Thames Water

Peter Swallow Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

The problems facing the water sector are to do with failures of governance and regulation. We need to tackle the actual problems, not the imagined ones. If we were to seek to nationalise the water sector, that would cost in excess of £100 billion that would have to be taken away from services such as the national health service or education. It would take years to unpick the current model of ownership, during which time there would be no investment and water pollution would get worse. From the example of Scotland, we know that nationalisation is not the answer, because there are also problems with pollution there. We will ensure that our priority is pure water, not the purity of the hon. Lady’s ideology.

[Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)]

As Thames Water dumped sewage into the Cut and the Blackwater in my constituency, the Conservative Government washed their hands not in it, but of it. This Government are acting to ban bonuses, to issue the biggest fine we have seen from Ofwat and to bring in criminal liability. As we seek more action to get to grips with the Thames Water crisis, will the Secretary of State commit to putting two things at the forefront of his mind: first, our environment and cleaning the sewage; and, secondly, making sure that customers and our constituents get a fair deal?

[Steve Reed]

I am sure my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that we have launched 81 criminal investigations into water companies for pollution and other failings—a dramatic increase on what we inherited from the previous Government. I am sure he will recall that they cut the resources to the regulator in half. Despite the appalling financial inheritance, we increased resources by 9% at the Budget and we have now introduced the polluter pays principle, so that where there is a successful prosecution of a water company, that company will pay the price of the investigation, so that further investigations and prosecutions can follow.