This last weekend I joined tens of thousands of people marching for clean water in London

My speech to the House on the final day of committee stage yesterday: I will speak to the three of amendments in this group: My amendments 97, 98 and 99. All three of my amendments are intended to be helpful—that is, to help the Government regulate the water industry properly and end the 30 years of fleecing bill payers while dumping sewage into our waterways. It is an absolutely unforgivable three decades of abuse of the system.

Amendment 97 would prohibit the Government bailing out shareholders and creditors of water companies in the event of special administration. Amendment 98 would allow the Government to take back control with public ownership of water companies, but it is only an option. It is an option that I believe the Government could use as a lever in their negotiations with the water companies, so I think it is worth putting it back in the Bill. Amendment 99 would allow water companies to be put into special administration for failing on environmental issues, such as leaks and sewage spills.

What strikes me about these issues is that the public are demanding that this is sorted, but the Government are giving us half measures. I am concerned that that will not bring the sort of change we need. There is a democratic shortfall here because polls tell us that 82% of the public want to end privatised water, but only a few of us in Parliament are willing to consider it. To me, this suggests that the Government are out of step with the public, which is very concerning for me; I would like the Labour Government to last longer than one term because I really do not want to see another Conservative Government in my lifetime. There is, of course, a fear among many campaigners that this Bill will raise their water bills by enabling the Government to bail out and reward the people who got us into this mess in the first place.

I thank Lady Parminter and Lord Sikka, for signing Amendment 97. It is essential that the Government do not bail out the water companies in such a way that they simply hand money to shareholders and creditors and let them start afresh, behaving in the same way but perhaps with a little more regulation. Amendment 97 would prohibit this so that the public purse does not underwrite the casino capitalism and financial engineering that has been going on in the water sector. We have a ridiculous situation where the debt is being traded by hedge funds, which are gambling on water bills going up in future to finance a bailout. If these companies fail, let us instead bring them into public ownership and democratic control. The shareholders and creditors took a gamble on greed when the companies used £75 billion since privatisation to pay dividends rather than invest. Let them take the hit.

Amendment 98 would allow the Government to set out how they will bring water companies into public ownership. The Greens are deeply disappointed that the Government have ruled this out. I do not understand any sort of ideological addiction to private ownership of a public service such as this, particularly when it is not even a competitive market. It is a monopoly, and it is time it stopped.

I have heard the Government say that private investment is essential, but it is simple maths that, if we stop paying dividends and debt payments, that frees up 40% of people’s water bills to be invested in fixing the sewerage system and building more reservoirs. The Government have been using overinflated estimates from the water industry—a figure of some £90 billion—to claim that public ownership would be too expensive, but actually, it is the complete opposite: it is privatised water that is too expensive to continue.

Water company shareholders have spent decades sucking out the profits while loading debt on to the balance sheets and hiking people’s bills. That is inevitable, as free market economics simply does not work without competition. Thatcher turned a public monopoly into a cash cow for people who are greedy. Unless amended, this legislation does nothing to stop that continuing for another decade. I want the Government to at least have the power to bring the companies into public ownership. If they rule out that option, the Government will make any taxpayer bailout a lot more expensive, as a potential buyer has the upper hand in all negotiations.

I thank Lord Sikka, for signing Amendment 99. Water companies have a job to do and, if they fail to do it, we should put them into special administration. That is simple logic that is hard to disagree with. If people across the country are in hospital because rivers and beaches are contaminated by E. coli, that is failure. If fish and wildlife—whole ecosystems—die due to regular sewage dumping, that is failure. If dumping regularly damages tourism in a national park or on a pleasure beach, that is failure. 

These water company bosses need to know that, if they continue as they have been, that will end with special administration without compensation or with the companies being brought into public ownership. The water companies must either clean up their act or hand over control to somebody who will.

This legislation is a set of political choices, and I am very concerned that the next election will be tough on the Labour Government if this all goes through in the way they seem to predict it will. If they try to get water bill payers to carry the debt from all the decades of privatised failure, that will not be popular with the wider population. So I hope the Government have a proper think about this and make the choices that put them on the side of bill payers and the environment

I want another Labour Government only if I cannot have a Green Government. On the issue about having monopolies where market forces do not operate, can the Minister see that there are inherent problems in having monopolies on something such as water—or any public service that we all need?