If hon. Members check my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, they will see that I chair an organisation called the UK Water Partnership. As the Leader of the Opposition claimed that I was some sort of stooge for the water companies, I put on the record that the UK Water Partnership is a public-private partnership, and that I was asked to chair it by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It brings together industry, policy makers and the research community to try to provide the key to unlocking a $500 billion global marketplace, as well as tackling water security issues through a strategic approach to research innovation and global clients. It effectively works right across the water sector, helping British companies to do better in a global marketplace. I very much do not speak for water companies.
As the water Minister who introduced more competition, changed Ofwat’s prioritisation of environmental protection, introduced the catchment approach to upstream water management and oversaw the Thames tideway tunnel in its initial phase, I have a fair degree of insight into how private water companies work and what they deliver for customers.
I appreciate the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) bringing this matter to the House. I suppose it all depends on which end of the telescope we look down. It is easy to pray in aid companies and organisations that fail, and so give a malign picture of the whole operation of our water sector. I will try to give a more balanced view, but I totally accept some of the points made, as there are good players and bad players in every sector.
As in any field that involves a number of organisations, we will of course come across ones that are good and others that are bad, but I am absolutely certain that we have benefited from privatisation. It is wrong to turn the clock back and pretend that there was some halcyon era of cheap water, exemplary customer service, massive investment and great environmental activity by companies in the days when they were publicly owned. To those who say, “Ah, but we would do it better this time”, I say that that is the Venezuela defence. Socialists say that Venezuela has not done socialism right and that they would do it differently here, that nationalisation would be different from in the past. Those years of bad service, under-investment and environmental degradation must not happen again.