Farming Road Map and Profitability Review

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I thank the Secretary of State for early sight of her statement and I echo her thanks to Baroness Batters for her fantastic work on this issue. I also welcome the relatively new Farming Minister, the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), to his place.

The Liberal Democrats welcome the production of a long-term vision for farming and look forward to engaging with Ministers on the details. The road map rightly states that

“food production will remain the primary purpose of funding”,

but it continues to leave England as the outlier. It is now the only country in Europe with a farm payment system that does not actively support farmers to produce food. The consequences are as inevitable as they are inexcusable: the loss of farm businesses and the loss of food security at this dangerous time. I ask the Secretary of State to think again.

The road map also rightly observes the unfairness in the system, and that unfairness to farmers is a block to increasing output. Dairy farmers, especially, are right now being forced into ruin and despair because of unfair and sudden changes to farmgate prices, but there is no plan to strengthen or unify the Groceries Code Adjudicator and the Agricultural Supply Chain Adjudicator, two frankly weak and under-resourced referees with too few powers to protect our farmers from the abuse of market power from supermarkets and processors. Will the Secretary of State act, and if so when, to give us a strong referee to protect our farmers?

The reopening of the SFI is welcome, as is the update on the upland review, but still the Government insist on a first-come-first-served application process which always disadvantages our poorest farmers. On the uplands, the continued failure to provide support for common land is leaving our most precious landscapes, which make up 25% of the land mass of my constituency in the Lakes and the Dales at the risk of wildfires and biodiversity collapse, while our upland farmers sink into greater poverty. Is the road map not warm words but cold comfort for the uplands?

The review fails to put into practice the recommendations, in any serious way, of the Rock review on farm tenancies. [Interruption.] I will come to a conclusion. Does the Secretary of State not see that if tenants do not have protected long-term tenancies of at least eight years, they will have no chance of meeting the long-term environmental goals? Will she protect tenants from being evicted from their land in order to meet those goals?

Very finally, this is a report—

Thames Water

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I start by associating myself closely with the Secretary of State’s remarks about Jo Cox. It was a privilege to serve alongside her in this place, and we still miss her deeply.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for advance sight of the statement and for the helpful briefing that I received earlier. Since Conservative privatisation more than 35 years ago, some £85 billion of billpayers’ money has flowed out like a torrent into the pockets of mostly overseas shareholders and executives paying themselves unearned bonuses. That money could and should have gone into cleaning up our waterways and modernising infrastructure. Instead, sewage was released into our lakes, rivers and seas for 1.8 million hours last year, and more than 100,000 of those were in the Thames region alone. Some 20% of our water leaks out of its pipes before it even reaches our homes. For Thames Water, the figure is even worse, with 25% of that water wasted.

Now Thames Water’s investors are asking for more time for more opportunity to take money before they inevitably run. The Secretary of State is right, then, that the creditors’ offer is a disgrace. They get to keep making money, and Thames Water billpayers get to pay even more to keep them going, while getting the privilege of seeing long-overdue infrastructure improvements delayed for yet another decade. Thames Water is taking the mickey. The Liberal Democrats say, “No more, and no thanks.”

It is clear that Thames Water has failed in its basic performance as a water company, and that gives the Secretary of State all the reason she needs to place it into special administration, so why is she not doing that instead? Her letter to Ofwat is, I am afraid, a sign of dreadful weakness. She has to beg an equally weak Ofwat to show a resolve that it institutionally lacks. Thames has failed in its performance, so just put it into special administration and migrate the company to a mutually owned model, where the billpayers own the company and call the shots. That way, investment will be made, sewage spills will stop and water leaks will cease. By doing that, she could begin the process whereby all our water companies are owned not by private equity, overseas investors or the sluggish state, but by the people. If she did that, she would win the favour of people from Witney to Windermere. Why does she not stop faffing about and do that instead?

[Emma Reynolds]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, I think, for his support for my statement today, although it was slightly half-hearted. He is right to say that there have been serious pollution incidents in different water companies, but especially in the Thames, and that is of grave concern to the public and to Thames Water’s customers in particular. I point out to him that there are two types of special administration regime. An insolvency SAR is an insolvency process and is for the company directors to determine. A performance SAR would be triggered if a company was in serious breach of its statutory duties or if the company breaches an enforcement order in a way that is so serious that it is inappropriate for the company to retain its licence. The Government stand ready for all eventualities, including a SAR.

Agriculture: Government Support

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 29th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Richard Foord]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to the plight of farmers facing crime. Some police forces do not consider this issue nearly enough. I am glad that in Devon and Cornwall we have a force that is quite alert to rural crime and has a particular focus on it, but I know that in other constituencies and other constabularies, sufficient attention is not paid to rural crime.

On trade, the Liberal Democrats believe that we need a comprehensive agreement with the European Union that guarantees enhanced access for UK food and animal products to the European single market, with minimal needs for checks or documentation.

The second area I want to focus on is the balance of tax and incentives for the farming industry. Government policy is undermining the viability of many of our family farms. Farmers are not seeking to get rich; they dedicate their lives to the intense labour required to manage their farms, and ask for some stability in return—predictable costs, fair taxes and support systems that reward their productivity.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the 4,000 farmers in England who farm on common land, mostly in the uplands, are not able to get any funding at all because the Rural Payments Agency software prevents applications? Does he agree that the Government should change their approach so that farmers in the uplands on common land can make those claims?

[Richard Foord]

If I were an uplands farmer represented by my hon. Friend, I would know that I had a fervent advocate in him. He is right to raise the issue of commoners; I spoke with one last Friday who said that the sustainable farming incentive IT system has yet to be adapted for payments to people who farm on common land. I had the same experience with people who I represent in Luppitt on the Blackdown hills in Devon.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Dame Angela Eagle)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner, for what I think is the first time in Westminster Hall. I congratulate the hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord)—and his crew, I have to say, after that performance—on securing this debate. I thank all Members who have made contributions. We know that farming matters to every constituency because it not only supports rural jobs and communities but produces the food we rely on and underpins our national resilience.

I recognise the pressures many farm businesses face. Input costs can rise quickly and global markets, as we have seen recently, can shift overnight. That uncertainty makes it harder to plan, invest and employ, which is why the approach of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is both long term and practical: stable funding, and simpler, fairer schemes designed to make farming more resilient and sustainable in the future—sustainable both environmentally and financially.

I will first address fertiliser, because I appreciate it is the major input in an arable setting. It is a cost that is a real worry for farmers. Recent market volatility has seen a 40% increase in prices for some fertiliser products and DEFRA is monitoring the impact on agricultural supply chains. We have direct lines open with domestic fertiliser suppliers, commodity traders and farming stakeholders, including the National Farmers’ Union—in fact, I have just been in a meeting with Tom Bradshaw. We all do our bit to meet as many of our farmers and their representatives as possible to know exactly what is going on where, so that it can inform our decision making.

Better information helps farmers make decisions that are up to date with the current situation, which is obviously in great flux. That is why we asked the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board to increase the frequency of fertiliser price reporting, and welcome its move to publish price data weekly, giving farmers more timely and transparent information. We also recently ran a survey to understand how the rise in fertiliser prices and supply issues are impacting our farmers and land managers on the ground. Responses are being reviewed alongside other industry intelligence to guide how we shape future support.

DEFRA’s new nutrient management planning tool is supporting farmers by matching nutrients to crop and soil needs, enabling them to make the most of nutrient sources, reducing their reliance on artificial fertilisers. Over 500 farms have used this since it was launched. We are also consulting and gathering evidence to modernise fertiliser product regulations, improving future supply options and resilience.

The pressures imposed by events in the middle east only underline the importance of increasing the efficiency of fertiliser use. Whether through more effective use of technology or adoption of more sustainable farming practices, we can better equip our farmers and growers to produce food in a more resilient way. The Government stand ready to help farmers do just that, whether through our innovation funds and equipment grants, or our continued shift from area-based subsidy to environmental land management schemes.

[Tim Farron]

I want to press the Minister on the common land issue. She will be aware that the transition has made it very difficult. There are parcels of land in the uplands and the common land that are thousands of hectares, so I understand the problem. Has the Minister thought of having an offline system to allow commoners to bid for funds, so that they can maintain the beauty of our uplands and produce food?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I certainly am well aware that the SFI that we have inherited is not particularly well suited to the uplands. That is why we are doing work with Hilary Cottam to see what we can do to provide a different method of support that is much more community based. I recognise the issue that the hon. Gentleman raises about common land, but I would want to see whether we can make some changes to the higher level schemes, which I think are probably more suited to supporting farmers in that kind of setting. Not everything, all the time, has to go into SFI. I am looking to see whether we can create a more coherent structure for upland farmers and also, obviously, commoners in that circumstance. I am quite happy to keep the hon. Gentleman in touch with how that is going. I am sure that, given that Hilary Cottam is doing some work in his own area, he will be at least as in touch with it as I am.

Fuel is another issue that was raised in the debate. Price spikes can feed straight into farm costs, particularly for those who rely on red diesel. Red diesel continues to benefit from an 80% discount, saving farmers almost £300 million a year. There is also a 5p fuel duty cut in place from March until September. Where concerns have been raised about price transparency, we have raised them with the Competition and Markets Authority, which is monitoring petrol and supply prices closely. Industry bodies have been clear with us that fuel production and imports are continuing across the UK as usual. The Government continue to monitor sales, deliveries and stock levels, and well-established contingency plans exist should they ever be required.

The hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth raised farming schemes and grants. I understand the pressure that the uncertainty we are now facing in the world because of what is happening in the middle east applies to farmers, coming as it does after the impacts of climate change-related extreme weather in recent years, which have damaged harvests. This Government will work with farmers to deliver long-term solutions to the risks of extreme wet and dry weather, and to increase profitability, because when farmers can run profitable businesses, it is good for the whole economy and vital for our food security.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It was so bad. Even I did not mention Chorley market, wonderful though it is.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Only 55% of Britain’s food is produced in Britain, so food security should be a much bigger priority for this Government. Donald Trump’s war in the middle east, Putin’s war on Ukraine and all the other global shocks have not woken up the Government to this, yet England is now the only country in the UK, and the only country in Europe, that does not financially support farmers in producing food. Is that not recklessly foolish, and will the Minister not amend the farm payment scheme to change that?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Local markets are extremely important, particularly for maintaining food supply locally, and I am very interested in seeing what we can do to assist. Most markets are owned and operated by local authorities. I think the Covent Garden Market Authority is the only wholesale market that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs still looks after. I recognise the hon. Member’s comments on food security, but this country is 67% self-sufficient in food at the moment, or 77% if one takes out the produce we cannot grow, such as mangoes and bananas. Nobody is complacent about that, and we are looking at this very closely. The new farming and food partnership board will be looking at it, and the first sector we will look at is horticulture.

Environmental Protection and Biodiversity

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your guidance this afternoon, Sir Roger. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff), who made a fantastic speech.

Some 70% of our land mass in this country is agricultural land. We are achieving nothing for biodiversity if we do not work with the people who work that land. The most damaging thing the Government have done on this issue over the last 12 months—it was indeed 12 months ago—was to close the sustainable farming incentive with no notice whatsoever.

We are pleased that the Secretary of State has announced the reopening of SFI in June, but it is worth bearing in mind that that will only be for up to two months and there is no guarantee, even in the Department’s statement on the issue, that it will last two months. If the money runs out before then, people will be excluded from applying. That means that we are back to first come, first served. Those farmers who are wealthier, who have more time on their hands and who have staff will be able to get in, and smaller farmers, particularly in the uplands areas, will not be able to do so. That will be damaging for biodiversity.

The limitations on the scheme are deeply concerning. They are meant to incentivise farmers to have part of their farm for environmental protection and part of their farm for food production. This is the error that we have been making for the last 40 years—the idea that we either produce food or care for the environment. We absolutely must do both; that is what farmers want to do. I fear that this scheme is wrong-headed.

Some 55% of the food we eat in this country is produced in this country. That is dangerously low given the international situation; this is something we already knew. We need to support farmers not just to care for the environment, but to feed us.

The Government limit the June window to farms up to 50 hectares, which excludes upland farmers on less than minimum wage who farm the commons at the top of mountains. That is foolish. I ask the Minister to rethink. My final word is this: the greenest thing we can do is to keep Britain’s farmers farming to care for our environment.

Independent Water Commission: Final Report

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance, Sir Jeremy. I thank everyone who has taken part in this debate so far, which has been interesting and thoughtful, but especially my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) for securing another really important debate on this broad issue.

As a party, we made this issue the centrepiece of our campaign in the 2024 general election, so all of us on the Liberal Democrat Benches feel that we are here with a mandate to fight for change. It is a joy and a pleasure to work alongside others from all parties in trying to achieve that. It was an honour to meet and present evidence to Sir Jon Cunliffe as he put together his report, and to work with the Minister and others, whom I enjoyed spending time with on the Water (Special Measures) Bill Committee—I suspect a sequel to come, and we all look forward to it.

We all agree that—as the Independent Water Commission’s final report correctly identifies—the system is very badly broken, not only in the performance of water companies but in the basic, deep injustice of a water industry that seems to be self-serving, not serving the community. In 2024, 3.6 million hours of sewage dumping took place in our lakes, rivers and seas. At the same time, Ofwat failed to enforce a single fine over a four-year period.

Water companies are getting collective bonuses worth £20 million in the last full year of data, and yet those are not rewards for success, because only 14% of our rivers are meeting a healthy standard, with more than half a million sewage spills into our waterways just last year. Bills are rising and yet, as we have heard from others, in so many cases a massive chunk of those bills—11% if people live in the United Utilities area in the north-west of England, in my constituency—is going to pay off service debt. In the Thames region, people pay more than 30% of their bill just to service the debt.

While the Government have often taken action to try to ban bonuses, the water companies shamelessly shimmy their way around that. We have heard a couple of examples today already: Southern Water’s chief executive had his pay double to £1.4 million, largely through a two-year, long-term incentive plan; and we heard the outrageous story of the chief executive of Yorkshire Water, paid £1.3 million through the company’s holding company. That is breaking the ban in spirit, and surely in reality, too—certainly in the eyes of our constituents.

In my communities of Westmorland, water matters massively. We are home to Windermere, Ullswater, Coniston, Grasmere and Rydal Water, and to many rivers, but from the Eea to the Eden, from the Crake to the Kent, last year alone we had 5,000 sewage discharge incidents and 55,000 hours of raw sewage pumped into our rivers, lakes and coastal areas. The commission has mostly been on the money, so to speak, when it has assessed the problem. This is an industry that performs appallingly on the pollution of our waterways, and it behaves appallingly in response to its own failure.

We agree with much of what is in the final report. We agree with having a single regulator, for which the Liberal Democrats have been calling for years. We should merge Ofwat, the regulatory parts of the Environment Agency, and others to create a powerful regulator that the water companies will actually be afraid of, and that the public respect. We would call it the clean water authority. We hope that the Government will copy our homework further.

Some failures and submissions, however, we are deeply concerned about. The Government fail to grasp that while stronger regulation is really important, ownership is also important. The failure of Thames Water, a cause which my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) champions—as do many others—is an outrage, but it is also a massive opportunity for the Government to use the special administration regime and move that company into a mutual form of ownership, so that it is owned by its customers. That could create a new model of ownership for the whole industry—one that leverages capital investment to ensure that environmental and social concerns, and clean water, are absolutely at the pinnacle of the purpose of those companies, not rapacious profiteering.

Such a model would provide the opportunity for water campaigners and environmental groups to find their way on to those boards. In my community, there is the Save Windermere campaign, the Clean River Kent campaign, the Eden Rivers Trust and the South Cumbria Rivers Trust, but citizens, societies and volunteers across all of our constituencies would have a part to play in those new, mutually-owned water companies. That would make a difference.

The Government have made no attempt, either in the White Paper or through the report, to look at the problem with volume that we are all concerned about. We often talk about the number of hours of discharge into our lakes, rivers and seas, and that is an important measurement, but the reason we mention that and not volume is because we are not allowed to know the volume. The Liberal Democrats believe passionately that volume should also be measured, but the water companies do not want that, which is a reason to ensure that we force it to happen.

On bathing waters, the Government should have a mandate to end the sewage dumping in bathing sites by 2030, and we should be testing them throughout the year and more regularly—not just the often inaccurate snapshots that we have at the moment. On bonuses, we call for the law to be strengthened further, so that water company bosses cannot carry on dodging losing their bonuses via the back door.

The commission’s final report rightly identifies many of the problems that our constituents believe are serious and need to be addressed. However, while it contains many worthwhile proposals, such as a united regulator, it does not face up to the desperate and obvious need for a transformation of the ownership model, for deeper and stronger regulations, and for a bonus ban that actually bans bonuses.

When Water UK, the industry body that represents the water companies, comes out as it did to endorse the Government’s approach to water reform, that is all the proof we need that this Government’s approach continues to be, I am afraid, a bit wet. We need a plan for a radical transformation of the water industry, but so far, I am sad to say, this is not it.

Animal Welfare Strategy for England

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance this morning, Ms Lewell. I pay tribute to all the speakers, including those who have come here with much to say but have not managed to get in in this debate. I feel for them— I have been there. I offer a massive thank you to the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett) who led the debate with real distinction and great passion. She made an important series of points, many of them followed up with her own examples.

How we treat animals is an indicator of whether we can even call ourselves a civilised or humane society. Overall in the UK I think we treat animals relatively well. We are a nation of animal lovers. That is what we call ourselves and mostly that is true. Some 84% of us, for example, consider animal welfare when we act as consumers and buy food. Animals are sentient, but they do not have agency, although I can neither confirm nor deny that the size of our majority in Westmorland is down to the fact that we extended the franchise to certain woolly residents. Herdwicks are, after all, rugged individualists and are thus part of the core Liberal vote.

But animals do not get to decide how humane we are. That is for us to choose. We can choose to protect the culture and practices of how we care for wildlife, pets and livestock and not, for example, undermine those practices by undercutting our ethical British farmers with products from overseas produced in less than humane conditions.

The Government are doing some things right—it is important to acknowledge that. They are choosing to ban cages for laying hens and farrowing crates for pigs by 2032, but the strategy fails to adequately consider domestic food security and competitiveness, which are crucial to maintaining and extending our strong animal welfare culture in the UK.

If the Government propose raising domestic animal welfare standards further, which they rightly do, they must also take steps to ensure consumers are protected from imported food products that can be produced to lower standards. British farmers should not be asked to compete with imports produced at those lower standards, which would be illegal if they were produced here in the UK, and yet they are being asked to do so.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

We have seen reports about the US suspending the technology prosperity deal with the UK in an effort to force the Government to accept lower-standard imports in order to secure a trade deal with the US. Does my hon. Friend agree that these bully-boy tactics by the Trump Administration should not be kowtowed to, and we should not accept lower standards in return for a trade deal with the US?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Farron]

Of course. What is the point in having these standards if we give them away to those who put us under extreme pressure? I completely agree with my hon. Friend and urge the Government to take the same position.

We are seeing the UK outsourcing its egg and pig production abroad, to lower standards—it has already begun. In 2024, the UK imported 109,644 tonnes of eggs, equivalent to the output of approximately 8.5 million layer hens. The previous Labour Government banned sow stalls in 1999, and this Government are now proposing to phase out farrowing crates, yet in the last year the UK imported just shy of 600,000 tonnes of pork—6.4 million pigs—mostly from countries where these practices remain, and are likely to remain for some time, utterly legal.

More than 90% of UK citizens believe that UK animal welfare standards should apply to imports, and so do I. The UK needs to protect those high welfare standards, for ethical reasons of protecting animal welfare but also to ensure that we do not harm our domestic agriculture industry and therefore reduce our food security even further. Farmers in Cumbria and across the whole United Kingdom are vital to food security. It is time we listened to them and made Government a help, not a hindrance. It is not right to put them in a position where they are forced to compete with cheaper, less ethically produced imported food.

I am a free trade liberal, but free trade is not free if it is not fair. We need a level playing field, especially on animal welfare practices. It is right that we celebrate Britain’s high animal welfare standards, but we should do more than just celebrate them—we should put our public money where our public mouths are. Public sector procurement policy should ensure that the majority of food we purchase comes from the UK, because buying British is not just patriotic; it is the surest way we can know that the food we eat will be ethically farmed. Across the 1,600 farms in Westmorland and Lonsdale, farmers take great pride in the high animal welfare standards they implement. The Government need to recognise and reward that.

The Liberal Democrats will not punish farmers by importing animal products with low welfare standards. Sadly, the Government continue to do that. On 9 January, the Government lifted reinforced import controls on consignments of beef, poultry meat, meat products and meat preparations exported from Brazil to Great Britain. That change means that Brazilian shipments will no longer be subject to the additional checks that were previously imposed, reducing inspection intensity. That is clearly a backwards step.

The Liberal Democrats have a clear vision for how we would tackle these issues more broadly. Trade deals must never undercut UK animal welfare. We will sign a veterinary and phytosanitary agreement with the EU, restoring co-operation and alignment on food and welfare standards. We will ban the import of food produced with antibiotic growth promoters and ensure that no product illegal to produce in Britain can be sold here, and we will support farmers directly to help them lead the world in high standards of animal husbandry. Because animal welfare matters to us, we would ensure that the regulatory and economic levers that Government can pull will be used to not just protect Britain’s high welfare standards but advance them further.

The animal welfare strategy, welcome though it is, must be far more comprehensive in scope, recognising that our approach to trade, public procurement and our domestic economy can have huge impacts on improving or worsening the collective welfare of animals. I urge the Government to be fully aware of those impacts and learn from the failure of the last Government, whose rush for politically convenient trade deals led them to throw our farmers and our animal welfare standards under the bus.

Water (Special Measures) Act 2025: Enforcement

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is as privilege to serve under your guidance, Dr Allin-Khan. I say a big thank you to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon) for securing this debate and leading it so ably. I also make a little apology to my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) for clearing my throat while he was speaking. I was not doing so to make him shut up and sit down—I am not the Speaker. I genuinely had a frog in my throat.

I remember the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 well. I genuinely enjoyed being on the Bill Committee with Members here and others. There are lots of good things in it, but overall the Liberal Democrat view was that it felt like incremental change when more radical reform was needed. All the same, it included some real positives, including provision to ban bonuses for the senior executives of failing water companies. Yet, as we have heard from multiple sources, water companies are now making a mockery of that legislation.

We have heard about some of those already, but let me run through some examples. Southern Water’s chief exec’s pay has doubled to £1.4 million via a “two-year long-term incentive plan”. Wessex Water’s chief exec and chief financial officer both got an extra £50,000 undisclosed from its parent company. As we have heard, Thames Water tried it on—21 senior managers were set to be paid a total of £2.46 million in retention payments. In perhaps the most explicit example, as set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough, the chief executive of Yorkshire Water received £1.3 million from the holding company, Kelda Holdings.

Those are clear and obvious examples of water companies trying to perhaps abide by the letter of the law, if they can get away with it, while completely and utterly flouting the spirit of it. It is totally predictable. Outrageously, Ofwat have either signed off many of these cases or just shimmied and said, “None of our business. We’ve got no powers to do it”—a reminder that it is high time it was abolished and replaced with a more powerful regulator.

[Mr Carmichael]

Thames Water first paid out bonuses it said it would not recoup, and has subsequently said only that the payment of bonuses is paused. My hon. Friend knows that I am a nasty, suspicious and cynical person, but I am pretty sure the senior management, the chief executive and the chair of that company are heading for the door one way or another at some stage. I suspect that one of their last acts before they leave the office will be to press “pay” on those bonuses. Does my hon. Friend agree that if that happens, we can agree that whatever the good intentions behind the Water (Special Measures) Act, they simply have not worked, and we need to build a consensus on how to regulate these things more effectively?

[Tim Farron]

My right hon. Friend is neither nasty nor cynical; he knows Thames Water only too well. Well intentioned though the Act may be, it is clearly full of holes, and the water company chief executives and others are finding ways through them.

We contrast all of that with the fact that in 2024—the last time we had comprehensive figures—the water companies between them dumped sewage in our waterways for a duration of 3.6 million hours. My patch of Westmorland is now the third hardest-hit constituency in England for duration of sewage spills. In 2024 alone, there were over 5,000 sewage discharge incidents, amounting to more than 55,000 hours of raw sewage released into our rivers and lakes, from the Eden to the Eea and from the Kent to the Crake. In just the first 20—no, 19 and a half—days of 2026, there have already been 424 hours of sewage discharge into Westmorland’s precious waterways.

At the same time, water companies across the country are shamelessly slithering around the bonus ban. Their bonuses and dividends are being paid, for the most part, by bill payers. Indeed, water companies are wading in colossal debt, often incurred to pay those bonuses and dividends. In just 2024, £1.2 billion was paid out in dividends, mostly out of debt. In my communities in Westmorland, 11p out of every pound we pay on our water bills goes just to finance debt. Thames Water is even worse: customers are paying over 30p in the pound simply to service the company’s debts.

My message to industry leaders is this: bonuses are meant to be paid to folks who do a good job. If you are leading a company that actively pollutes our lakes, rivers and seas, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you are not doing a good job.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is right to discuss the problems of sewage in our waterways, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) and I, and the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies), have all experienced in recent weeks, it is not just about sewage in waterways; it is about freshwater supply. Does my hon. Friend agree that the chief executive of South East Water should also go for failing to deliver tap water to our taps?

[Tim Farron]

I imagine that that is item 1—indeed, probably items 1 to 6—on the job description. If they cannot fulfil that obligation, then go they should.

The Government brought in the Act to stop bonuses like this being paid, but they are clearly not effectively enforcing that ban in practice. Although I am critical of the Government, my main criticism is reserved for the water company bosses themselves, who have the nerve to go looking for ways to get around the bonus ban to enrich themselves, often out of bill payers’ money. I tell water industry bosses this: your customers see you, our constituents see you and your hard-working frontline employees see you. Your authority is diminished because your integrity is diminished. That proves the Liberal Democrats right: we need far more radical change in our water industry.

So we come to the White Paper released by the Government this week. Having rejected our 44 amendments to what is now the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, the Government soon conceded that they needed to do more and launched the independent commission into the water sector, chaired by Sir Jon Cunliffe. The commission reported last July, and this week’s White Paper draws from its report. It is meant to be a step towards a more far-reaching water Bill, perhaps in the coming parliamentary Session, and there are welcome elements in the Government’s trailing of it. For example, it is good that they want to borrow the Liberal Democrats’ plan for a single unified regulator to bring financial and environmental oversight together.

I want quickly to add to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and others that the Drinking Water Inspectorate is doing a good job. We should not level it down to the level of the rest of the regulatory sector, but level the sector up to the inspectorate’s level.

It is good that the Government want to make regulation more proactive through the work of a chief engineer. However, the disaster in Kent and Sussex over the water supply, the financial failure of Thames Water, the failure of all water companies to prevent sewage dumping and the decision of water industry leaders to stick two fingers up to bill payers and Parliament by dodging the bonus ban all tell us that we will never solve this crisis while we maintain the current ownership model. The Liberal Democrats demand that our water companies be transitioned to being mutually owned public benefit companies, so that money raised in the water industry is reinvested in our infrastructure, and the main motivation is not the profiteering of people who are often probably not even resident in this country, but the quality of our water supply and sewage removal systems and the benefit to the customer. We are therefore bitterly disappointed that the Government have no plans to change the ownership model at all. As a result, the White Paper looks like yet another missed opportunity.

Water UK has welcomed the White Paper, which ought to really worry the Government because it is the water companies’ trade body. Of course it is delighted that the Government continue to protect the water companies from the fullest scrutiny. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Liz Jarvis) pointed out, we are measuring the duration, not the volume, of sewage. I said that sewage was dumped for 3.6 million hours in 2024, and that is all I can say, because the duration of spills is all we are allowed to know, but the volume of sewage going into our waterways is surely even more significant. There can be long trickle or a swift deluge, yet the Government refuse to enforce the measurement of volume, despite Liberal Democrat amendments to the Bill that would have allowed them to do that.

It feels like the Government, in failing to enforce the 2025 Act and stand up to the water companies in their new water White Paper, are content merely to make tentative steps to be better than the dismal record of their Tory predecessors—which is not a high bar. The British people need this Government to be a lot more than just a bit better than the Conservatives. They need radical reform of this failed ownership model and of inadequate regulations and enforcement. The Liberal Democrats will offer that reform.

Future of Thames Water

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance this afternoon, Mrs Harris. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) for securing the debate, for leading it so brilliantly and for standing up for her community so well for so many years.

I also pay tribute to those who have contributed to the debate from all sides, but I am bound to observe the concentration of Liberal Democrat Members present, which shows how well we as a group stand up for our communities—particularly those labouring under the yoke of Thames Water, which is, as has been demonstrated, a failing company, both financially and in its primary mission to serve its customers. But in truth, this debate is about more than one failing company; it is about whether a vital public service is to be run in the interests of customers, communities and the environment, or whether the public will once again be left to pick up the bill for corporate failure while the Government fail to grasp the opportunity to make lasting changes.

Thames Water provides an essential service that none of its 16 million customers—those it is meant to serve—can opt out of. It is staggering that a company so central to public health, environmental protection and the decent stewardship of such a vital resource now stands on the brink of collapse. Thames Water is currently operating with more than £17 billion in debt, which it admits that it cannot repay. Around one third of every customer’s bill on average goes not towards fixing leaks or upgrading infrastructure, but towards servicing that debt. Much of Thames Water’s borrowing has paid for undeserved bonuses and dividends, while its infrastructure literally crumbles. That happened under the nose of the previous Conservative Government and the pitifully weak regulatory system that they created.

At the same time, customers have faced bill increases of up to 40%—indeed more, it would appear, in some circumstances. And what have customers received in return? Polluted rivers, record sewage spills and chronic under-investment. The Government’s own data confirms that sewage was pumped into the waterways of this country for more than 3.6 million hours in 2024 alone, while shareholders received £1.2 billion in dividends as a reward for that failure.

Thames Water alone was responsible for 300,000 hours of raw sewage pouring into rivers and streams. In May, the company was fined £122.7 million for breaching rules on sewage spills and on shareholder payouts. But for customers and communities who have already paid the price, that fine came far too late. The company now survives only because of emergency funding from its creditors—funding that will soon run out. The US private equity giant KKR has walked away from plans to buy Thames Water, meaning that the company is surely at the end of the road.

The question is no longer whether the current model has failed—it plainly has—but who should bear the cost of that failure, and what should happen next. For Liberal Democrats, the answer is obvious: the Government must bite the bullet and make those who are culpable pay the price. A well-planned special administration would allow much of Thames Water’s unsustainable debt to be written off and put the company on a stable financial footing while protecting essential services.

Administration must be a means to an end, not the end itself. We want Thames Water to emerge as a fundamentally different organisation, mutually owned by its 16 million customers. That should be the beginning of a wider transformation of our water industry, which could then begin to migrate to a new, public benefit model of ownership where water quality, supply and competent administration come first, instead of the amoral profiteering we have seen across the sector for the last 35 years.

This crisis also exposes a wider failure of regulation. The Independent Water Commission, which reported last summer, laid bare a system that allows companies to pollute and profit with effective impunity. Liberal Democrats have been clear for years that Ofwat should be scrapped and replaced with a tough new clean water authority that brings together financial and environmental regulation. Our current regulators are too weak, understaffed and fragmented; these huge water companies run rings around them and play them off against one another. Bring the regulators together and give them more power; let us have a regulator that the water companies actually fear.

We want strict limits on dividends and bonuses, binding targets to end sewage discharges, consistent national social tariffs, and serious investment in smart metering and infrastructure. We have led the fight, both in Parliament and in our communities, against the sewage scandal. My hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) and I tabled 44 amendments to the Water (Special Measures) Bill earlier in this Parliament, and we look forward to doing the same with a new Bill, so when can we expect that new Bill? When will we get the water White Paper that we were promised before Christmas and are still waiting for? Will the Bill be in the King’s Speech?

I am not from the Thames Water region, but our communities in Westmorland stand in solidarity, sympathy and empathy with the customers of Thames Water. Water is deeply personal to us. We are the wettest place in England, which is fine because we have to keep all our lakes topped up—the lakes and rivers that define our landscape, provide water for our region and underpin our ecology.

[Carolyn Harris (in the Chair)]

Order. I call the shadow Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Thursday 18th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

If farm profitability is so important to the Government, I find it utterly peculiar that the review was released only today as a written statement at the last minute. It is an insult to this House and indeed the excellent Baroness Batters herself.

England is now the only country in the United Kingdom, and indeed in Europe, that does not provide financial support to its farmers. England’s farmers, therefore, have been uniquely abandoned by this Government, by their Conservative predecessor and by those whose madcap ideology took us out of Europe without any kind of a plan. Will the Secretary of State tell us whether food security will be counted as a public good, as the Liberal Democrats propose, and funded through environmental land management schemes? When will the SFI be reopened, and how much money will be in it? Will she ensure that this time the money does not mostly go to the wealthiest, as the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) just referred to, and when will she stop making English farmers the worst supported in the whole of Europe?

[Emma Reynolds]

The hon. Member asked a number of good questions. I have said that the new iteration of the SFI will be out in the first half of next year. My hon. Friend the Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs and I are looking very carefully at how we get this right, and I can reassure the hon. Member that we are looking at the distributional analysis on who is getting these schemes at the moment. We do want to make it easier for smaller farms to gain access to the schemes—I can reassure him on that.