Clive Lewis’s water bill should have been front-page news this week

Labour Party MP Clive Lewis has brought a private members’ bill to the Commons that seeks to solve the issues with our water system.

Rather than boardrooms, citizens’ assemblies would control the fate of our water utilities. Lewis and those backing the bill argue the current corporate shareholder system of water ownership is not “fit for purpose”.

Spilling sewage, making profits

Lewis takes issue with the conduct of the for-profit water industry.

Water companies have illegally spilled sewage into more than 60% of England’s Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, according to the Telegraph. These were dry spills, on days where there wasn’t an overflow of rainfall – meaning it was illegal. United Utilities also dumped millions of litres of raw sewage illegally into lake Windermere at the Lake District.

Broadly, water companies further spilled sewage into our lakes and rivers for 3.6 million hours in 2023. That’s double the spillage of 2022. This is because of failing to invest in a solution to increase capacity for sewage treatment and deal with sewage and rainwater separately.

At the same time, since Margaret Thatcher privatised water, companies in England have paid £2bn per year to shareholders. The total figure now stands at £78bn. This could’ve been invested into the water service.

2024 analysis from professor David Hall at the University of Greenwich found shareholders have invested “less than nothing” of their own money in the companies in the more than 30 years since privatisation.

While profits soar, the water industry has also amassed debt of £64bn. That’s despite receiving a debt-free service before privatisation.

Clive Lewis water bill: “it belongs to all of us”

Clive Lewis said of his water bill:

This bill puts the conversation about the future management of water where it should be – in the hands of parliament and the public.

This is a conversation that must take place in broad daylight, not behind the closed doors of boardrooms or through opaque industry lobbying. Water belongs to all of us, so how it is managed is a question of economic democracy. This should not be difficult for any government to grasp.

Lewis’ comments and bill are particularly relevant when water regulators Ofwat and the Environment Agency have held secret meetings with water industry bosses where they discuss how to “manage” public “perceptions” over increased bills. These have increased by 360% since privatisation.

The Labour MP for Norwich South further said:

The answers do not lie in failed regulators or tinkering. We must have the courage to change the rules and create a new political reality… Let this bill be the starting point for a national and democratic conversation about water, and how this integral part of our commons is managed in the 21st century, with all the democratic, climate and ecological challenges that lie ahead.

Indeed, a key problem can be simply envisioned through imagining we lived in a village with a water well. Albeit, we have a better system of pipes and taps. A private company has come along and put a for-profit toll gate in front of our water well, rather than sharing the water at cost price of its management and maintenance.

Still, Lewis said his bill aims to bring the debate beyond “simplistic” ideas of “privatisation vs nationalisation”. While public ownership means we can reinvest would-be profits into a better service and cheaper bills, it does not in and of itself guarantee enough investment nor correct management. Lewis believes bringing “economic democracy” to the water industry through citizens’ assemblies would solve this.

He also stated:

The dominant political and economic orthodoxy of what is possible has come to its limits. We have blocked ourselves on every avenue – whether that is through arbitrary fiscal rules, or failing to confront the plain reality that the profit-maximisation motive is undermining good public resource management.

Parliament will debate the bill on Friday 28 March.

Featured image via The i paper – YouTube