Mollie Nixon, Carlisle Socialist Party
Sewage pollution by water companies is now the norm. Every single water body is now contaminated with harmful chemicals, with the most toxic sewage discharge incidents having more than doubled to 48 per day at the start of 2026. Rivers, lakes and beaches are being left too polluted to safely swim in.
As this happens, our water bills are continuously climbing. These companies are being allowed to raise our bills, expecting us to front the cost for decades of underinvestment into inadequate sewage-processing infrastructure. Customers of United Utilities in the North West will see the biggest average increase in our bills – £57 up from last year, and for what?
With 84% of people already taking steps to reduce their water use due to unaffordability, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), and newly floated proposals by water companies to charge ‘surge pricing’ during droughts, the pressure is mounting on working people. We are being forced to pay more for a worse service!
Despite the ban introduced by the government in 2025 to stop top polluters from doling out lavish company bonuses, through loopholes the pay of water company chief executives in England and Wales rose by 5% this year. Louise Beardmore, of United Utilities, received a whopping £2.5 million pay packet – up £1.1 million from last year! This is in spite of the Environmental Agency finding pollution from her company to be the single largest contributor to the nutrient burden of lake Windermere – a UNESCO world heritage site.
These companies are able to pollute waterways and skirt government bonus bans because they face no real accountability. The Labour government is adamant on the need for proper regulation and penalisation rather than public ownership. But if that actually worked, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Andy Burnham has talked about wanting stronger accountability: what stronger accountability can there be but from the people who depend on that service? Expressions of anger and chiding remarks in parliament are not enough without real action.
What we need is the nationalisation of water, which the vast majority of Britons (82%) from across supporters of all five main political parties agree with. This would only work, however, if it was run under democratic workers’ control – not by those who protect profit over people and planet. And use the wealth and resources hoarded by the super-rich to do the vital infrastructure works, not from increasing our bills.
