Nationalise the water companies

Sam Ward, Leicester Socialist Party

After a £3 billion emergency bailout for Thames Water there was outcry at this money being used to pay bosses millions in bonuses. Chair Adrian Montague told MPs that the £2.46 million of bonuses to senior management were being “withdrawn”. Now it turns out there’s no plans to get back these payments, and more bonuses later in the year may still get paid!

Montague stated the company’s “most precious resource” was its senior management team. More precious apparently than the water we drink or the workers that actually maintain the creaking water system.

While sewage and dangerous ‘forever chemicals’ enter our water supply, the bosses keep getting richer at our expense. Labour’s ‘crackdown’ on bosses of polluting water companies with its ‘landmark’ legislation has done nothing to deter them.

The bailout loan, aimed at stabilising Thames Water’s financial woes, was never going to be used to help the company deliver for its consumers. It will be used to pay off senior managers and creditors, while workers get stagnant wages, households foot the bill and receive shoddy services. Entry level roles at Thames Water start at around £22,000. Essential workers who keep the water system running are paid peanuts, while senior management pay themselves off with millions.

Thames Water states that it will raise bills by £17 per month, on average. It claims that “we’ve done everything we can to avoid increasing our prices”. A good start would be to not pay senior management £2.46 million worth of bonuses!

While water is privatised, however, this farce will continue. To stop this, Thames Water, along with the entire water sector, needs to be renationalised immediately under democratic workers’ control and management, with no compensation to the fat cats. By kicking out the waste or private profit we could invest in infrastructure to reduce leaks, bring down bills and protect the environment.

Ofwat gone… now what?

The first ‘great stink’ caused MPs to vomit as the smell of sewage entering the Thames invaded the Houses of Parliament in 1858. The second “great stink moment”, as Sir John Cunliffe put it while presenting his review into the water and sewage system, again sees sewage dumped into our waterways. Meanwhile bosses make mega-profits as debt builds up. It’s not just Thames Water – the whole system of privatised water stinks.

So what is the Labour government’s response to the review? Ofwat, the regulatory body responsible for water, is getting flushed down the toilet. A new regulator with beefed up powers will take its place.

But it’s as clear as sewage-riddled mud we don’t just need a new regulator in charge. Water bosses are already sniffing out loopholes to get out of any fines.

And this Labour government was never going to do what is required – to kick out private profit from the water system, with no compensation given to the fat cats. The review wasn’t even allowed to consider what effect renationalising water would have. Until we remove the miasma of private profit from the system, we’ll be stuck with the malodorous effects – polluted rivers, sky-high bills and a few getting rich off our shit.