There is widespread media coverage today following the announcement of a planned protest on water pollution, the ‘March for Clean Water'.
Campaigners are calling on the government to overhaul the water sector by reforming the regulatory system, to address illegal sewage dumping and end all other forms of water pollution.
The government has been clear that the water sector requires fundamental reform and while this will take time, the work of cleaning up our waterways has already begun. In his first week, the Secretary of State for Environment Food and Rural Affairs Steve Reed announced a series of immediate steps towards protecting consumers and ending the crisis in the water sector. These included:
- Ringfencing investment so it can only be spent on upgrades to infrastructure benefiting customers and the environment - and never diverted for bonuses, dividends or salary increases.
- Doubling compensation for households and businesses when their water services are affected.
- Consumers gaining new powers to hold water company bosses to account through powerful new customer panels.
At the State Opening of Parliament on 17 July, the new Water (Special Measures) Bill was announced, which we intend to pass into law by the end of this year. This legislation will give the water regulator new powers to ban the payment of bonuses if environmental standards are not met and ensure water bosses face personal criminal liability for lawbreaking. It will also introduce new powers for regulators to bring automatic and severe fines for wrongdoing and require real-time monitors to be installed at every sewage outlet.
A Defra spokesperson said:
We share the public’s anger on this issue and have taken immediate steps to reverse the tide on the unacceptable destruction of our waterways.
Our Water Bill will include new powers to ban bonuses and bring criminal charges against law breakers. This is just the first step in our wider reform of the sector.
This Government will never look the other way while water companies pump record levels of sewage into our rivers, lakes and seas.
6 comments
Comment by Mrs Pamela Neil posted on
Promising words. Let see the impact of these. Those “immediate steps” should start today, and not after long drawn out wrangling over when, or even if, any company, it’s board, or shareholders, should be made to give up their bonuses. JUST STOP BONUSES NOW. MAKE THEM PAY FOR POLLUTING OUR WATERWAYS.
Comment by Christina Aitken posted on
I am pleased to learn that water companies will receive severe punishment but fining is not always good, there must be punishment to the shareholders themselves and/or get the water companies back in to our ownership
Comment by Franklin T Hall posted on
Believe it when l see it...take ALL utilities back into public ownership.
Comment by Julie Houldershaw posted on
Until the government starts to really get too know the truth about about our underinvested sewage system, progress can not be made. Ofwat needs to be given powers to ensure that all water companies provide a list of all sewage treatment plants capacities along with a list of all domestic and commercial customers on each. This list will then need to be taken into account when any new builds are considered, and when looking at price increases.
I have started a petition to try and get Ofwat to take this on board.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/public-register-of-sewage-treatment-plants-capacities
Comment by alan wightman posted on
Then we can expect Water Companies to be severely punished without any kind of `coming to a settlement´ or part of fines being off-set by agreeing to make a `donation´to charity as in our case, Northumbria Water in the past,
Don´t `dilute´ the punishments as they will inevitably break the law to reduce costs and serve their shareholders.
Comment by Michael Hughes posted on
So DEFRA share the public's anger. So why was it's performance so abject in the previous 14 years of Conservative governance?