Dear Steve Reed OBE MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Emma Hardy MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Minister for Water and Flooding),

Your government promised swift and decisive action to reform the broken water system. And yet, you are overlooking the solution that would reflect the global norm and which 82% of the British public already supports: public ownership.

The largest government review of the water sector since privatisation is underway. But it refuses to consider a future beyond the failed “privatised regulated model”.

England’s water infrastructure is on its knees. The regulators have failed to prevent illegal activity from every water company in the country. Citizens are paying eye-watering bills. The companies are in dire financial straits because of record payouts to those at the top, with some approaching insolvency and requiring public cash bailouts just to stay afloat. We are wholly unprepared for the tremendous strain our water system will come under as a result of climate change.

This cannot continue.

What happens next must take place in broad daylight, not behind the closed doors of boardrooms, or through industry lobbying. Water belongs to all of us, so how it is managed is a question of democracy.

It is our water, it should be our way.

The democratic deficit of our current model and the scale of the crisis leads us to conclude we cannot regulate our way out of this crisis. Ofwat’s primary legal duty is to maximise returns for investors, so access to clean, safe, and affordable water will always come second.

To democratise water we need public ownership, a solution that can take many forms. Paris, Berlin, Stockholm and Cape Town can serve as municipal models to learn from; Scotland, Ireland, and the Netherlands all have national structures and legalisation that better serve their citizens and environment.

We welcome Clive Lewis Private Members’ Bill on water which commits to genuine democratic consultation on ownership and could act as a template for future legislation. We hope the MPs and ministers engage with this bill.

We, the undersigned, support the demand for public ownership of water and call on the government to engage with the question of water ownership in its ongoing review of the sector.

 

• Compass
• Best for Britain
• GMB
• Zero Hour
• Momentum
• We Own It
• BoycottThamesWater.org
• Henley Mermaids
• National Bargee Travellers Association
• MP Watch
• Stratford Climate Action
• Green New Deal Rising
• Equity
• Rt. Hon Diane Abbott MP, Hackney North & Stoke Newington
• Kim Johnson MP, Liverpool Riverside
• Neil Duncan-Jordan MP, Poole
• Richard Burgon MP, Leeds East
• Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, Clapham & Brixton
• Jon Trickett MP, Normanton & Hemsworth
• Nadia Whittome MP, Nottingham East
• Roz Savage MP, South Cotswolds
• Ian Byrne MP, Liverpool West Derby
• Richard Murphy, Emeritus Professor of Accounting Practice, Sheffield University Management School
• Colin Hines, Convenor, UK Green New Deal Group
• Caroline Lucas, former leader of Green Party of England and Wales and MP 2010-24
• Baroness Jenny Jones of Moulsecoomb, Deputy Mayor of London from 2003-04
• Jo Robb, South Oxfordshire District Council, Henley Mermaid
• Claire Kirby, Up Sewage Creek
• Martin Abrams, Lambeth Council