[Guardian] Exclusive: Documents reveal water firms have been allowed to advise on how they wish to be held to account
Labour’s new powers for customers to hold water companies to account are a “stitch-up”, campaigners have said, as utilities firms have been advising on how to implement it.
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Documents released under freedom of information laws reveal the CCW has been consulting water companies on how to set up the new consumer boards that would hold them to account. It said it had “set up an industry advisory group to get ideas, feedback and advice from water companies”.
Feargal Sharkey, the former Undertones frontman turned water campaigner, said: “This is a stitch-up. If water companies are involved in setting this up customers will not get any redress. The people who are important in all of this are the customers who have been extorted by these companies. The CCW is asking the extorters what should be happening to the victims, this is an outrage and a scandal.”
He added: “It sounds like this scheme will be equally inept and dysfunctional.”
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