Water Companies: Executive Bonuses

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate in support of the motion. I will raise the issues in my constituency and the part of Thames Water that covers south-east England outside London. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) and for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) for talking about many other issues affecting Thames Water. Their speeches relate more to customers in London, but they made some excellent general points about the company’s financing, the weak regulation and the Government’s failure to act, which I will also highlight.

Serious and persistent problems affect wildlife and thousands of residents in the Thames Valley, particularly Reading and Woodley. We have seen things in our area that are truly shocking and deeply concern many residents. I have run a community survey, which hundreds of people have filled in to raise their concerns. This is a widespread issue for many local residents, which differs slightly from those described further downstream in London but relates to the level of concern and the impact on local people.

I will go slightly upstream from Reading towards Oxford, where there has been a well-known series of incidents linked to pollution in the Wolvercote stream. All the sewage pollution further upstream of the Thames, from many tributaries in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, flows through Berkshire into London and, ultimately, out to the Thames estuary. Residents in my area are suffering the direct result of that pollution. The simply appalling levels of pollution are monitored by people in Oxford. I pay tribute to local campaigners there, including my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds). However, Thames Water does not seem to be fully addressing these matters. I hope that the company, the Government, the Environment Agency and the regulator are listening to the debate and will look into this further.

Of the issues affecting tributaries in our area—an important and environmentally very sensitive issue—is pollution in chalk streams. Very close to Reading, the River Pang tributary is a particularly beautiful chalk stream, which used to be in pristine condition. There is a beautiful landscape, with rolling hills on the edge of the downs in Berkshire and gentle footpaths next to the river. When I walked along there some time ago, I noticed that the riverbed had no apparent life in parts of it. Local anglers, many of whom live in Reading, have raised serious concerns about the Pang, and about other chalk streams across southern England. They are a unique ecosystem found only in the south of this country, where water comes up from the chalk aquifer into streams and flows into major rivers such as the Thames. I hope the Minister will take note of the specific issues affecting chalk streams. I would appreciate it if he or his colleague could write to me about them and the other specific issues in the Thames Valley and Thames catchment. I thank the Angling Trust for its excellent work on this matter.

Another appalling local issue is the long-standing pollution incident in a tributary called Foudry brook, which comes from a spring in the northern part of Hampshire and flows under the M4 motorway, through the outskirts of Reading, and ultimately into the Kennet and the Thames. I saw the pollution when I was running the Reading half-marathon this year. There were pools and little tributaries of water that smelled pungently, and were a lurid neon green colour that one would see in an artificial and lifeless place, completely out of place next to the willows and bushes near the river. It should never have happened, and clearly was linked to the pollution incident upstream a few miles away.

I hope that the Minister is noting the level of revulsion that people like me have exhibited when we have seen that. It is an offensive thing to see when trying to enjoy a walk next to a river or, like many thousands of local residents, when living near a river. People who live along several miles of banks of the Kennet, the Thames and the Loddon have to put up with sewage floating past their houses. There has been a series of other terrible incidents, and I could go on and on. Many are happening all the time and, as we heard earlier, they are not properly monitored.

On Saturday, on a family walk, I experienced yet another such incident. Imagine the scene: frosty countryside just outside Reading—absolutely beautiful—with heavy frost on hedges and wildlife in abundance, walking down the hill through a nature reserve to the River Thames. I could see a heron on the bank of the river spying for fish and there was a cormorant diving into the Thames. In the middle of the river was what I thought were either flecks of snow—it was very, very cold—or rain or leaves. In fact, they were bubbles from sewage pollution. I could see banks of foam building up around small islands in the river, sometimes nearly a foot high, with white, brown creamy foam which was clearly linked to sewage pollution. The river was very high and I could tell that the outlets had been opened upstream. It was absolutely disgusting. That is the type of pollution affecting people’s enjoyment of beautiful countryside, riverside walks, and their own gardens and homes in the south of England just upstream from London. I hope the Minister will note that and look into it.

I am aware of time and I do not want to overstep my limit. I commend the action plan put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed). I hope the Minister is listening and paying attention to what we are saying, because this is a very serious problem and I hope he will look at it again.