Parliament to debate holding a referendum on water public ownership

(by Verity Mitchell)

On 14 September, Parliament will debate a petition, created by Windrush Against Sewage Pollution’s Ashley Smith, which calls for a binding national referendum to be held on whether the water industry should be returned to public ownership.

The petition states: “Water is a basic human necessity; we believe our privatised system has failed, so the public should decide who owns and controls it. Private water companies have about 62 million captive customers whose bills have delivered over £85 Bn to shareholders; money that in public ownership could have been spent on fixing our infrastructure. No other country in the world has privatised water like this. We believe that proposed government reforms to regulation show that water company owners are being favoured over the public, and this is not right in a democracy. A referendum would give the public back its voice about its water.”

At the time of writing, the petition had secured over 194,000 signatures since its launch on 1 April, nearly double the number needed to be considered for a Parliamentary debate.