Thames Water has been on the brink of collapse for more than a year, struggling under the weight of £17bn in net debt, built up over decades since privatisation. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian
Debt-ridden utility company warns of ‘material uncertainty’ despite seeing profits rise to more than £400m
Thames Water has said crisis talks to secure its future with lenders are taking “longer than expected” and will drag into 2026 as it faces the prospect of a collapse into government control.
Britain’s biggest water company on Wednesday said it had swung to a profit of £414m for the six months to September helped by bills rising by nearly a third, after losing £149m in the same period in 2024.
Despite the jump in reported profits, the company said there was “material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt” on its status as a going concern. A collapse into government control under a special administration regime (SAR) – a form of temporary nationalisation – “could occur in the very near term” if it is unable to agree the terms of a formal takeover by its controlling lenders.
Those creditors have asked the regulator, Ofwat, and the government for Thames to be let off future fines for pollution, arguing the prospect of hundreds of millions of pounds of extra costs is making a turnaround impossible.
The standoff has already continued for months longer than originally anticipated and the talks were expected to have concluded by the end of the year.
On Wednesday, the company said: “Discussions are taking longer than expected but this is a complex situation and the current phase of the restructuring plan will likely take a number of months to conclude.”
A registration form and a stethoscope at the Temple Fortune Health Centre GP Practice near Golders Green, London
A “PFI 2.0” will divert money away from patients and into shareholders’ pockets, campaigners warned today as the government announced plans to use private finance to fund new neighbourhood health centres.
The government has pledged to open 250 centres as part of an effort to shift outpatient care away from hospitals.
Officials say they will serve as “one-stop shops,” bringing together GPs, nurses, dentists and pharmacists under one roof.
Announcing the plans, Health Minister Karin Smyth warned that government funding “will only get us so far,” citing a £40 billion black hole in the NHS’s finances.
“We need to use every measure available to us, which is why we’re leveraging in private investment to construct some of these centres, making the most of all expertise and every tool at our disposal,” she said.
But campaigners have warned that the use of public-private partnerships could repeat the mistakes of disastrous PFI (private finance initiative) schemes, in which private firms financed the construction of hospitals, leaving taxpayers lumbered with high-interest repayments over the long term.
Green party leader Zack Polanski (Green Party of England and Wales). Image: Bristol Green Party Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
Greens call for the introduction of immediate and long term cost of living measures to cut bills by hundreds of pounds, and a package of fair wealth taxation measures to raise over £30 billion a year.
Green Party leader Zack Polanski said:
“It is a political choice to keep children in poverty whilst billionaires and multimillionaires get richer, that’s just a fact, and any politician who says otherwise doesn’t have the public’s interests at heart.
“Our country is and has been for a long time now at breaking point. Life has become literally unaffordable for millions of people. People are angry, and I get it, our communities deserve so much better. It is time for bold policies and bold choices that make a real difference to ordinary people
“But instead of facing this reality head-on, this Labour government, like the Conservatives before it, has stood by whilst the 1% get ever richer at the expense of ordinary people.”
The Green Party leadership team, together with Green MPs, Peers, and 20 Green Council Leaders and Deputy Leaders – have joined forces to urge the Chancellor to tax wealth fairly, end the cost-of-living crisis and deliver real change.
In a letter sent to the Chancellor today [Wednesday 19th November] the Green Party is calling on the government to commit to immediate and long term measures to address the cost-of-living crisis and bring children out of poverty.
Senior Green figures are urging Reeves to tax wealth by:
Implementing a 1% tax on wealth over £10 million and 2% over £1 billion, raising £14.8 billion per year.
Aligning rates of Capital Gains Tax – currently the lowest in the G7 – with income tax so income from work is not taxed more than income from wealth, raising an additional at least £12 billion per year.
Introducing National Insurance on investment income, in line with employment income, to raise at least £6.1 billion per year.
Senior Green figures are urging Reeves to tackle the cost-of-living by:
Moving policy costs off bills, cutting typical household energy bills by £156 per year.
Stopping gas prices inflating the price of electricity, cutting bills by at least £65 per year.
Scaling up nationwide retrofit.
Ending profiteering off essentials: bringing energy retail companies and water into public ownership.
Giving Local Authorities the power to control rents, similar to Scotland.
Scrapping the two child benefit cap in full.
Extending free school meals to all primary and secondary school children.
Greens say the package of measures would raise over £30 billion a year to spend on tackling the cost-of-living crisis and bringing down household energy bills, which have risen by 42% since 2021.
Last year, billionaires saw their collective wealth increase by £35 million a day and Britain’s 50 richest families now hold more wealth than half the population combined.
The Greens argue that taxes on the super-rich should be used to move policy costs away from electricity bills, saving a typical household around £156 a year from their electricity bill. The government should pay for these policy measures through wealth taxation instead. In addition to this, they call for decoupling the price of electricity from expensive gas, which they say could cut bills by at least £65 per year for the average household.
In light of rumoured cuts to the government’s flagship Warm Homes Plan, they are also calling on the government to ‘scale up’ investment in home insulation, to reduce bills in the long-term.
As well as scrapping the two-child benefit cap in full, the Greens are also pushing the Chancellor to extend free school meals to every child to help families with soaring food prices, which have risen by over a third since 2020.
Green Party Treasury Spokesperson Adrian Ramsay MP said:
“The Chancellor has spent the past 16 months claiming that there isn’t enough money to lift children out of poverty, ensure warm homes for pensioners, or provide vital support for people with disabilities.
“But the truth is Starmer and Reeves are choosing to make life harder for ordinary people while refusing to even consider taxing wealth fairly to unlock billions of pounds for the public purse.
“We’re making clear that there are common-sense steps this government could and should take to raise revenue and deliver the change people are crying out for.”
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
A tanker pumps out excess sewage from the Lightlands Lane sewage pumping station in Cookham, Berskhire which flooded after recent heavy rainfall, January 10, 2024
Water companies record worst-ever environmental performance in England as serious pollution incidents increase by 60% in 2024, Environment Agency finds
EMBATTLED water companies have recorded their worst-ever environmental performance in England, with serious pollution incidents up 60 per cent last year, data from the Environment Agency revealed yesterday.
Thames Water, Southern Water and Yorkshire Water were responsible for 81 per cent of all serious incidents, while Thames Water alone saw cases more than double.
Northumbrian and Wessex Water were the only companies with none.
The agency said only Severn Trent achieved the top four-star rating for 2024, while all nine water and sewage firms in England collectively earned just 19 out of a possible 36 stars — the lowest since the annual performance system began in 2011.
The regulator said the decline marked the end of over a decade of gradual improvement.
Serious pollution incidents causing significant environmental harm rose to 75, their highest since 2013.
The agency partly blamed extreme weather, which strained ageing infrastructure, but said “this is never an excuse.”
It also cited long-term underinvestment and poor maintenance.
April 2023 Surfers Against Sewage and Extinction Rebellion protests in St Agnes, Perranporth, Truro and Charlestown which unveiled spoof Blue Plaques to the MPs and Conservative Government who allowed raw sewage to be dumped in the sea (Image: Surfers Against Sewage)
A registration form and a stethoscope at the Temple Fortune Health Centre GP Practice near Golders Green, London
A tanker pumps out excess sewage from the Lightlands Lane sewage pumping station in Cookham, Berskhire which flooded after recent heavy rainfall, January 10, 2024