18 February 2023
In 1989 Mrs Thatcher’s government privatised the water and sewage industry so making England and Wales the only countries in the world to have a fully privatised water and sewage disposal system. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, water and sewerage services remained in public ownership.
Almost three quarters of England's water industry is currently owned from overseas, banks, hedge funds, foreign governments and businesses based in tax havens. English water companies have handed an average of more than £2bn a year to shareholders since they were privatised three decades ago, according to analysis for the Guardian, while cost cutting pumping sewage into our rivers and seas has steadily increased.
The 1976 Bathing Water Directive saw the quality of our bathing water improve from 28% meeting the highest standards in the early 1990s to 72% now. The Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive in 1991 forced water companies to add an additional stage in water treatment to tackle phosphorous, between 1998 and 2010 phosphorous concentration in water dropped by 85%. Sounds as if all is rosy but nothing could be further from the truth.
Although privatisation was intended to bring investment, this has fallen by almost a fifth in the past 30 years, from £2.9bn a year in the 1990s to £2.4bn now, according to research by the Financial Times. Over the same time the companies, which were privatised with no debt, have borrowed £53bn, the equivalent of about £2,000 per household, much of which has been used to help pay £72bn in dividends. It is not just the amount of dividend being paid to shareholders it is the size of salary being paid to chief executives; South West Water pay their chief exe £1.6 million, Thames Water £2 million, United Utilities pay £3.2 million for example and all of these companies have presided over hundreds of thousands of spills into our rivers and seas.
With nearly ten million cattle, 33 million sheep, a thousand intensive poultry farms some holding 100,000 chickens and 10,000 pig farms, agriculture is a major factor in pollution. The problem is epitomised by the poultry sector’s effect on the River Wye. Concern is so high that the Welsh Government has stopped the latest of a long line of intensive (units holding 100,000 birds) poultry farms. Pesticide, fertilizer, antibiotics, slurry all end up in the rivers.
The government grant for environmental protection, including sewage spills fell from £120 million in 2010 to £40 million in 2020. The government’s target is for water companies to spend £36 billion to improve ¾ of their facilities by 2035, this is the bare minimum.
It is time I think to limit excessive salaries and bonuses, pay outs to shareholders and link all future salaries and dividends to environment targets and over time, bring our water and sewage treatment back into public ownership.
If the above is of concern to you then please use the following to cut and paste into a letter to the Rt Hon Thérèse Coffey MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Dear Ms Coffey,
I have been following the government’s record of environmental protection with anger and sadness for the last decade and the current abuse of our rivers and seas has made me write again urging you to take decisive action regarding the state of our rivers and seas.
Firstly, remove the water companies’ self-monitoring powers and give them to the Environment Agency which should be staffed sufficiently to inspect, enforce stringent targets and prosecute the chief executives and board members of those companies that are responsible for serious incidents of pollution.
Secondly, bring forward DEFRA’s target date of 2035 to improve 75% of the 5,500 storm overflows near high priority beaches and rivers. Limit salaries and dividends so that more investment can take place without passing all costs onto the customer. Link salary and dividends to environmental performance.
Thirdly, give more power to local authorities and community groups so that they can apply for and receive bathing designations which will have government funding to secure clean/safe bathing status.
Fourthly, incentivise farmers so that they can meet the Environment Act target of reducing nitrogen and phosphorous pollution by at least 40% by 2037 against 2018 levels. Legislate for clear labelling on food, particularly meat and dairy so that the consumer can buy produce that is not reared on industrial scale, American-style ‘farms’ that use excessive amounts of fertilizers, pesticides and produce slurry, manure, urine and antibiotics that end up in our rivers.
I’m sure you are aware of the Climate Change Committee’s 2022 report which explains that ‘tangible progress is lagging behind policy ambition’, that ‘successful delivery of changes on the ground requires active management’, and that ‘warm words’ have produced ‘little concrete progress’.
Yours sincerely,
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