Reports of illegal spills in rivers are unfortunately all too common, and increasingly the public is calling for Government to hold private water companies to account. Unsurprisingly, this issue is covered in all of the major parties’ manifestos.
Hints and suggestions for fixes generally fall into two camps across the four major parties: (1) business-as-usual ‘polluter pays’ solutions, or 2) the more drastic approach of changing the private ownership models currently used by English water companies.
Labour’s headline is “Water companies forced to clean up our rivers… put failing water companies under special measures”. The Conservative byline states, “…working with the regulator to hold companies to account”. The Green Party’s promise is to “End the scandal of sewage pouring into our rivers and seas by taking the water companies back into public ownership”, while the Liberal Democrat proposal states “transforming water companies into public benefit companies… replacing Ofwat with a tough new regulator with new powers to prevent sewage dumps."
Labour and the Conservatives propose similar approaches to dealing with illegal sewage spills, with emphasis on financial mechanisms like blocking bosses’ bonuses and more effective mechanisms to impose fines. Both also suggest changes to regulators and improved monitoring. All seem like sticking plasters, especially considering the current situation with Thames Water, where leniency for current fines has been suggested as one (of many) mechanisms to avoid the company’s collapse. The Greens are looking to the approach used in Scotland, the Lib Dems to Wales. Scottish Water is a state-owned entity and Welsh Water is a not-for-profit, no shareholder company.
The “business as usual – but better” approaches of the Labour and Conservatives may have some traction if OfWat (England’s Water Sector financial regulator) and OEP, DEFRA, and the EA (England’s environmental regulating bodies) can move towards ensuring water companies make needed infrastructure investments, and the EA monitors in a more spatially and temporally appropriate manner. However, in England water companies are evidently more beholden to their investor rather than their customers and the current debt issues are mainly related to paying shareholder dividends. The current Government has failed to prevent pollution spills so it is best to be sceptical that “special measures” or “working with the regulator” can be effective at ending this situation quickly - especially given other pressing issues like impending drinking water scarcities and meeting net zero targets.
Reforming English water company ownership shows promise. Looking to Scotland or Wales could provide successful models to emulate. However, there are major hurdles and the elephant in the room is that England’s privatised water sector is in debt to a tune of >£60 billion. To fully nationalise water companies would require hard decisions; the current issues with Thames Water highlight these. Another fact to consider is that both the Scottish and Welsh companies have faced scrutiny recently for extensive sewage spills, which unfortunately suggests that regardless of water company business models, sewage will continue to flow into English, Welsh, and Scottish rivers without significant action.
Of course, river pollution is just one environmental issue voters need to consider when we go to the polls in July. It is vital to consider how other key issues interact with the future of our rivers. The need for more housing requires more water and wastewater infrastructure… will this be adding pressures to an already failing system? Net zero targets require substantial changes for all industries and water companies are no exception. Unfortunately, the only thing that is clear here is this issue is as murky as our polluted rivers - which will continue to be degraded without major economic and environmental reforms.