Water Bill

Debate between Meg Hillier and Mark Ferguson

2nd reading
Friday 28th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Meg Hillier]

Well, in my experience of 20 years in the House, this system has been used once, and that was in 2019, by a selection of Select Committees, not by the Government of the day. I am aware that the first debates about citizens’ juries were 30 or so years ago, and there are many challenges to delivering them.

[Mark Ferguson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the concerns with citizens’ assemblies is about gaining the confidence of the public? When some people see opinion polls, they say, “Well, I wasn’t interviewed, so I have no confidence in it.” Secondly, there would be no power to compel someone to be on a citizens’ assembly, so how could people have confidence in a body that contains only those who were willing to take part?

[Dame Meg Hillier]

Absolutely. I think we would all agree that we talk all the time to constituents, whether on doorsteps or at public meetings and other forums, because that is our job. I say to constituents every week when I am on their doorsteps, “I am here because I need your expertise. I can’t do my job without you.” But it is a cumbersome task to be on a citizens’ assembly as it requires people to devote a great deal of time, and only a certain subset of society has the time to do that. Many of my constituents are working three or four jobs and struggling to survive. They do not have the time to do that, but their voices need to be heard, too.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I urge the hon. Lady to listen to what I say. I did not say that I had people saying overwhelmingly that they wanted public ownership—certainly not. They are saying that there is a problem, and saying, “You lot are in government. You need to sort it out.” Over the last 20 years that I have been in this place, and particularly in the last Parliament, there has been endless discussion about how to resolve this situation, and stasis in the Government. We now have a Government who have acted to begin to tackle some of these huge challenges. I give real credit to the Minister, who has engaged massively with Members across the House on this. She is absolutely aware of the issues, partly because many of us across the House have lobbied her, because our constituents have lobbied us. I do not think there is doubt about the problem; the issue is about the solution.

We should absolutely have a big public consultation, but that is to inform the work of the citizens’ assembly. Clause 4(3) states that the citizens’ assembly must

“be composed of a randomly selected representative sample of users of water and sewerage services in England and Wales, and…consider any matters which the Commission refers to it in relation to water ownership.”

I want to be clear that that will be a randomly selected representative sample of users, and the Bill is silent on the model. I appreciate what the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) highlighted—that there is a science to doing this—but the Bill is silent on how it would be done.

[Mark Ferguson]

To return to the construction of citizens’ assemblies, I take on board the point about the concept that is being used locally, but when one has to travel 10 minutes to a meeting on an evening after work, it is a very different order of magnitude—