No Renationalisation: Labour Shadow Minister Explains Why
This anger and frustration was shared by the Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Steve Reed MP, who paid a visit to Hastings and Rye last Thursday (23 November). He was in the constituency along with Labour’s Parliamentary candidate, Helena Dollimore to meet with local residents and business owners who had been directly affected by the recent flooding and water outages.
Speaking exclusively with the Hastings Independent Press, Mr Reed said it was clear that the water industry and its regulatory framework were in urgent need of reform. He said much tougher regulation was needed to fix the wider problems in the water industry. Southern Water’s abject record and the seemingly never-ending litany of failures by the company across Hastings and Rye in recent years was evidence, he said, of a “regulatory framework that was broken”. Both business and private customers “have been badly let down”.
The privatised water companies, he said, “had a local monopoly of a service we all need” and they have to ensure that they have measures in place to respond to public concerns, particularly during emergencies. There needs to be much better communication with customers about what is happening when there are water outages, flooding, or sewage discharges. In particular, he said the water companies needed to be “much more visible” in areas affected to explain what is happening rather than relying on posting updates on websites and social media
He said a future Labour Government would require water companies to significantly upgrade their emergency response measures when water supplies were turned off to include such basic measures as immediate and local access to bottled water. This was in direct response to the ordeal experienced by customers in Rye who, during the most recent outage, waited up to seven days to be given supplies of bottled water. This is “unacceptable”, he said.
When challenged as to why Labour has ruled out the renationalisation of the privatised water companies – a policy proposed by the Green Party – the Shadow Environment Secretary insisted that “renationalisation would not solve the problem”. Based on current financial estimates, he said renationalisation would cost the taxpayer up to £80 billion. This was money that “would have to be stripped away from other public services, such as schools, hospitals and transport budgets. He also said renationalisation would engulf a new government in a legal quagmire which would take at least four or five years to resolve. In that time “the problems with stinking, toxic sewage lapping up on our rivers, lakes, and seas would get worse”, as the companies “would not invest to fix the problems”.
The next Labour Government, Mr Reed said, would put the water companies on special measures. These would include the compulsory monitoring of every water outlet and the constant checking of sewage levels. There would be “instant and severe fines for every illegal discharge” and a streamlined appeal process to ensure water companies “could not delay having to pay fines”.
In addition, he said water bosses would “face personal criminal charges” if they allowed their companies to illegally dump sewage on a regular basis. They would also “lose bonuses if their companies are failing to the extent that has been seen recently”.
He said the last year had seen the “highest illegal discharges in our history” and “this cannot go on”. The next Labour Government “will start to fix this problem straight away and not wait four or five years to unravel the ownership model before taking action”.
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