I beg to move,
That this House has considered the future of the water industry in England and Wales.
Customers and employees should be helped to take back control of the companies providing our water and taking away our sewage. The people of England should once again be front and centre of their water industry. Democratic, publicly owned businesses operating in the private sector, regulated with vigour by a more effective Ofwat is the Co-operative party’s vision of the future of the water industry. I am proud to chair that political party. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for the opportunity to explore that agenda through this debate.
Nationwide, John Lewis, the Co-operative Group, the Royal London insurance company and NFU Mutual are just five successful examples of people-run businesses—mutuals—where profit is sought not to line the profits of wealthy investors, but to reward customers and employees, and to invest in local communities. Such businesses are inspiration for reform of the water industry.
Margaret Thatcher’s decision 30 years ago to privatise our water industry has created an expensive, unaccountable and unfair system. No other country has a fully privatised system of water and sewage services with so little competition. The resulting monopoly businesses are overseen by a woefully weak water regulator. Unsurprisingly, the consumer voice in England carries little weight against the interests of distant investors, whose decisions have seen water bills rise by 40% above inflation since privatisation.