Exclusive: 7,280 suspected illegal spills in rivers and sea recorded in first five months of 2026
The number of suspected illegal discharges of raw sewage into rivers and seas by water companies during dry weather increased significantly during the first five months of 2026.
Dumping raw sewage into waterways during dry spells via overflows amounts to pollution. It is considered a breach of the permits given to water companies and is illegal. Discharging during dry weather increases the toxicity of the sewage pollution entering waterways. Rivers have less flow and volume, and there is no rainwater to dilute the sewage pollution entering the waterway.
Last year, in what regulators said was tougher action on sewage pollution, water companies in England were for the first time required to report to the Environment Agency the number of times they discharged raw sewage from combined sewer overflows during dry weather. A dry day spill is flagged when an overflow operates despite little to no rainfall that day and the previous day.
In 2025, water companies in England and Wales reported 8,576 dry spill pollution discharges. But according to freedom of information requests submitted by Environment Agency whistleblower Robert Forrester, the pollution is getting worse, not better, despite the regulator’s promise of tougher action.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s abrupt abandonment of his flagship pledge to bring Thames Water into public ownership exposes the emptiness of his promises to “reverse Thatcherism.”
Last week Burnham backed down at the very moment the criminal pollution record and financial collapse of Britain’s most distrusted and environmentally destructive privatised utility demanded decisive action and the prosecution of those responsible. He now insists nationalisation would be “too costly,” “too complex,” “too disruptive.”
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UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.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)
Thames Water sign at a water works in Islington, north London, July 23, 2026
CAMPAIGNERS demanded the government take back control of debt-ridden Thames Water after its “indefensible” decision to give a £1 million golden handshake to its finance chief amid likely drought conditions in large parts of the country.
Britain’s largest water company gave Steve Buck the huge sign-on fee in July as it continues to struggle with a debt pile of around £20 billion, as well as public outcry over pollution and mismanagement of the utility.
The payment, which a senior company figure admitted would be seen as “unjust” by customers, was made despite renewed strain on southern England’s water systems, as Amber heat alerts were issued for most of the country yesterday.
More areas across England are likely to plunge into drought this week, as the Met Office predicted temperatures are to soar into the mid-30°Cs yet again this week.
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)Image of a burst water main.
UK’s weak lobbying laws leave public in the dark about Flint Global’s vast access to government under James Purnell
Flint Global, the lobbying firm run by Andy Burnham’s incoming chief of staff, James Purnell, held extensive meetings with ministers, senior officials and special advisers with minimal disclosure, openDemocracy can reveal.
Our analysis of public transparency releases revealed Flint’s staff members met with officials from at least nine government departments on 38 occasions – for meetings, breakfasts, lunches, dinners and roundtables – since Labour took office. Attendees included cabinet ministers Jonathan Reynolds, Douglas Alexander and Nick Thomas-Symonds. This figure is likely an undercount as records of such meetings are published months in arrears.
While Flint Global opts not to reveal its client list in the UK, EU transparency disclosures reveal it has lobbied politicians in Brussels on behalf of Microsoft, Apple, BP and Uber. In the UK, the firm is known to have advised Thames Water – the utility Burnham has said “should be” nationalised.
Our findings raise fresh questions about the interests of Purnell, a former Blair-era cabinet minister who is poised to become one of the UK’s most powerful unelected officials when Burnham enters No 10, and have sparked fresh calls for the UK’s weak lobbying laws to be reformed.
One government log appears to confirm just how routine its engagements with Flint were.
A September 2024 meeting between the lobbying firm and the Department for Business and Trade’s then top-ranking civil servant, Gareth Davies, is described as a “regular meeting to discuss latest business updates”. Purnell is also recorded as having hosted “evening drinks to discuss latest business updates” with Davies in March this year.
Yet despite this regular access to government officials, Flint’s quarterly entries to the Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists have only ever declared lobbying for two clients. The firm said it lobbied on behalf of the British Standards Institution, which produces technical standards on a range of products and services, in late 2024, and Hellen Systems, a tech firm working on long-range navigation, between July and September 2025.
Across the remaining six quarters that Labour has been in office – covering a total of 18 months – Flint declared having made “no communications which meet the definition of consultant lobbying”.
There is no suggestion that Flint has broken any rules. Rather, its near-empty register reflects major flaws in Westminster’s lobbying transparency rules. While few companies enjoy such extensive access to such wide-ranging government departments, much of Flint’s lobbying activity does not meet the threshold for statutory registration.
The 2014 Lobbying Act requires consultant lobbyists to register only direct communications with ministers or permanent secretaries made on a client’s behalf. They do not have to declare meetings with government special advisers, director generals and senior officials, nor roundtables and briefings that they attend or organise, nor strategic advice they give clients about who to speak to in government, what to say, and when to say it.
The result is that a firm such as Flint Global can maintain a regular presence across Whitehall – breakfasting with officials, dining with ministers, pre-briefing advisers – while lawfully declaring that it does no consultant lobbying at all. Many similar lobbying firms sign up to the industry body’s voluntary code of conduct, which requires them to publish a client list, but Flint has not opted to do so.
This means the public has no way of knowing whether decisions that cross Purnell’s desk in No 10 could benefit his former clients.
Duncan Hames, senior director of policy at Transparency International UK, told openDemocracy: “That a lobbying company can have dozens of meetings across government with so little public information about the purpose of these engagements shows how opaque Westminster remains.
“If the next prime minister wants change from the broken politics-as-usual, they should recognise that keeping things behind closed doors and poorly managing conflicts of interest are recipes for disaster.
“Government should create a firewall between any new appointments and their past interests in the private sector, as well legislating to bring lobbying out of the shadows.”
Vast access to Whitehall
Purnell, who resigned from Flint Global last week, joined the company as chief executive in June 2024 – weeks before Labour’s election win. Although the lobby firm had previously secured meetings with Conservative government officials, its engagement with the government appears to have ramped up that summer.
In July 2024, the firm hosted a roundtable with then-business secretary Jonathan Reynolds alongside Barclays, Google and Virgin Atlantic to discuss “opportunities and challenges relating to business growth”. It is not known whether Flint counts these firms among its UK clients, though EU transparency records reveal it has lobbied for Google in Brussels.
Over the following 20 months, Flint met ministers or officials from the Department for Business and Trade at least 13 times, including three meetings with trade minister Douglas Alexander and repeated meetings, breakfasts, dinners and drinks with civil servant Gareth Davies.
Over at the Treasury, Flint discussed the contents of the chancellor’s January 2025 growth speech with a senior official the day it was delivered, attended a roundtable on financial services policy with then City minister Emma Reynolds, and met a senior official to “discuss policy for Autumn Budget” in October 2025.
Department for Transport special adviser Stef Lehmann, who previously worked in Flint’s transport team, accepted lunch or dinner from Flint on three separate occasions, while the department’s permanent secretary, Bernadette Kelly, recorded a “speaking commitment” with the firm.
Flint also hosted or briefed senior officials at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology on digital policy; met officials from the Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero to discuss new publicly owned energy investment firm Great British Energy; and discussed planning “blockers” with Chris Stark, the head of the government’s clean power mission.
The firm also had contact with the Cabinet Office, the Department for Education, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Health and Social Care, whose special adviser, Heather Iqbal – another ex-Flint employee – was taken to breakfast by Purnell in August 2025.
Several of the engagements were roundtables organised around Flint’s corporate network. A March 2025 meeting with Douglas Alexander to discuss “the current trading environment” brought together more than 20 companies, including Amazon, Uber, Diageo, Unilever, GSK and Quadrature – the hedge fund that donated £4m to Labour before the 2024 election. The British Standards Institution, one of the only two clients Flint has ever been required to declare, was also present, although Flint did not declare any consultant lobbying for the company in this quarter.
Following Purnell’s resignation, Flint Global said Purnell “has recused himself from all client activity and has no ongoing financial interest in the company of any kind.”
Flint Global and Andy Burnham’s team were approached for comment.
107 MPs demand government rejects £10bn rescue deal put forward by Thames Water’s creditors
UNIONS, campaigners and MPs are demanding the government put an end to the uncertainty surrounding Thames Water and permanently nationalise the scandal-ridden utility.
They renewed their calls to nationalise the water firm today after Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds came out against a £10 billion rescue bid, saying it poses an “unfair cost to consumers.”
The minister’s warnings closely followed an open letter to Ofwat signed by 107 MPs demanding the government reject the deal put forward by Thames Water creditors to salvage the company.
Politicians expressed urgent concern over allowing the firm, which is responsible for almost a third of all the industry’s most harmful pollution incidents last year, to set its own rules through the proposed deal.
Ms Reynolds told the House of Commons today of her letter to water regulator Ofwat warning that the plan did not go far enough to protect the environment and water customers.
Thames Water hopes the deal will help stave off temporary nationalisation as it faces collapse due to being nearly £20bn in debt.
Although not an official government decision, the minister’s comments cast doubt on the viability of the plan which she said could mean Thames Water’s 16 million customers “bear an undue cost for investment in the company.”
Ms Reynolds added that the proposal likely means further delays to mandated environmental improvements of wastewater treatment facilities and other projects vital to drinking water safety.
On Tuesday, Ofwat was reportedly still close to accepting the offer from bidding consortium London & Valley Water, which proposed injecting £10bn into debt-ridden Thames Water.
In return, any new fines for sewage leaks would be waived for four years.
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 worker hands over bottled water at a water station in East Grinstead, after bad weather was blamed for more water outages in Kent and parts of Sussex, January 12, 2026
HOW much longer are people in south-east England expected to put up with the depredations of South East Water?
Seventeen communities across Sussex and Kent, including 30,000 households, were without a water supply today, in some cases for the fourth day running. And this comes after prolonged outages last year, notably in and around Tunbridge Wells.
There is no more basic human requirement than a water supply. Without it, society starts to crumble and, indeed, schools, libraries and health clinics have had to shut in affected areas while elderly residents have been asked to travel up to seventy miles to secure a bottled water supply.
The only thing not in short supply from South East Water is excuses, mainly around the weather — that and fat-cat payments of course.
As recently as 2023 the company was spending millions more on dividends and interest payments on debt — it was debt-free when privatised by Thatcher — than it was in investing in its crumbling infrastructure.
And bungling chief executive David Hinton was, almost unbelievably, paid a £115,000 bonus last year on top of his £400,000 salary.
This was despite not only South East Water’s wretched service delivery but also the fact that it had to turn to its owners — mainly overseas investment funds — for an extra £200 million in cash to stave off insolvency. The company is barely more stable than the effectively bankrupt Thames Water. Local MPs have unsurprisingly called on Hinton to resign.
Thames Water sign at a water works in Islington, north London, July 23, 2026
