I will bring forward amendments to ensure that this Bill does not simply allow these failed zombie companies to continue extracting bill payers’ cash while loading huge amounts of debt on to the balance sheet. The Government need a serious look at the opportunity to bring these companies into public ownership, and this Bill should give Ministers the option to nationalise these companies where it makes sense. Continue reading “Water (Special Measures) Bill [HL] Second Reading”
Privatisation of rail has given us higher fares and generated a fat profit for all the state-owned German and French rail companies, which took advantage of UK taxpayers. I congratulate Labour on bringing this to an end. But why not end the disastrous mistake of water privatisation that will cost £12.5 billion in this Parliament alone, only to pay shareholders and creditors, but which will still result in waterways full of faeces, agricultural run-off, other chemicals, drugs, paint, bleach and plastic? If water companies collapsed, we could buy them for pennies and run them ourselves. Continue reading “Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill Second Reading”
Who Watches the Watchdogs? is an extremely interesting report but we produce reports and they are then often ignored Continue reading “Who watches the Watchdogs?”
Last night Jenny won the River and Seas Award at the Nature 2030 Political Purpose awards! The award was presented by James Wallace of River Action. The awards are designed to recognise the efforts of UK politicians who have supported and championed environmental causes over the last year, incentivizing more politicians to devote their time to protecting nature. Continue reading “Jenny wins River and Seas Award”
My question to the government: To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the work of the Environment Agency in protecting public health and the environment Continue reading “My debate on the Environment Agency”
No single stretch of river in England or Northern Ireland is in good overall health. 85% of river stretches in England have failed to reach good ecological health and toxic chemicals pollute every stretch of English rivers. What a legacy this Government have left us. Ofwat has failed and the Environment Agency has failed. Continue reading “Pollution in Rivers and Regulation of Private Water Companies”
A Bill to make provision about the structure, ownership and regulation of the water industry; to allow, and in specified circumstances require the Secretary of State to bring water assets into public ownership; to provide for the recovery of dividends; to provide for monitoring of water quality; to set a target for the reduction of sewage discharges; to provide for financial penalties in relation to sewage discharges and breaches of monitoring requirements; to require the Secretary of State to publish a strategy for the reduction of sewage discharges from storm overflows, including an economic impact assessment; and for connected purposes. Continue reading “My new Bill to win back public control of the water industry”
After 13 years of Tory Britain, you can spend three years in prison for erecting a climate crisis banner while sexual predators are quietly fast-tracked for release to help with prison overcrowding.
We all know who is not facing jail time: the water company CEOs who fleeced customers for billions of pounds, filled our rivers with sewage and are now asking for our bills to go up so they can take even more of our money; the Conservative Party members who benefited from the billions handed out via the PPE fast-track scheme and numerous other scams; the Tory donors from the oil and gas industry who have had their payback through tax breaks, new licences and delays in the net-zero policy. Those are climate criminals who are costing us a fortune now and costing future taxpayers billions to clean up the mess and mitigate the damage caused by flooding, wildfires, food shortages and other climate catastrophes. Continue reading “The start of a new Parliamentary session”
Emergency Motion to conference
Jenny has put an emergency motion to conference in response to reports that the government will try again to scrap the anti-pollution rules for areas like the Norfolk Broads and Lake District. Please like it on the Green Party members emergency motion page, so it can be debated:
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb 