Water Bill

Sojan Joseph Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 28th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sojan Joseph (Ashford) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) on his success in the private Member’s Bill ballot and on bringing forward this Bill, which deals with such an important topic. He deserves great credit for continuing the national debate on the quality of our waterways.

I know from the many emails I have received since my election in July that my constituents in Ashford, Hawkinge and the villages are angry about the state of our waterways, and they have every right to be angry: the latest figures for my constituency show that the waterways that were polluted by sewage 1,127 times in 2023. This was allowed to happen as a result of 14 years of mismanagement and weakened regulation of the water industry by the Conservatives.

The polluting of our local waterways has a real-world impact: it risks damaging our ecosystems and having an impact on people’s health. Not long after I was elected, I was contacted by a primary school in my constituency. At the end of the summer term, the school had a lovely tradition of taking some of its children to paddle in the Great Stour, which runs near the school. However, the school contacted me to say that when it took children to the river at the end of last year, 25% of those who had splashed and paddled were ill within 24 hours.

I will give another example. A constituent who regularly swims in the channel off the coast of the constituency of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) contacted me to express his deep concern about the amount of sewage that was allowed to be pumped into the sea from the combined sewer overflow. Those are just two examples of how pollution has been permitted in our waterways. This unacceptable and unforgivable destruction of our waterways should never have been allowed to happen, but that is exactly what the Conservatives did when they were in power.

Many of my constituents contacted me in advance of the Bill’s Second Reading to let me know how important water quality is to them. Water is a resource that we all rely on, and they rightly feel that the system is failing them, with polluted waterways, declining service standards and increasing bills. Water companies are failing to deliver for their customers and the environment, and the public have rightly had enough. I welcome how, since my hon. Friend the Minister and colleagues entered office, they have taken immediate measures to address the failures of the last 14 years, including ensuring that funding for vital infrastructure investment is ringfenced. I was pleased to see that compensation for households and businesses will be doubled when basic water services are affected.

I was proud to support the Water (Special Measures) Bill, and I was delighted to see it receive Royal Assent last month and pass into law. The strengthening of the enforcement regime is an important sign to the water industry that things have changed under this Labour Government and that Labour Members will not tolerate the poor standards of the last 14 years. I want to see a fundamental transformation of our water industry. I also want the waterways in Ashford, Hawkinge and the villages, as well as the rest of the country, to be cleaned up and restored to good health.

I will not, however, support my hon. Friend’s Bill, as the measures that he proposes go too far. I do not think it is the right time for them. This is an important issue, and we need to talk about it, but I am not convinced that bringing water services into public ownership would guarantee better services.

We have heard, seen and experienced that in our NHS. What happened there? We brought in NHS England to fix the problems and now, 14 years later, we are getting rid of NHS England. We have heard hon. Members talk about standards in our schools and the standard of our roads. Is it the right time for the measures in the Bill, or is it time to take responsibility and undertake the action that Labour came into government for? In eight months, we have moved fast and taken strong actions. Should we not give those new Acts time to come into effect and see if things get better?

[Clive Lewis]

For how long does my hon. Friend think we should polish the turd—we can probably find that floating in most of our rivers—of privatised English water?

[Sojan Joseph]

I would like to see things get better immediately. We cannot carry on as we have any longer, but what guarantee is there that by taking water into the public sector, the public’s water bills will come down and they will get the service they expect?

We see problems in our public sector. For example, the NHS does not have the workforce to do the job, and we have seen waiting lists go up. Can we wait for two days before getting the water supply back in our houses if we do not have enough people to do the job? Is this the right time for the changes in the Bill, or should we give time for the actions we have taken already to come into effect and see if things get better? That is why now is not the right time to do this, but we need to talk about it because it is an important subject. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South on introducing the Bill, but we should continue talking about and monitoring this, as it is the only way to move forward.