Easter Adjournment

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 8th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

I rise to talk about South West Water and Pennon Group. I speak today for anyone in Devon and Cornwall who has ever had to walk past a polluted stream, stay out of the sea when visiting a beach, or stare at a water bill and wonder, “How did we end up here?” South West Water, like its parent company, Pennon, has become a byword in the south-west for failure, aloofness and even arrogance. In 2024, the company dumped sewage into our rivers and seas for over 540,000 hours. These spills are supposed to happen only in exceptional circumstances; in reality, this has been regarded as a licence to pollute.

If that were not enough, South West Water is now trying to flush out our constituents’ wallets, issuing bill rises of over 50% in some cases. I should say that Ofwat ruled last December that bills can rise by 36% on average over five years, before inflation. However, that 36% rise is permitted on average bills, and many bills for residents in Devon have risen by much more.

Stuart Thompson, who lives near Aylesbeare, has found that, even though he is not connected to South West Water’s sewerage system, his annual bill is now £761, even though last year it was just £486. That is a jump of over 56%. Stuart is a cancer patient, and his immune system is weakened from treatment. To protect himself, he boils his water before drinking it, because he is conscious that South West Water had an outbreak of the Cryptosporidium parasite last year. One can understand his caution, given his weakened immunity.

When Stuart tried to ring South West Water, he found himself 178th in the queue, and that is not a one-off. Graham Long, who lives in the Blackdown hills near Honiton, also tried ringing South West Water. Like Stuart, Graham found on the first occasion that he was 106th in the queue. On another occasion he was 94th, when he tried at a quieter time he was 87th, and on a day that was quieter still he was 74th in the queue. That is absolutely crazy from a water company hiking people’s bills in some instances by 56%.

Louise Thompson from Sidmouth contacted me in disbelief about her instalments. She did get through to South West Water, and when she raised her concern about her higher bill, she was offered a reduction to £49 a month, rather than the £70.32 for which she had been billed. However, she worked out that this was because the instalments would be spread over 12 months rather than 10, so it was a cloak for no bill reduction whatsoever. Yet, since privatisation, this company has paid out more than £4.5 billion in shareholder dividends.

South West Water is proposing to spend £3.2 billion on infrastructure improvements, but the crying shame is that it has failed to invest in its infrastructure in years gone by. This week, we have learned that the PR side of the business is going to be joined by none other than the former MP for East Devon, Simon Jupp. He is going to speak for South West Water, having attacked it while he was a Member of Parliament.