Independent Water Commission

Before I call the Secretary of State to make his statement, I place on the record the fact that Mr Speaker and the Deputy Speakers were disappointed to see extensive coverage in the media this morning of Ministers’ responses to the Independent Water Commission, before the House has had the opportunity to consider the matter. It would be nice to think that the normal courtesies will be resumed.

16:31:00

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have, of course, saved the bulk of my responses for you and the House this afternoon. With permission, I would like to update the House on the Government’s plans to reform the water sector. The water industry is clearly failing. Our rivers, lakes and seas are polluted with record levels of sewage, and water pipes have been left to crumble into disrepair. I share customers’ fury at rising bills. Right now, hosepipe bans are in place across the country because not a single new reservoir has been built in over 30 years, and the lack of water infrastructure is blocking economic growth. Water companies have been allowed to profit at the expense of the British people when they should have been investing to fix our broken water pipes. They got away with this because of a broken regulatory system that has failed both customers and the environment. The public expressed their fury in last year’s general election and voted for change. That change will now come. In just one year, we have put in place the building blocks for change. First, we restored accountability by giving the regulators more teeth and introducing a ban on unfair bonuses, severe and automatic penalties for breaking the law, and jail sentences for the most serious offences. Secondly, we are investing £104 billion of private sector funding to rebuild the water network, upgrading crumbling pipes, repairing leaks, building new sewage treatment works and digging out new reservoirs. It is the single biggest investment in the history of the water sector, and it allows me to make a new commitment to the country: this Government will cut water companies’ sewage pollution in half by the end of the decade. That is the most ambitious commitment ever made by any Government about water pollution, and it is just the start. Over a decade of national renewal, we will restore our rivers, lakes and seas to good health. The third building block for change is today’s final report from Sir Jon Cunliffe’s Independent Water Commission. I express my thanks to Sir Jon, his officials, and all those who have contributed to this outstanding piece of work. I agree with Sir Jon that water regulation has been too weak, too complex, and ineffective. Having four separate regulators with overlapping and conflicting remits has failed both customers and the environment. Ofwat has failed to protect customers from water companies’ mismanagement of their hard-earned money, and it has failed to protect our waterways from record levels of pollution. Today, I can announce that this Labour Government will abolish Ofwat. We will bring water functions from four different regulators into one—a single powerful super-regulator responsible for the entire water sector, with the teeth it needs to enforce the high standards that the public rightly demand. The new regulator will stand firmly on the side of customers, investors and the environment and prevent the abuses of the past. For customers, it will oversee investment and upgrade work, so that hard-working British families are never again hit by the shocking bill hikes that we saw last year as customers were left to pay the price of failure by the previous Government. For investors, it will provide the clarity and direction required for a strong partnership between Government, the sector and investors to attract billions of pounds of new funding. For the environment, it will reduce all forms of pollution to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas for good. We will work closely with the Welsh Government to devolve the economic regulation of water to Wales. I will publish a White Paper this autumn giving the Government’s full response to the Independent Water Commission’s final report and launching a consultation on it. Following that, I will bring forward a new water reform Bill early in the lifetime of this Parliament. Ofwat will remain in place during the transition to the new regulator, and I will ensure that it provides the right leadership to oversee the current price review and investment plan during that time. To provide clarity during this period, I will issue an interim strategic policy statement to Ofwat and give ministerial directions to the Environment Agency setting out our expectations and requirements. We will publish a transition plan as part of our full Government response in the autumn. Today, we are immediately taking forward a number of Sir Jon’s recommendations. First, we will establish a new statutory water ombudsman—a single, free service to help customers resolve complaints such as incorrect bills, leaking pipes or water supply failures. The new ombudsman will have the legal powers to protect customers and will bring the water dispute resolution process in line with other utilities, such as energy. It is part of the Government’s ambition to put customers at the heart of water regulation. Secondly, we will end the era of water companies marking their own homework. We will end operator self-monitoring and transition to open monitoring to increase transparency and help restore public trust. Water companies are already required to publish data on some sewage spills within one hour. We will roll out real-time monitoring across the wastewater system, and all this data will be made publicly available online. That will ensure that the regulator and, importantly, the public have the power to hold water companies fully accountable. Thirdly, we commit to including a regional element within the new regulator to ensure greater local involvement in water planning. By moving to a catchment-based model for water system planning, we can tackle all sources of pollution entering waterways, so that they can be cleaned up more effectively and more quickly. This will ensure—for the first time—that water infrastructure investment plans align with spatial planning to support faster regional economic growth. The lack of water infrastructure that held back development around Cambridge and Oxford for so long will not happen again. The new regulatory framework will recognise the risks investors take and, if they meet their obligations, they will see a fair, stable return on their investment. Just last week, I signed the Government’s new water skills pledge to make sure that the sector has the skills and workforce it needs to deliver this vast investment. This Labour Government were elected to clean up water pollution and ensure that unacceptable bill hikes can never happen again. We now have all the building blocks in place to make that happen. We are establishing a new partnership based on effective regulation, where water companies, investors, communities and the Government will work together to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas for good.

I call the shadow Minister.

16:39:00

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. I shall be responding on behalf of the shadow Secretary of State while she meets farmers at the Royal Welsh Show. Let me begin by recognising the scale and seriousness of the work undertaken by Sir Jon Cunliffe and his team. The review contains 460 pages and 88 recommendations, and represents one of the most detailed examinations of the water sector since privatisation. Indeed, there is much in it that we cautiously welcome, including the merger of the regulators. As we examine the recommendations in more detail, we stand ready to support serious reform if it is done properly. However, I am afraid that what we have seen and heard from the Secretary of State over the past year has not matched the seriousness of Sir Jon Cunliffe’s work, nor has it gone anywhere near the root-and-branch radical reform that he sold to voters before the election. I therefore seek clarity from him on the following points. First, over the weekend the Secretary of State announced that Labour would cut sewage spills by 50% by 2030, but what he did not mention was the fact that plans submitted under the last Conservative Government were already set to cut sewage spills by even more than that amount. The Times reported yesterday that the Secretary of State’s new pledge would actually see an additional 20,000 discharges of sewage in our rivers, compared with existing plans. Can the Secretary of State explain why, after 88 recommendations and a year-long review of the sector, he has watered down sewage reduction targets rather than massively ramping them up? Secondly, the Secretary of State took to the airwaves at the weekend telling the public that we needed to go back to the “purity” of our waters that we all remember, but the uncomfortable truth for which Labour still refuses to take responsibility is that when it left office in 2010, just 7% of storm overflows were monitored. Let me repeat that: under Blair and Brown, 93% of sewage discharges were happening with no oversight and no accountability whatsoever. The only reason we can talk tough today is the fact that the last Government pushed monitoring to 100% in 2023. May I therefore ask the Secretary of State to clarify his statement? Thirdly, the Secretary of State told the public that he had secured £104 billion of investment from the water sector to fund these reductions, but what he did not mention was that £93 billion of that investment plan had already been submitted by water companies in October 2023, nine months before he was even in office. I would know that because I was the Minister at the time, and I have here the letter showing that he had nothing to do with it. Will he comment on that? Fourthly, the Secretary of State champions the 81 criminal investigations of water companies that have taken place since the election and his ban on water company bosses’ bonuses, but what he does not explain is that these criminal investigations are a direct result of the Conservatives’ policy of quadrupling the number of water company inspections, and that it was our party that launched the ban on bosses’ bonuses. This is all available for the public to see and to fact-check for themselves, as it is a matter of public record. What all this shows is that, for all their bluster and promises of radical change, the Government have made almost no new progress on the issue over the past year. They have sat on their hands for more than a year waiting for the review. It is no wonder that the campaigners whom the Secretary of State so shamelessly used for votes in the run-up to the last general election are now, today, calling for his resignation. We on this side of the House stand ready to work with the Government on serious reform. We will support any action that genuinely holds water companies to account, delivers cleaner waters and protects the public from paying the price of corporate failure. However, we will not stand by while the Secretary of State rewrites history, waters down ambition, and backtracks on the promises that he made to the public.

I thank the hon. Gentleman—I think—for his comments, but it is disappointing that the shadow Secretary of State did not consider a matter of this urgency to be important enough for her to show up in the Chamber this afternoon. I am afraid that that really does reflect the importance that their party ascribed to this issue during the 14 years in which it was in power. I enjoy listening to the hon. Gentleman, but I am afraid that he sounded a little delusional this afternoon. If he really thinks that the Conservatives did so well on sewage, I wonder why he thinks sewage pollution in our waterways increased every single year during their 14 years in charge. The fact is that the Conservatives made the situation far worse, because they instructed the regulator to apply a light touch when they should have told it to get a grip. They stripped out resources from the regulator, reducing its resources by 50% at one point, so it was less able to enforce against sewage pollution. They allowed millions of pounds, if not billions, to be diverted away from investment and to be used instead for unjustified bonuses and dividends for water companies. It is this Government who have secured £104 billion of investment to upgrade our water system. It is this Government who have banned the unfair bonuses that water bosses were taking. It is this Government who are introducing monitoring of all sewage outlets. And it is this Government who are going to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas, where the previous Government failed abysmally.

My constituents will be very pleased with what the Government have announced today, following 14 years of seeing increases in the dumping of sewage on the beaches, and in the rivers, in my constituency. I could not help but notice that yesterday the leader of Reform, in his answer to every question, said either “I don’t know” or “I’ve no idea.” Of course, he is not here either, but he did say that his answer to this problem is to increase payments to the shareholders and to do absolutely nothing to deal with the problems in our water industry. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, during his time as Secretary of State, he will make it his priority to ensure that we reduce the sewage being dumped in our rivers, on our beaches and in our lakes?

I was, of course, on the television show in question with the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage). I think he told us six times that he had no idea—well, that much we knew. It is this Government who have a plan to clean up our waterways. We have put in place the building blocks for change, and that allows me to stand before this House and commit that by 2030 we will reduce sewage pollution from water companies by 50% as we move towards a decade of national renewal in order to clean up our waterways for good.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement, and Sir Jon Cunliffe for his report and for his work in producing it. The Liberal Democrats have long argued for the abolition of Ofwat, and for the creation of a new, consolidated and powerful regulator. In fact, we put it to the Public Bill Committee and it was supported by neither the Labour party nor the Conservative party, but today’s proposal seems to include doing just that, so we strongly welcome the statement. It is a reminder to the wonderful volunteers and water campaigners across the country that their work is absolutely worth while and has made a huge difference. My message to them is: thank you so much and keep going, because we still do not know the details and the nature of the new regulator, and we still see no sign in the report of any plan to tackle the toxic nature of the water industry’s ownership structure. Why is there no plan to change the structure of the industry itself? Even the best regulator in the world will fail if water companies are still owned by those who care nothing for the quality of the lakes, rivers and seas, and who care only about making as much profit as possible in return for very little investment. Is it really acceptable to ask bill payers for a 30% rise when there is no guarantee that the water company will not be siphoning off huge chunks of that money in dividends, pay rises or bonuses? Why is there nothing in the statement that will truly empower the volunteers, citizen scientists and water campaigners I just mentioned? Why are we not giving places on water company boards to the likes of the Eden Rivers Trust, the South Lakes Rivers Trust, Save Windermere, the Clean River Kent Campaign, Surfers Against Sewage and Windrush Against Sewage Pollution, known as WASP? Why is there no mention of monitoring the volume of sewage spills as well as the number of incidences, and no mention of including legally binding pollution reduction targets? Although the statement is welcome and we rightly celebrate the Liberal Democrat campaign wins that it is full of, our job as a constructive and effective Opposition is to scrutinise the detail and to carry on campaigning to clean up our waterways and our water industry too. That is exactly what we shall do.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions. I echo and endorse his comments about the volunteers and citizen scientists who carried out fantastic work to ensure that this issue remained where it needed to be, which was right at the top of the political agenda. I hope that they will join us in welcoming Sir Jon’s report. There will be a White Paper and a consultation alongside it. We will launch the White Paper in the autumn, giving detailed Government responses to the 450-page report. With 88 recommendations, there is a lot to go through, but the report includes proposals about ownership, which will be consulted on as well. Volunteers and citizen scientists will be able to engage for the first time through the proposed regional structures. We accept that proposal in principle, and the detail of it will be worked through during the consultation. For the first time, there will be engagement on the catchment of entire river systems, and citizens, local authorities and businesses will all have a voice in that, as will members of the farming community operating within those catchments. I believe that by reducing the number of spills we will also reduce the volume of spills. The hon. Gentleman will be able to monitor that, and he will be able to hold me to account, as will the House and the public, as we work towards the target that I have outlined for reducing sewage spills from water companies by 50% by 2030. He of course is lucky enough to represent one of the most beautiful parts of the country, including Windermere, and we are working with United Utilities to remove all sources of pollution from that beautiful, iconic lake, so that what became a story of decline can become a visible symbol of renewal with this Government.

Order. It is apparent that a very considerable number of Back-Bench Members wish to participate in this statement. There are two further statements to follow before we come to the main business of the day, which is also very important, so I urge colleagues on both sides of the House to ask brief questions and not make statements.

Residents in Peterborough and across Anglian Water’s catchment area will welcome the statement and the bold action taken. They know all too well that the water system is broken. One of the issues we on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee have looked at is the need for water infrastructure. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the drive and determination he has shown today to fix the water system will also drive forward the Fens reservoir and the infrastructure we need in the east of England? After a generation of delay on reservoirs, we now have the opportunity to succeed. Can he tell us that this will stay on track, and we will get the jobs and the water resources we need in the east?

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. We are currently going through a dry spell and seeing hosepipe bans in many parts of the country, yet in the winter it rained very heavily. The reason we have hosepipe bans is that we do not have the reservoirs to catch the rain when it falls and then use it in drier periods, which is because we have not built a new reservoir for 30 years. That changes now: these plans include the intention to build nine new reservoirs. To speed up the planning process, I as the Secretary of State am taking control of consents for reservoirs, so that they can be approved much faster and go ahead to provide the country with the clean drinking water we need.

The Environment Agency estimates that there are 4 million regular and occasional anglers throughout the United Kingdom, with 1.2 million getting fishing licences last year. Angling across the country is worth about £3 billion to the economy and it is the favourite pastime in this country, as the Secretary of State will know. Will he give an undertaking to all the anglers throughout this country that they will be fully engaged by the new regulator?

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. Anglers are quite rightly furious about the level of pollution, which is destroying fish and other life in our rivers, but also about the impact of abstractions, particularly from chalk streams, so the new regulator will be engaging with them. Sir Jon has proposed new mechanisms for volunteers and campaigners to engage with the system that were not available previously. We will consult on those in the autumn, and move ahead with legislation following that.

I really welcome the water commission. The EFRA Committee has had each of the water bosses in, one by one, and each struggled to explain why their industry prioritises bonuses over fixing broken pipes. I therefore really welcome the action that the Government have taken to ban bonuses, starting with the bonus for the Southern Water boss, Lawrence Gosden. We were, however, disgusted to hear last week that he plans to take a doubling in his salary, an additional £690,000, after overseeing major water outages, flooding in Hastings town centre and massive sewage dumping. Does the Secretary of State agree that that is a slap in the face to my constituents, and that Lawrence Gosden should think very seriously about whether he takes that salary increase?

My hon. Friend, who is such a strong campaigner on the water sector, makes a very important point, which she puts very well. I consider that pay rise to be outrageous, as does she. It turns out that he is receiving that pay increase under a scheme that was permitted by the regulator under the regime that the Conservatives had in place, and the payment he is getting this year relates to the last year of the Conservative Government. We have changed the law so that no similar payment can be made in future.

South East Water’s Broad Oak reservoir in Canterbury, which will also serve your constituency, Mr Deputy Speaker, is not due to open until 2033. Will my beleaguered residents and businesses in Canterbury and parts of Whitstable have to put up with the droughts and the leaks—in a heatwave, which has been unbearable—for another eight years?

The hon. Lady is quite right to point to the problems that we are experiencing because of the lack of reservoirs. As I said earlier, we are speeding up the consenting and the building of new reservoirs, so we have the means to catch the rain when it is falling and can use it during drier periods. She refers to leaks. The investment that we have secured will reduce leaks from water pipes, so we can help to conserve water for the purpose for which it is intended.

I welcome today’s statement. I am incredibly excited, not least because we have the beautiful River Trent, which separates my constituency from Staffordshire. It is home to the Staffordshire Swooshers, who have members from Derbyshire. They frequently have to avoid a “Trent tan”, but they extol the virtues of open water swimming. Does the Secretary of State agree that by having cleaner waters, we can encourage more great exercise to make the country healthier and improve wellbeing?

A Trent tan is a very alarming and graphic image, but it captures what has gone wrong with our water sector for so long. The changes that we are announcing today will clean up our waterways across the country so that wild swimmers, as well as many other people who like to enjoy our precious rivers, lakes and seas, can get on and enjoy them without the kind of concern she alludes to.

In my constituency last year there were 2,036 sewage spills, lasting for a total of 28,360 hours. However, contrary to the Secretary of State’s earlier assertion, we do not know the volume of that dumping because it is not monitored. What steps are the Government taking to impose targets to reduce both the duration and the volume of individual spills?

We are increasing monitoring to 100% of all outlets. I note that representatives from the Conservative party will often try to take the credit for increasing monitoring. That is a good thing to have done, but what is not so good is to use it just to wave hello to the sewage as it floats on by and do nothing about reducing it.

I am afraid that the report feels like a missed opportunity for the Government to show the public whose side they are on. It entrenches a privatised model that has already failed economically, environmentally and democratically. With 20% to 50% of bills going on servicing debt, why is public ownership—if it is good enough for rail, GB Energy and renewables—not good enough for water?

We have to take a rational, not ideological, approach to tackling this problem. Nationalising the water companies would cost £100 billion. Those are not figures, as I have seen my hon. Friend claim, from the water companies; they are provided by officials in my Department under the influence of nobody externally. To pay that money—£100 billion—we would have to take it away from public services, such as the national health service and education, to hand it to the owners of the companies that have been polluting our waterways. That makes no sense to me and it makes no sense to the public. Frankly, I am surprised that it makes any sense to him.

I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement that he is going to merge all four water regulators into one. However, I offer a slight note of caution: it is no good moving the deckchairs around the deck unless the situation has been improved. When will he produce the White Paper and what teeth will he give this single new super-regulator?

I welcome the hon. Member’s support in principle for Sir Jon Cunliffe’s proposal, which I have accepted, to merge the four regulators’ water functions into one single super-regulator. I will publish the White Paper containing the Government’s full response during the autumn. If the hon. Member would like to peruse the 450-page document that Sir Jon has provided, he will find 88 separate recommendations in it, many of which will significantly strengthen regulation so that the new regulator can enforce much more harshly against the kinds of abuses that water companies got away with in the past.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has heard unbelievable statements from 10 major water companies. We also took a long, hard look at Ofwat, as Sir Jon Cunliffe did, and found a regulator that is too cosy in dealing with water companies and too bureaucratic in dealing with customers. A weak regulator and fragmented powers have let the public down for far too long. Does the Secretary of State agree that while the Conservatives have failed and Reform and the Greens make unachievable, unfunded promises, it is this Labour Government who will call time on failure and protect bill payers?

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I believe that one of the reasons why the relationship between Ofwat and the water companies became far too cosy is the instruction that Ofwat received from Ministers in the previous Government to apply only light-touch regulation, when what was needed was a firm grip on what was going on. It is astonishing that the Conservatives thought it was a good idea to strip out resources and tell the regulator to go soft on the companies given the abuses that were taking place. That has ended now, and we are moving to a model of effective regulation that will protect bill payers and clean up our rivers.

In expressing his opposition to the nationalisation of water just yesterday, the Secretary of State did not mention the fact that, under Scottish Water, bills in Scotland are £113 cheaper, or the fact that 97% of Scotland’s bathing waters meet the quality standards expected. No—what he said of Scottish Water was that “pollution in rivers in Scotland is worse than in England.” I have consulted the House of Commons Library and just 14% of rivers in England meet the quality standards expected, whereas 58.2% of Scotland’s do. Trust in politics matters, so he will correct the record today, won’t he?

As the right hon. Member correctly points out, Scotland has a nationalised water company—under the control of the SNP Government, of course—and water pollution is worse than in England as a result. I am more than happy to write to him to give him the facts so that he can come back and correct the record in due course.

Yesterday I had a lovely swim in the North sea off Bamburgh castle, and I would like to thank the Safer Seas and Rivers Service for telling me which beaches to avoid due to sewage spills by Northumbrian Water. Not all my constituents swim, but they all tell me that the current situation is disgraceful. They will not be reading a 500-page report, so could the Secretary of State explain to them whether it is: a) their fault for not accepting higher bills, as Tory former Ministers and Water UK say; b) the water companies’ fault for extracting so much more value—in the shape of dividend and bonus payments and loading the companies with debt—than they put into them; or c) because water is a natural monopoly and incredibly difficult to regulate effectively in the private sector? Or is it both b) and c)?

I was slightly confused by that question, if I am honest. My hon. Friend is very brave to go swimming in the North sea, but I know that many people enjoy that. The changes that we are making will bring about effective regulation and appropriate levels of investment and protect customers from the shocking bill hikes that we saw last year, which were the direct result of 14 years of failure by the Conservative Government. I am sure my hon. Friend’s constituents will welcome that.

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. Environment Agency data showed a 60% increase in serious pollution incidents last year, so the target of halving spills over five years would still mean nearly a quarter of a million sewage spills happening annually by 2030. When we drink a glass of water, we measure it by how much we drink, not the time it takes to drink. To make a real difference to places like Chichester harbour and the River Lavant in my constituency, will the Government look at the volume rather than the hours of spills happening?

The target for reduction uses as its baseline the 2024 figure, not the 2021 figure used by the previous Government, recognising the extent to which sewage pollution increased between ’21 and ’24. I want to recognise the scale of the problem and then work to solve it from that point. We have announced the most ambitious target for sewage pollution reduction of any Government ever, and that is not the end of our ambition; there will be further to go until we restore all our waterways, including the beautiful Chichester harbour, back to purity.

I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and the tough action he has announced. Residents in my community have suffered appalling problems with sewage pollution in the Thames, the Kennet and many other waterways, as well as hours-long interruptions to supply. To make matters worse, residents have also suffered subsidence from a water leak. How will the new ombudsman help me and my residents to tackle these very serious problems?

The new ombudsman will have statutory powers to provide independent and free support to customers experiencing the kinds of failures that my hon. Friend describes; there are many others, of course. Previously, water was one of the only utilities that did not have that resource available, but it will do from now on. We have also taken steps and introduced measures to increase compensation for people who have experienced failure by their water company, with compensation at least doubling and in some cases increasing tenfold.

The quality of a river is about not just the water that goes into it, but the maintenance of the river itself. My constituents have been failed over and over again by the Environment Agency in the maintenance of our waterways. Given the Secretary of State’s enthusiasm for breaking apart quangos, will he consider bringing powers away from the EA so that we can manage our rivers properly and effectively?

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but I gently remind him that it was his Government who cut resources to the Environment Agency by 50%, which may well have had something to do with the fact that people were no longer there to enforce against the kinds of failings he talked about.

I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. My constituents will be relieved as, after 14 years of Tory failure and inaction, water pollution from toxic sewage discharge is a persistent problem in Battersea, and all the while their bills are being hiked. I welcome the Government’s taking the necessary steps and introducing reforms of the water sector and protecting my constituents. Will he say a little more about when he intends to bring forward legislation? I am sure he agrees that he is taking long overdue action.

I know Battersea very well—it is a beautiful area—and I am aware of the problems with pollution. Of course, she knows all too well the concerns of her residents about escalating bills as a result of the failure of the previous Government to get a grip on the water sector. We will be publishing the White Paper and launching the consultation this autumn, which will be followed by legislation in the first half of this Parliament.

My constituents have faced an increase in their water bills without any improvement in the dumping of sewage in their rivers and brooks or upgrade in their infrastructure. What assurances can the Government provide that those increases will not end up in the pockets of water company bosses?

I hope that the hon. Member will be reassured by the fact that I have ringfenced customers’ money so that it can no longer be diverted for payment of bonuses and dividends, as was commonplace under the previous Government. It will be spent only on what it was intended for, which is investing in better water infrastructure. If that does not happen, it will be refunded to customers.

More than 60 year 4 pupils from Walter Evans primary school in Derby wrote to me and the Secretary of State worried about sewage dumping and plastic pollution in our rivers. I thank the Secretary of State for his clear commitment that the Government will halve pollution in our rivers by 2030. Does he agree that had the Conservatives taken action of that kind when they came to power 14 years ago, my nine-year-old constituents would have known cleaner rivers all their lives?

I pay tribute to the young people of my hon. Friend’s constituency. Young people famously care about the environment, and they are devastated to see the scale of pollution in our waterways that she described. We have taken all these steps and put in place the building blocks for change within a year of winning the general election. The previous Government had 14 years. They could have done exactly the same thing in any one of those 14 years, but, as is shown by the absence of the shadow Secretary of State, they just did not care enough.

This Government-commissioned review looked at how to tinker with the Conservatives’ failed privatised monopoly system, but the truth is that it is a moribund model that has resulted in billions being paid out to shareholders and billions in debt being loaded up, and in crucial infrastructure being neglected, meaning that sewage is regularly pumped into our rivers and seas. Does the Secretary of State accept that the cost of that failure must be part of the calculation of the cost of bringing water into public hands, where it belongs, and that figures like £100 billion are grossly inflated by those who do not think the water industry should pay for its greed and terrible mismanagement of our water system?

I am afraid that the Green party’s proposals would mean paying £100 billion of taxpayers’ money to the owners of the water companies. That money would have to be taken away from the national health service. It would take years to unpick the current ownership models, during which time pollution in our rivers would get much worse, not better. We know it does not work, and we have only to look north of the border to see it; under the nationalised model in Scotland, pollution is worse, not better. The hon. Member is talking about cutting the national health service, giving £100 billion to the owners of the current water companies and making pollution far worse. That does not sound very green to me.

Action to tackle the water companies’ failure on long-standing systemic problems is much needed in my constituency, where I have been working with residents in Brownsover who have faced repeated burst pipes, with some families forced to move out multiple times and not receiving the proper value of damaged property. Severn Trent has now given a timetable for action on the infrastructure. I welcome the introduction of a new statutory water ombudsman to put the public, as the Secretary of State said, at the heart of water regulation. Does he agree that where the Conservatives failed the British consumer, this Labour Government will protect them and put people before profit?

My hon. Friend is a vocal champion for his constituents. He is quite right to demand more compensation when outages happen, and an ombudsman. That is what the Government will provide, so that we can give better support to customers who are let down by the water companies. We are on the side of bill payers and the environment; the previous Government were on the side of neither.

Between 2018 and 2022, untreated sewage was released just over 58,000 times from Scottish sewer overflows, and more than half of wild swimming spots in Scotland contain unsafe levels of sewage, so whatever model the Government decide to adopt for the regulation of the water industry in England, will the Secretary of State assure me that they will not follow the Scottish Government’s failed model?

I completely agree with the hon. Member, who accurately pointed to the failures of both the SNP Government in Scotland and the nationalised model, which does not fix the problems.

It is correct to analyse the failure of the regulators and to seek to replace them, but I rather think the Secretary of State, or one of his successors, will be coming back to discuss ownership structures. After all, under Yorkshire Water—the first to pioneer hosepipe bans this year—the pipes are leaking like a Tetley teabag, with more than 95 billion litres of water leaked in the last year alone. What does he envisage, if the new regulatory system fails and the ownership structures continue to produce the kinds of problem we have seen up and down the country? Will he have reserve powers to take action against the owners of the companies themselves, probably to remove them?

There is a system in place for when licences are breached; it is called special administration. The reason we are strengthening regulation and changing the regulator is so that we can prevent such failures. The £104 billion that we secured at the end of last year will help to upgrade pipes, so that we can reduce the amount of water leaking out of the system, and pay to build and dig out the new reservoirs to catch the rain, so that there is a supply of water in the drier periods.

I understand the points the Secretary of State makes about the levels of pollution and damage to our natural world and environment by the water industry over the past 30 years, and I understand the need for regulation, but does he not understand that he has not dealt with the fundamental problem? In the future, private enterprise is still going to be making money out of a public water supply. Would it not be better to bring it into public ownership and set a share price based on the costs of pollution and on the exorbitant executive pay and bonuses, so that the public as a whole can control their water supply and no longer be left to the vagaries of the private sector, with all the devastation and damage it has caused over the past 30 years?

This Government are going to do what works, rather than what is ideologically correct. We are not going to strip £100 billion out of public services like the national health service to give it to the owners of the water companies who have polluted our waterways; we are not going to wait years to get investment in while pollution in our waterways gets even worse; and we are not going to let the pipes deteriorate to such an extent that bill payers are hit with even higher bills in the future. I am going to act to deliver us lower bills and clean water in the fastest way possible.

What has happened to our waterways is a national disgrace. The state in which the Conservatives left our rivers, our lakes and the seas around Britain epitomises what they did to public services in general. Does my right hon. Friend agree that what has been lacking over the past 35 years of privatisation is a proper consumer representative to protect customers, and will he give a guarantee that that will be at front and centre of the new regulator?

My hon. Friend makes an important point. In Sir Jon Cunliffe’s final report today, he makes recommendations for how customers can be put at the heart of the new model. There are several recommendations; I will not go through all of them, but one is to set up new regional entities, where customers will have direct representation in taking decisions about how water infrastructure investment will be spent to tackle the priorities in their own areas.

My constituent campaigners at SafeAvon and Tewkesbury Friends of the Earth will be delighted to see that, at length, the Government have implemented a core Liberal Democrat manifesto pledge: the abolition of Ofwat. Will the Secretary of State now go further and implement a second pledge to put those campaigners on the board of Severn Trent so that they can hold the water company to account, and continue to show my constituents that Liberal Democrat pressure pays off?

I welcome the Liberal Democrats’ conversion; when they were in government, and when the Water Minister was indeed a Liberal Democrat, they commissioned a report that found there was no need to change the model of regulation.

Many people will find it incredible that Cunliffe was not even allowed to look at public ownership. I also say mildly to the Secretary of State that the £100 billion he cites has largely been refuted by independent bodies and economists. Way back in 2014, I raised the example of Northumbrian Water and its use of various complicated devices for tax avoidance. That became endemic within the industry. Can we have a report on the water companies’ role in tax avoidance on a massive scale, so that we can then look at what further action could be taken against them?

I agree with the right hon. Member on one point—that we should be cracking down on tax avoidance; it is always worth looking into that. On his earlier point, I am much more interested in the purity of our water than the purity of our ideology. The figure of £100 billion as the cost of buying out the water companies if any Government wanted to nationalise them was provided by officials in my Department with no external influence on them. This country cannot afford it, and we also cannot afford the worsening of sewage in our waterways during the years it would take to unpick the current model of ownership.

The Minister said he wanted nine more reservoirs, but can he say how many of that number are already under construction or in the planning process, when we can expect to see them and who will pay? Also, is it his view that Sir Jon Cunliffe’s predicted uplift of more than 30% in real terms for water bill payers will be covering the cost?

I would be more than happy to write to the right hon. Member with the details he is asking for, but as I have said earlier, we are also speeding up the planning process and treating reservoirs as nationally significant infrastructure, meaning that I, as the Secretary of State, will take the consenting decision so that we can do this in months rather than the years or even decades it has been taking up till now.

The village of Upper Tean frequently suffers flooding and sewage outflows, and one reason is that the antiquated mains water infrastructure cannot adequately cope with the increased amount of new housing developments, even when the developer meets all the required mitigations. Recommendation 3 in the report states: “A comprehensive systems planning framework should be introduced”. The report also states: “Plans should consider the region or nation’s spatial development priorities, particularly those which are likely to have a significant impact on the water system, such as housing development”. Does the Minister agree that, given the Government’s plan to build 1.5 million homes, it is vital that privatised water companies ensure that they can adequately meet systems demand without sewage dumping, and that they prioritise doing so over profiteering?

My hon. Friend makes an important point, because of course water infrastructure is critical for housing development, economic development and economic growth in every single region of the country. Today I have accepted in principle one of Sir Jon’s recommendations that will allow us for the first time to align water infrastructure investment and spatial planning, so that those homes and factories can be built faster for the benefit of local people.

I very much welcome the proposals. Today’s announcement is a step forward in tackling the sewage crisis, but of course the details will be in the delivery. That is important, especially as the River Ver, a precious chalk stream in my constituency, has received nearly 5,000 hours of sewage in the last year—some of that was 3,000 hours non-stop. We do not know the volume, but we know it is terrible. Will the Secretary of State meet me to see how the proposals can help to prioritise the desperately needed upgrade of the Markyate sewage works?

I know the River Ver very well because I used to walk over a bridge across it every day on my way to school while I was growing up. I would be very happy to make sure that the hon. Member has an appropriate meeting with a Minister to discuss her concerns.

I was pleased to see today’s report. I believe it has a picture of the Bingley five rise locks in my constituency on the front cover, so I thank the Minister for that. The creaking and leaking water infrastructure, the current drought restrictions and the dumping of sewage in our rivers, including the Aire and the Wharfe, are evidence of a failing industry and of the failures of previous Tory Water Ministers, one of whom is sitting on the Opposition Front Bench. I welcome today’s report and also give credit to campaign groups like the Ilkley Clean River Group and the people’s water commission. It is right that the Secretary of State has said that he will abolish Ofwat and strengthen oversight and regulation, but Yorkshire Water has a labyrinth of holding companies that have built up debt, taken out dividends and interest payments, put up customer bills and failed to invest in upgrades. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is time for radical action, not only to merge the regulators but to restructure failing companies like Yorkshire Water?

I cannot take credit for the picture—that was Sir Jon—but I can join my hon. Friend in crediting the campaign groups who have done such a fantastic job at keeping this issue at the top of the political agenda. Sir Jon makes proposals in his report about those labyrinthine structures that she is talking about. We need clarity and transparency, and that is what we will now work towards.

Between 2001 and 2023, there were over 4,600 incidents of sewage overflows in Dewsbury and Batley, amounting to over 28,000 hours. Bills for my constituents and Yorkshire Water customers have gone up by 40% in the last five years and by nearly 30% in the last 12 months. Some £84 billion has been taken in dividends by all the water companies in the UK, with £74 billion of that saddled on to the companies themselves. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to reduce the bills of my constituents and residents of the whole United Kingdom, and what steps will he take to claw back that £84 billion so it can be invested to fix the pipes?

I am grateful to the hon. Member for making that important point. His constituents, just like people right across the country, were last year forced to pay the price of 14 years of Conservative failure, because the Conservatives allowed the companies to pay out millions in dividends and bonuses when that money should have been invested in upgrading infrastructure. I have ringfenced customers’ money so that it will now only be spent on the purposes for which it was intended; otherwise, it will be returned to customers.

On Crooked Bridge Road in my constituency of Stafford, Eccleshall and the villages, it has taken the county council far too long to accept responsibility for faulty pipes. The buck has been passed between the council and Severn Trent, and the investigative work will not even start till 1 August. Will the commission consider intervening in cases where the buck is repeatedly passed back and forth in order to ensure that urgent works can get under way?

My hon. Friend makes an important point: buck-passing should not be allowed to continue. We are moving to new regional structures that will bring together the regulators, customers, advocacy groups, businesses and local authorities—to a place where those kind of issues can be resolved.

We welcome the Government’s commitment to cutting water bills by 50% in the next three years. However, given the stark increases that consumers have paid because of failed water company finances, this commitment will not touch the sides, especially for the most vulnerable customers. Will the Secretary of State do what Conservative Ministers failed to do: commit to implementing a single social tariff for water bills to help eliminate water poverty?

Of course, social tariffs already exist within the individual water companies—Sir Jon has made recommendations about that. We will consult on that later in the year and then take decisions as we bring forward legislation in the new year.

It is a shame that no one is here from the Reform party to explain its proposals for the water companies; its Members might have managed to be more eloquent than their leader was on TV yesterday. Reform’s unfunded spending commitment would send mortgages through the roof and take money away from the NHS, schools, police and our armed forces. Will the Secretary of State tell us how much he thinks Reform’s proposals would cost, and comment on whether he thinks Reform has a clue about this policy area as its Members cannot even be bothered to be in the Chamber?

I agree with my hon. Friend; it is a shame that no Reform Members have turned up, although perhaps it is not surprising because they did not bother mentioning this issue in their manifesto either. We did hear at the weekend that their leader, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), wants to hand £50 billion of taxpayers’ money to the owners of water companies. If we add that to its existing £80 billion of unfunded commitments, it comes to £130 billion. By my reckoning, that is almost double the amount that Liz Truss bet and lost on the economy when she crashed it and sent mortgages, prices and rents skyrocketing. Reform wants to double down on the bad bet.

I am genuinely all ears for any practical steps that can be taken to build on the Environment Act 2021 to clean up our waterways, but may I pick up the Secretary of State’s comments on the role, as he put it, of citizen scientists and local communities? In my constituency, water heroes like Doug Kennedy, who I joined in Nether Winchendon testing the River Thame a few weeks ago, have decades of real local knowledge on our waterways, as do the volunteers of the River Thame Conservation Trust. That powerhouse of local knowledge will be replicated up and down the country. Rather than just involving them as consultees, will the Secretary of State reflect on how they can get properly locked into local solutions to clean up our waterways?

I support what the hon. Gentleman says about the Environment Act, which is a worthwhile piece of legislation passed by the previous Government. I also support what he says about ensuring that people have more involvement at community level. I will certainly take that on board as we work through the consultation.

My constituents want to know that their drinking water is safe and that waterways such as the River Trent are clean and looked after. I welcome all the Secretary of State’s commitments on the new regulatory body, but he will know that the power of a regulator is not just in its powers, but in its ability to enforce them. Will the regulator have the resources to enforce the new rules that he proposes? It needs to be more than the sum of the parts of its predecessors, which failed, as so many of my constituents have seen.

I thank my hon. Friend for important question. We have already introduced the “polluter pays” principle, so where there are successful prosecutions and enforcement action against water companies, they pay the price for that enforcement. That funds the additional resources to allow further investigations—and, if necessary, prosecutions—to go ahead. What a contrast with the previous Government, who slashed those resources in half.

From Saturday night to Monday morning, a mains burst on Richmond Hill in my constituency went unattended, resulting in residents being left without gas supply as water leaked into the gas pipeline. Burst-pipe sewage-dumping following storm overflows has now become customary. Last year alone, 119 hours’ worth of sewage was discharged into rivers and waterways in my constituency. Thames Water has been allowed to get away with such negligent and environmentally hazardous practices for far too long while Ofwat has stood by and watched. Earlier this year, a freedom of information request uncovered that Ofwat had not recouped a single penny from the financial sanctions it has placed on Thames Water. Now that the Government have finally realised that Ofwat must be replaced, will the Minister set out a timeline for the implementation of the review’s recommendation of a new regulator?

I agree with much of what the hon. Lady says. Her constituents are experiencing what constituents across the country are experiencing. It is not acceptable and it will not continue. We will publish the White Paper in the autumn, with a consultation alongside it, and we intend to move to legislation during the first half of this Parliament.

Cleaning up our rivers, lakes and seas could not be more important. Having served on the Water (Special Measures) Bill Committee, I was glad that our Government have moved so quickly to begin that vital work. I welcome the further measures announced today. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that he will bring in the next changes as quickly as possible?

I agree: it is important that these changes are brought in as quickly as possible. The state of our water sector, given the levels of pollution in our waterways and the unacceptable bill hikes that customers experienced last year, is a national scandal. We cannot allow things to continue. We will move at the greatest possible speed, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will hold our feet to the fire.

As the Secretary of State and the Minister for Water and Flooding will know, sewage is a major issue in my constituency. As we have heard, the Government plan to build 1.5 million new homes, tens of thousands of which will be in my area. Lots of people are understandably concerned that South West Water will not keep pace with development, so what guarantees can the Secretary of State give that South West Water will put in the required infrastructure?

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The recommendation that I have accepted will create new regional structures under which water infrastructure investment will align with spatial planning, so that we can guarantee that in the future. However, that legislation is not yet in place, so I have set up a water infrastructure board in the Department. It will ensure that water companies are putting in infrastructure where opportunities for housing development and other forms of economic growth can take place.

I welcome the statement. Residents in Dartford will be impressed by the Government’s ambitious commitment to halve sewage pollution in our lakes, rivers and seas within five years. They have had to put up with the poor performance of Thames Water for too long. Does the Secretary of State agree that, unlike the Conservative party, which had 14 years to fix this, and unlike Reform, which appears to have no idea how to fix it, when the Labour Government say that we will clean up our water and protect the British bill payer, we mean it?

My hon. Friend rightly points to sewage getting worse and bills rising every year for 14 years under the previous Government. We are turning the tide on Tory sewage today, and over the next five years residents in Dartford and elsewhere will see reductions in sewage until we meet our target.

I thank the Secretary of State very much for his statement. Yesterday on the Laura Kuenssberg show he showed positivity in relation to the new strategy, and the steps to be taken certainly make sense. However, water in Northern Ireland is still publicly owned, yet we still have the same difficulties that the Government are seeking to combat here. So my question to the Secretary of State is a simple one: will he do me a favour and speak to the relevant Minister at the Northern Ireland Assembly, Andrew Muir, to ensure that we in Northern Ireland have the same result as what is going to happen here with the required changes to infrastructure, giving more responsibility and outputting the changes that are made? With the positivity the Secretary of State has shown, that would take care of some of our difficulties in Northern Ireland.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I speak regularly with my counterparts in Northern Ireland and am more than happy to convey his message to them the next time I speak to them.

As someone who enjoys swimming in Cumbria’s lakes, rivers and tarns, I welcome the Secretary of State’s ambitious commitment to halving sewage pollution in them. Can he say more about how—unlike the Conservatives who did nothing for 14 years, and unlike Reform’s moon-on-a-stick approach to reform—when he says he has a plan to protect water consumers and protect water users, he actually means it?

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Voters want to see action, not just words. That is why I am so proud that that £104 billion of investment that we have secured started to be spent in April. It is already being invested; people will see the change as a result of this. That will help to restore their confidence and their trust in politics, so shattered after 14 years of the Conservatives.

Can the Secretary of State publish the data that quantifies the amount lost in leaks, so that the public can understand exactly how much water and how much of their hard-earned money is lost? It will also help the water companies to focus on fixing their pipes; it is no good just building another reservoir, as they might do in my area, if the water just continues to be lost en route to where it is needed.

The hon. Lady is right: transparency is always very important. I believe that data is available and am happy to write to direct her to it so she can share the information with her constituents.

For far too long families in Scarborough and Whitby have been paying the price of failure. Yorkshire Water was recently forced to pay out £40 million due to serious failings yet a few days later customers’ bills rose by almost a third. Will my right hon. Friend say a little more to reassure my constituents that a national social tariff is now on the cards for those on low incomes?

We always want to support those on lower incomes and those who may be experiencing water poverty; nobody should be worried about their water bill because their income is too low. Social tariffs already exist in every region. We will be consulting on the proposal for a national social tariff, which the Independent Water Commission has proposed in its final report.

Citizens and families in my city of Birmingham are currently paying an average of £400 a year for their water bills—increasing to £800 by the end of this Parliament term. We know that the cost of living is spiralling out of control, and while families struggle with the cost of living, big bonuses are being taken by chief executives and shareholders. Will the Secretary of State consider bringing water back into public ownership, given that more than 60% of the British public are asking for that?

Nationalising the water companies would, as I have already said, cost £100 billion—money that we would have to strip out of the national health service and education in order to hand to the people who own the water companies that have been polluting our waterways. It is not an idea that commends itself to me, I am afraid.

Calder Valley has seen near-floods and a hosepipe ban. Meanwhile, in 2024, Yorkshire has seen 68,186 sewage spills lasting over 430,000 hours. Does this mean an end to a useless regulator that is presiding over a failing industry?

Well, the answer to that question is very quick: yes, it does.

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the register as I am an office holder on the all-party parliamentary water group. Last year, at the first Prime Minister’s questions of the Session, I drew the Prime Minister’s attention to the fact that Thames Water had pumped sewage into the River Evenlode for 2,600 hours in the previous year. I called then for the scrapping of Ofwat, and I am delighted that the Secretary of State has listened to my party and so many campaigners by doing so today. Thames Water has pumped a further 1,000 hours-worth of sewage into the same river in the intervening period, however, which is why the Evenlode Catchment Partnership has taken to citizen science to try to measure those figures. The Secretary of State set out that he wishes to halve the number of spills, but why is he not seeking to halve their volume and quantity, for that is what is killing our rivers?

Our target for sewage reduction is the most ambitious target put forward by any Government in our country’s history, and I am very proud of that. It is an important stepping-stone to restoring our rivers, lakes and seas to the good health and purity that many of us will remember from when we were younger.

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, which is detailed, practical and focused on outcomes. That is in stark contrast to the ludicrous, back-of-a-fag-packet policy of the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), who claimed yesterday that he would simultaneously nationalise half the water industry, without knowing how much it would cost, and bring in more business people to run it—the people who have been free to run up debts, force up bills, dump sewage, and leave pipes broken, reservoirs dry and our lakes, seas and rivers filthy. Such people include, of course, the chief executive of Southern Water, Lawrence Gosden, who has a £1.4 million pay package that he should hand back, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Helena Dollimore) pointed out. However, how will the Government answer the people who say that these proposals do not go far enough and will still leave our precious water, lakes and seas in the hands of shysters and spivs?

My hon. Friend is right to point out that the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), by his own admission, has “no idea” and no clue about this issue. My hon. Friend is also right that the proposals are detailed. Sir Jon provided a 450-page report with 88 separate recommendations that we will consult on. When we implement a final version, it will be the biggest overhaul to our water sector in more than a generation. We will reset it from top to bottom, so we have a water sector that works on the side of customers, the environment and investors, rather than the serial failure that we witnessed under the previous Government.

The Derwent runs through the heart of Derby, but thanks to the polluting water companies and the Tories, its health is in serious doubt. Can the Secretary of State reassure my constituents that this Labour Government are committed to taking the robust action that is desperately needed to restore the river and preserve it for our communities to enjoy safely?

The state of the River Derwent is, alas, similar to many other rivers, lakes and seas up and down the country. That is why we are launching a water revolution today to completely reset the water sector from top to bottom so that the failings of the past can never happen again.

Norfolk is home to many beautiful beaches and rivers but, as in many areas, people are concerned about the state of their waters. The Cow Tower Dippers in Norwich are applying for designated swim status, which would mean that Anglian Water is obliged to monitor the water. That is one specific example, but can the Secretary of State expand on how the reforms will help local groups to hold water companies to account and speed up such processes?

By monitoring every single outlet and making that visible to people across the country—campaigners and residents—we will open up the system with far greater transparency than has previously been the case.

Last week, it was revealed that the chief executive of Southern Water was awarded an egregious, enormous pay rise worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, despite the company continuing to oversee sewage spills and infrastructure failures that affect my constituents. Does the Secretary of State agree that water bosses should not profit from overseeing catastrophic failure?

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend and share his sentiment that the payment is outrageous. It was possible as part of a scheme that was permitted under the regulatory regime allowed by the previous Government. We have changed the law; it will not happen again.

I commend the Secretary of State on the action in his statement to hold water companies to account, not least with the new regulator and ombudsman. Scotland’s widespread water pollution challenges are far greater than England’s, particularly the sewage-related pollution in our rivers and on our beaches. Scottish Water is publicly owned, but Scottish Ministers are failing to take the problem seriously, with inadequate monitoring. Does the Secretary of State agree that Scotland needs to take similar urgent action, which only a new direction under Scottish Labour can deliver?

I agree with my hon. Friend. We had an example earlier of the complacency with which the SNP treats these kinds of issues. There is only one chance now in Scotland for a reset: the election of a Scottish Labour Government in Holyrood to work to clean up pollution from our rivers, lakes and seas, as we are doing.

My constituents have been hit by a massive rise in bills, which is a real kick in the teeth given that thousands of them were without water after a major burst earlier this year. I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to devolving the economic regulation of water to Wales, which will allow the Welsh Government to move forward with the commission’s recommendation on having an independent economic regulator in Wales. Does he agree that that demonstrates the value of two Labour Governments working together for bill payers in Wales?

I agree with my hon. Friend. I understand that the Welsh Deputy First Minister has laid a statement before the Senedd today giving his comments on Sir Jon’s report.

I thank the Secretary of State for everything he is doing to transform water companies across our country. My residents in Gillingham and Rainham have suffered astronomical hikes in their bills and have been exposed to pollution and sewage dumps in our water, yet the chief executive of Southern Water thinks that he deserves a bonus of approximately £700,000 on top of his salary. Does the Secretary of State agree that that is an absolute disgrace? Will he ensure that any loophole used to bring forward those bonuses is shut down under his reforms?

I agree with my hon. Friend that that is disgraceful. I am afraid that these problems arose because the previous Government instructed the regulators to apply only a light-touch approach to regulation, when they really needed to get an absolute grip on this failing sector. The previous Government failed to do that, but this Government will ensure that that happens.

Many of my constituents share my utter disgust at the way in which water companies have been able to profit from degrading our rivers and chalk streams. It is fantastic to see bonuses already banned at polluting Anglian Water and to see that we are following up by taking action and sacking regulators that were asleep at the wheel. As we start on really ambitious reforms to halve sewage spills over the coming years, how can we ensure that we are tightening up some of those monitoring procedures so that my constituents can see clearly and transparently whether we are feeling the benefits locally?

Monitoring will now be compulsory on every single outlet, not just some of them. That data will be published in near real time so that consumers know exactly what is going into the waterways in the area where they live or where they are on holiday.

I warmly welcome the statement and the work of the Government. Portsmouth, as an island city, is well aware of the damage done; we see it, we smell it and we feel it in our pockets every day. More than 100 of my constituents have raised their fury and disappointment at the way that the Tories allowed firms to extract billions and pump raw sewage. Abolishing Ofwat and having an independent water commissioner is another brilliant step that will have real teeth and serve customers. Will the Secretary of State confirm that this Government will ensure action—that we do not just monitor, we take action; that there is no light touch and we take action; that our actions ensure that fair water companies serve the public interest first? Will he meet me and my resident David Taylor, a brilliant campaigner and inventor, to explore how we not only stop sewage pumping, but reduce leaks?

I assume that is not my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (David Taylor), but another David Taylor. I am happy to ensure that my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) gets that meeting. Let me take this opportunity to thank her for being such a champion for her residents and her constituency. I have had the honour of visiting a couple of times, and I have seen how strongly she fights for clean water in her community.

I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s focus on protecting water customers, because my constituents and I have seen our Thames Water bills go up dramatically. We want to know that those bill increases are going towards improving the infrastructure and customer service, as opposed to payouts to bosses that happened so much under the regulator’s watch. I have a meeting with Thames Water bosses in their Reading headquarters next week. Following that meeting, will the Secretary of State meet me and fellow Labour MPs working on the issue to discuss how we can better hold Thames Water to account on behalf of all our constituents?

I am more than happy to make sure my hon. Friend gets a meeting with an appropriate Minister. I am sure she will be pleased to know that this Government have ringfenced customers’ money so that it can only be spent on the purposes it was intended for, including upgrading broken and leaking pipes, and will no longer be diverted to pay for bonuses and dividends, as used to happen under the previous Government.

What a pleasure it was to welcome the Secretary of State to the water meadows in Bury St Edmunds. The Lark and the Linnet in Bury St Edmunds and the Gipping in Stowmarket are disgracefully neglected, and my own laboratory tests reveal dangerously high ammonia levels, for I too have become a citizen scientist. I welcome the decision to scrap Ofwat, but does the Secretary of State agree that our precious Suffolk chalk streams must be protected?

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and it was indeed a pleasure to visit Bury St Edmunds—he is very lucky to represent such a beautiful part of the country. In becoming a citizen scientist, he has joined a very proud movement, and I am sure that he will make an important contribution to its work.

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and these ambitious reforms. Around 10% of the UK’s chalk streams run through Hertfordshire, and we are lucky that Hertford and Stortford is home to many of them, including the River Stort and the River Lea. As the Secretary of State announces further action to clean up our water and the water sector, will he reassure residents of my community that this Labour Government will protect our precious local chalk streams?

I am happy to give my hon. Friend that reassurance. The changes we are bringing about through this water revolution will reduce levels of pollution in chalk streams, and they will also reduce the need for abstractions from those chalk streams, which has been one of the most damaging features causing such distress to residents of his constituency, across Hertfordshire, and of other parts of the country.

I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement, which means that Thames Water will no longer be able to treat my constituents with contempt—as it did under the previous Conservative Government—by diverting many millions from the bills paid by local residents to shell out dividends to its shareholders and pay itself bonuses, all the while pumping loads of sewage into our river. The Secretary of State has talked about ringfencing; can he clarify what will happen if Thames Water does not now invest enough of its income in stopping the spills and clearing up our river? Is it fair to say that Thames Water and its directors are still drinking in the last chance saloon?

The new regulatory regime will allow for much closer supervision of the water companies, and will be able to intervene much earlier if there is any sign of those companies failing to invest in the priorities that they have committed to invest in.

Just this morning, I was absolutely disgusted to see reports of a sewage leak in the River Hipper in my constituency, so I welcome the Secretary of State’s ambition to tackle this issue. That leak is particularly galling, because it comes after massive hikes to the bills of those who, like myself, live in North East Derbyshire. Can the Secretary of State explain how the new water ombudsman will help us when we seek to challenge unfair bills?

People will have the right to go to the ombudsman to take up complaints such as that one, or any other complaint. Previously, there was no statutory ombudsman that water customers could have recourse to when they faced problems. We will bring one in, and it will operate alongside the much-increased levels of compensation that we have already introduced through the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, which my hon. Friend supported.

I congratulate the Secretary of State on the scale of ambition he has shown today. Although there are many issues in the water sector in Scotland—not least the combined sewer overflow discharges into the Water of Leith at Colinton Dell—one thing we understand is that to reduce CSO spills, we have to reduce the amount of rainfall going into our combined pipes, which is done through planning in Scotland. The Cunliffe report makes clear that it is time to enact schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, which would do the same in England. Will the Secretary of State take that recommendation forward?

In my view—and Sir Jon Cunliffe also makes this point—it is very important that we align water infrastructure investment with spatial planning, so that we can tackle the kinds of problems that my hon. Friend has referred to. We intend to go ahead with that in England; I have already accepted that recommendation in principle, even ahead of any consultation. Of course, the situation will be different in Scotland, because it has a SNP Government who have not really taken these issues seriously.

Residents of my constituency often ask me how we got to a situation in which water company CEOs can oversee record levels of sewage spillage, let our infrastructure crumble and charge hard-pressed customers even more, yet enjoy extortionate bonuses. Does the Secretary of State agree that if this is to be the moment when we turn the page on 14 years of failure, we must never again abandon bill-paying water customers like the previous Government did?

Not only should we never abandon bill payers, but we never will abandon them. We are revolutionising the entire water sector so that customers’ interests are right at the heart of it in a way they have never been before.

I congratulate the Secretary of State and his team on their steadfast commitment to cleaning up our waterways, and on today’s welcome announcements. My constituents care greatly about cleaning up the scourge of sewage being pumped into our waters—our beautiful estuary—after years of neglect by the Conservative party. I also note the Government’s commitment to banning wet wipes that contain plastic, which we discussed at our recent water summit in Southend. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss the concerns that were raised about the actual flush-ability of some wipes that are marked as being flushable?

I share my hon. Friend’s concerns, as does the Water Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy). We would be happy to make sure he gets his meeting.

I welcome the independent water commission’s report—it is a serious piece of work. The water companies were privatised with no debt, yet following years of dividends, excessive debt and opaque financial structures, the financial stability of the water sector is a cause of very serious concern. Recommendations 56 to 59 engage substantially with that topic, as do other recommendations. Will the Secretary of State commit to carefully reviewing whether the implementation of many of the recommendations dealing with financial stability can be accelerated ahead of legislation, to protect both resilience and bill payers?

Yes, we are looking at what recommendations we can bring forward early; others will be part of the consultation.

I call the ever-patient Peter Swallow.

Thames Water has spent thousands of hours dumping sewage into the River Blackwater in Sandhurst and the Cut in Bracknell. Under this Government, it has been hit by the largest fine ever and its bonuses have been blocked, but now it seems to think that it should be allowed to get away with giving its bosses bonuses—that it has a special right not to have to pay those fines. Will the Secretary of State tell Thames Water to jog on?

I think my hon. Friend has already done the job for me.

That concludes the statement. I thank the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State for their presence throughout a lengthy session.