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Opposition warns Labour government will ban bosses’ bonuses

by Karma Loveday

Shadow environment secretary, Steve Reed, last week called on the government to empower Ofwat to ban the payment of bonuses to water company executives whose companies are discharging “significant levels of raw sewage into the UK’s seas and waterways” and to make a statement to the Commons by 31 January 2024 on progress in implementing this ban.


He led a lengthy debate in the House on water bonuses the day after Panorama was aired, accusing United Utilities of deliberately downgrading and misreporting pollution incidents – an allegation the company denied.

Reed called it “indefensible” that water executives were paid £14m in bonuses between 2020 and 2021 “despite inflicting significant environmental and human damage; condemned the government for being too weak to hold bosses to account; and regretted “that 13 years of successive Conservative governments have broken the water industry and its regulatory framework”.


He pointed to the Conservative government’s halving of Environment Agency resources, which he said led to a “dramatic reduction in monitoring, enforcement and prosecutions, leaving illegal sewage spills to double between 2016 and 2021”.


Reed promised: “Labour will crack down on rogue water companies and strengthen regulation to clean up our waterways. We will place the water companies under special measures. As a first step, Labour will ban self-monitoring by water companies. Instead, we will require water companies to install remote monitors on every outlet, with the result overseen by regulators. That way, we will know exactly what is being discharged into our waterways. Any illegal spill will be met with an immediate and severe fine—no more delays, no more appeals, and no more lenient fines that are cheaper than investing to upgrade crumbling infrastructure.


Rogue water bosses who oversee repeated, severe and illegal sewage discharges will face personal criminal liability. And we will stop the Conservatives’ disgraceful collusion in this national scandal by reinstating the principle that the polluter pays.”

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