Starmer rubber stamps water bill price rises of up to 44%!

Right, so Labour’s going to come in and sort the water companies out and clean up our water, we’ve seen water campaigner Feargal Sharkey out doing promo for Labour and instead Labour has allowed Ofwat, the water regulator, toothless as they are, to see bills put up by anywhere between 22% and 44% depending on who your supplier is and of course, it’s not like you can change supplier if you don’t like it either. After being permitted by the Tories to dump all manner of effluence in our waterways, we’re now being told by Starmer’s Labour we have to pay again for the clean up. We’ve already paid, we expect clean rivers and up to date infrastructure and if the water companies cannot do that, having been paid to do so already, because they are profligate, because they are poorly run, because keeping their own shareholders happy and their pockets bulging with our bill money is their biggest priority, then let them fail. Let them fail and buy them back into public hands for a song. The original nationalised service was intentionally underfunded by Thatcher to soften things up for the sell off back in the 80s, if the private water companies are unable to make the business work, then they shouldn’t be in business. We need water, it is essential to life and our economic prosperity, so stop this nonsense Keir Starmer, stop demanding we pay even more for the same crap service and put country first, it is what you said you’d do after all.
Right, so that was Louise Haigh, then the Labour MP for Sheffield Heeley, now the Minister for Transport, speaking to Sophy Ridge back in March, talking about Thames Water and the need for a bill hike of up to 40% at that point and asking Labour if the need to renationalise water was now there and one one hand, absolutely that was a relevant question given the state of our stinking waterways, but equally, Starmer once stood on a pledge to renationalise water when he ran to be Labour leader, now long since dumped. Haigh said we have no time or any money to renationalise, I’d argue that the water companies have had enough time and have certainly had control of our water for long enough to prove they aren’t up to the task, but apparently it’s too hard, it’s too complicated, so we are just going to have to what? Put up with it because you aren’t up to the job of fixing it? We’ll be tougher on the Tories to crack down on this, we’ll be tougher on Ofwat, the regulator she referred to, it’s unacceptable that the water companies get into debt whilst at the same time fail to invest.
Now of course it is Labour in power and they’re now going to make us pay even more, our water bills going up by between 22% and 44%, which Rachel Reeves is calling a bitter pill that we must swallow. Why? We’ve paid for clean water already. Why are we paying again for it? Tell the shareholders no dividends for you until you’ve cleaned up. You’ve robbed the general public enough whilst delivering a poor service, why are you not saying that?
Well this is the thing with regulators you see. Every government can come in and say well the regulator has told us this, the regulator has advised us of that, and they treat them like some kind of expert organisation, water company experts, economists, but it isn’t. Ofwat, the water regulator is literally just a department of the government itself.
I’ve spoken in videos before of bodies called non-ministerial government departments and these are basically departments of government with no direct ministerial oversight, but are instead under the umbrella of the Cabinet Office, with a senior civil servant in charge in effect. Keir Starmer for example was himself the Director of Public Prosecutions at the Crown Prosecution Service, I know, who knew? But the CPS is itself one of these non ministerial government departments, so he was basically a glorified civil servant for all the pomp he puts on about the role. Ofwat is another of these bodies, therefore it is not about the government seeking advice from an independent body when it refers to the Water Services Regulator Authority, it is part of government itself.
In which case, as seems obvious, why can the government not instruct Ofwat of what to do and indeed give it new powers and new authority to carry that remit out? Well of course it can. We’re back to political choice again.
Just to reinforce how poor a decision this is on Labour’s part though, not to mention how critical functional water supplies are not just so we have clean water to drink but for critical infrastructure too, they have recently been advised on the state of Thames Water, the very same body Louise Haigh was making excuses about a moment ago, and if you thought it was bad already, it’s even worse than that.
Starmer and Reeves have already been told that Thames Water now poses a critical risk to the country. On one hand yes we have the financial side of the story, Thames Water has been run by such a bunch of incompetents for so long, they will actually run out of money by next June, they are £15.2bn in debt and that is despite years of failing to invest in the infrastructure of the service which they have a monopoly on, no competition at all, which is where the critical risk to the country actually becomes more apparent, because that irresponsible lack of investment, that bleeding of an essential service dry, sucking the money out to line the pockets of investors. One of the most critical pieces of national infrastructure is the water treatment works at Coppermills, which Thams Water control, have not invested in the upkeep of properly and which services some 3 million people. It was only added to their part of the water supply chain in 2009 and already, it is buckling because Thames Water haven’t maintained it as they are paid to. £19bn worth of their assets are considered to be failing right now.
This was one of the most critical issues presented to Starmer and Reeves upon taking office, it is one of the most pressing and urgent problems they were handed and instead of looking at it, it seems Starmer was more interest in Nato and announcing £3bn in annual aid for Ukraine for as long as it takes, despite us having no money as we keep getting told despite that.
I would humbly suggest the case for taking back control of our water infrastructure is being made in no uncertain terms. Those in charge are not competent, are blowing our bill money, not using enough of it to invest in the service and we’re going to end up with the service entirely collapsing if something doesn’t shift.
Louise Haigh made the argument that the money isn’t there in March, but if the service is failing, then let it fail and by that I don’t mean wait until it is too late, I mean tell the company that if they cannot rectify matters with what they already get, then they should let the government take over. Buy them out for £1 or something like that, cut shareholders out of the equation entirely, pay the bill money to government and reinvest the lot in urgent works. If Reeves cannot see the value in putting money into this, investing public funds, when allowing the system to collapse would cost so much more in the long term, not to mention knock on effects to everything, businesses, industry, consumers that all rely on water, then she’s a bigger idiot than I ever took her for. Well, she’s proving that to be the case.
Water bills are going to rise between 22% and 44% to pay for the works needed, despite the fact we’ve already paid. We have to pay again, because these water companies are failures and we’re expected to trust that they will make good with the extra bill money we will end up paying, but of course Reeves is detached from this decision, because the announcement has come from Ofwat, following a review they have conducted. Don’t forget, they are part of this government too, so it’s a nonsense and Reeves can just wring her hands and say I’m very sorry, we have no choice. She damn well does.
Thames Water customers oddly enough, will see the lower end of that bill rise, 22%, over the next 5 years as these rises will come in, with bills for Thames Water customers rising by an additional £99 to £535 through this first Labour term, so no intention at all of renationalisation under this parliament by Labour despite what Starmer has said in the past, liar that he is. That is actually less still, than Thames Water wanted, frankly they have a nerve asking for anything more at all.
As a collective, water companies have sought a further £96bn from their customers for an investment program to do all the work they should have been doing for decades. No new reservoirs for example have been built since 1989 in the UK, but plenty have been sold off to developers. Now they want to build some. That’s just one aspect. Other work includes tackling leaks, dealing with sewage overflows, stopping the dumping the Tories let them do, but I’m not clear at the moment if Labour are legislating to deal with that, but at the end of the day, we’re all having to stump up more to again resuscitate a failing privatised water service, because this Labour government, just like the Tories and other Labour administrations before, won’t do the right thing and take it back under public control.
Why are they so determined to resist this? How many Labour MPs are water lobbyists and how hard are other water lobbyists lobbying them to not do it? How much by way of donations have some Labour MPs had on this matter?
One example that came up in a cursory search is the new Labour MP for Livingston, Gregor Poynton, who is also a partner at consultancy firm Headland, second jobbing anyone? Headland counts amongst its clients, for whom it lobbies on behalf of, Anglian Water. I’m sure Gregor would be very keen to vote to renationalise water wouldn’t he? He’s certainly not going to be the only one, but here’s an example of Starmer’s high quality Labour candidates again I suppose.
Has there been fallout? Of course there has, even Feargal Sharkey who campaigned for Labour is incensed. Well we did warn him, but he’s aiming his ire at Ofwat, he really ought to have it pointed out to him they are part of the government really, but he’s said:
‘They are allowing water companies to put up bills by a large amount to pay for infrastructure they should have already paid for with customer bills. Customers are therefore having to pay twice.
I am now so outraged with the contempt Ofwat is showing to customers that we should be taking to the streets outside parliament to show that we will no longer take their greed, their incompetence and their complete and utter disregard for customers and the environment.’
The Labour government is who you should be aiming that at as well.
Now you might have guessed the Green Party will have weighed in on this and one post that caught my eye came from Green Party peer Jenny Jones, who thinks these water bill hikes could end up being a new poll tax moment. She said in a tweet that:
‘I wonder. Will water bills become the next poll tax? I was in court for refusing to pay in 1990, but up to 18 million people delayed, or didn’t pay. Even stopping Direct Debits for water bills will hit companies hard. We need to challenge all MPs to lobby for Public ownership.’
Food for thought. Why should we pay twice? Why isn’t this newly elected Labour government, doing anything different from the Tories? They’d have stung us with higher bills, now so are Labour. We need to renationalise now, but we need politicians not connected to privatised water or recipients of donations from private water to do it.
As I’ve been writing this Ofwat has now put Thames Water into special measures and it has emerged that £1.1bn of cash to be invested in sewage works upgrades has gone unspent, all while Thames Water’s boss got a £195,000 bonus, the excuse for paying it being that is what is required to attract the right sort of talent. Stop this nonsense now, bloody renationalise the lot, no excuses.
The fact of the matter is voters were warned about Labour though. It was only back in April that Starmer whipped his MPs to vote with the Tories to actually weaken Ofwats remit, so they are hardly going to strengthen it now are they? Get the details of what happened there in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.