental structural change about who regulates the whole environmental question around water.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, may be pleased to note in the Budget the increase in tax on people flying on private jets, which she referred to. Apart from that, I agree that there was not much coverage of the environment.

This thread keeps coming up and it needs to be addressed. Is it going to go into the Bill now or will it become part of the review later?