Environment Secretary Steve Reed is making his first intervention on Britain's sewage crisis since Labour won power
will be forced to return money that isn’t spent on upgrading their sewerage networks to customers under new plans being unveiled by the Government,In his first intervention on Britain’s sewage crisis, Environment Secretary Steve Reed said water companies will no longer be allowed to divert infrastructure funding to pay forHe also revealed plans to double the compensation households receive when their water supply is disrupted and to set up new panels for customers to hold the utility firms to...
However, it remains unclear when the new Government plans to set in motion some of the other proposals in its manifesto to clean up the UK’s waterways, including prosecutions for water bosses and automatic fines for firms.and waterways, including increased funding for the Environment Agency and for farmers so they can reduce agricultural pollution, plus a “green duty” on regulator Ofwat to place greater emphasis on the environment when making decisions over water companies’ business plans.
These plans set out how much firms propose to spend on their infrastructure from 2025 to 2030, and how much they plan to increase bills by to fund it. But Ofwat faces a standoff with investors over the bill hikes. In March, Thames Water’s investors pulled the plug on £500m of emergency funding as it argued the regulator was making the firm “uninvestable”.
Water companies have been heavily criticised in the past for failing to spend money on their infrastructure, while paying large dividends to their investors., Ofwat found water companies had failed to spend £587m set aside for improving their assets between 2020 to 2023. It is understood that it will be up to Ofwat to decide how exactly customers will be refunded if water companies do not spend their allocated infrastructure funding. Ofwat is an independent body but takes policy direction from ministers within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
New customer panels will be introduced with the power to summon board members and hold water executives to account, the Secretary of State said. While Labour’s proposals are likely to be welcomed by campaigners, the Government is yet to commit to some of the other changes groups have been calling for to end the sewage crisis and restore our waterways.published a manifesto, backed by over 20 leading environmental groups, that set out five key pledges the new Government must commit to to Save Britain’s Rivers.
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