UK Water Companies Have Flooded The Country W. Shit, And Bills 1/3 Higher - "Root And Branch" Reform On Labor's Docket
The environment secretary, Steve Reed, has said he is “furious” about an average 36% rise in water bills in England and Wales but was unable to rule out further above-inflation increases in future to fix the broken water sector. Reed said he hoped that “root and branch” reform of the industry would lead to billions of pounds more in investment, which would mean companies would “never again” have to increase bills in the way they did last year.
EDIT
Ministers will this week announce a consultation into creating a new water regulator, with a government-commissioned review expected to confirm on Monday that Ofwat, the watchdog that polices how much water companies can charge for services, will be abolished. “A key part of that will be you make the water companies upgrade the pipes so they don’t collapse to the extent that you need huge bill rise to put them back into a decent state,” Reed said.
“If we can get that right, we will get that right, you have a much [more] level model for how bills will go up, no more massive bill shocks, like we had at the end of last year.” Critics say Ofwat has presided over a culture of underinvestment in water infrastructure and financial mismanagement by water companies since its creation in 1989. Thames Water, the most troubling case for the government and the UK’s largest water company, is loaded with £20bn in debt and struggling to stave off financial collapse.
Earlier, Reed told Sky News’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips programme that households expected “a small, steady increase” in water bills rather than massive hikes. “Bills need to be as low as possible,” he said. There needed to be “appropriate bill rises” to secure “appropriate levels of investment”, he said, adding: “A small, steady increase in bills is what people expect. That’s what happens in most bills that I pay this year.”
EDIT
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jul/20/environment-secretary-furious-water-bills-england-wales