water industry

Labour used water industry analysis to argue against nationalisation

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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/sep/29/labour-water-industry-analysis-argue-against-nationalisation

Thames Water is seeking to raise the funds it needs to avoid short-term nationalisation. Photograph: Maureen McLean/Rex/Shutterstock

‘Economically illiterate’ Defra letter sent to anti-sewage groups cites 2018 report commissioned by water companies

Labour used “economically illiterate” analysis paid for by water companies in order to argue against the nationalisation of the sector, the Guardian can reveal.

In an official letter recently sent to anti-sewage groups, civil servants cited a paper by the Social Market Foundation as a reason to avoid nationalisation as part of its review of the sector. The report from 2018 was commissioned by United Utilities, Anglian Water, Severn Trent and South West Water.

The letter, sent by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to the Rivers Trust, Surfers Against Sewage, River Action UK and Greenpeace states: “The Social Market Foundation calculated the likely cost of renationalisation to be £90bn, drawing on publicly available data from Ofwat, the London Stock Exchange and the annual accounts of the water companies. Renationalisation would impose a huge burden on the public purse at a time when public finances are already stretched.”

Sir Dieter Helm, a leading economist, called the analysis “economically illiterate”.

Moody’s rating agency has disputed this figure and estimated that nationalisation could actually cost £14.5bn – a fraction of the analysis amount.

Earlier this month, Steve Reed, the environment secretary, announced a review into the water companies and the regulators, but said nationalisation was firmly off the table. He said it would cost “billions of pounds” and would not solve the sewage crisis.

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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/sep/29/labour-water-industry-analysis-argue-against-nationalisation

Six water firms in England ‘overcharged customers by up to £1.5bn’

Continue ReadingLabour used water industry analysis to argue against nationalisation

Environmental groups call for mass rally to demand action on water pollution

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/environmental-groups-call-mass-rally-demand-action-water-pollution

A tanker pumping out excess sewage from the Lightlands Lane sewage pumping station in Cookham, Berskhire which flooded after heavy rainfall, January 10, 2024

ENVIRONMENTAL groups called on the public today to mobilise this autumn and ramp up pressure on the government to tackle Britain’s water pollution crisis.

River Action, Surfers Against Sewage and Greenpeace are among the groups who will join the March for Clean Water in Central London on October 26.

It will mark the end of the first 100 days of the Labour government, and take place just days before Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s first Budget.

An escalating water crisis looms, driven by factors such as ageing infrastructure, lack of investment from water firms and industrial pollution.

More than 3.6 million hours of raw sewage discharges poured into rivers and seas last year — a 105 per cent increase compared with 2022.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/environmental-groups-call-mass-rally-demand-action-water-pollution

Continue ReadingEnvironmental groups call for mass rally to demand action on water pollution

Starmer’s Labour: a legacy of U-turns and watered-down pledges

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-labour-a-legacy-of-u-turns-and-watered-down-pledges

From nationalising public services, taxes on the rich, dropping tuition fees to green investment, the new PM’s abandoned promises raise doubts about Labour’s real commitment to its promises for ‘change,’ writes PETER KENWORTHY

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And the new PM, Labour’s Keir Starmer, has also done his fair share of U-turning. Starmer, among other things, pledged and promised to “increase income tax for the top 5 per cent earners” in 2020, during the Labour leadership election — “I will maintain our radical values [ … ] no stepping back from our core principles” as he added in the pledges. Only for him to back away from tax rises.

“We are in a different situation now, because obviously I think we’ve got the highest tax burden since World War II,” he told the BBC in May, when asked about this policy pledge.

Starmer has also essentially abandoned several other pledges, such as to nationalise public services like mail and water companies and the abolition of university tuition fees, among other of his 10 pledges from 2020.

“We are likely to move on from that commitment, because we do find ourselves in a different financial situation,” he told the BBC when asked about tuition fees.

More cake

Labour’s so-called “missions” for Britain (a “long-term plan to get Britain’s future back” that “will drive forward a Labour government”) instead include sticking “tough fiscal rules with economic stability at their heart.”

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If the new PM really wants to turn Britain around and keep his political momentum, he will need more than economic stability, growing cakes and political dilly dallying, however. He will need to improve the lives of ordinary people, as well as keep his promises, principles and integrity.

But Labour’s election manifesto does not even contain the sort of spending plans needed to protect public services from future cuts, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says in a response to the manifesto.

“Delivering genuine change will almost certainly also require putting actual resources on the table. And Labour’s manifesto offers no indication that there is a plan for where the money would come from to finance this,” the IFS adds.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-labour-a-legacy-of-u-turns-and-watered-down-pledges

Continue ReadingStarmer’s Labour: a legacy of U-turns and watered-down pledges

Bathers warned away from 25 beaches polluted by sewage in Wales

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/bathers-warned-away-from-25-beaches-polluted-by-sewage-in-wales/

“You weren’t expecting to go swimming this bank holiday weekend, anyway, were you?”

Coastal tourist hotspots in Wales should be teeming with people this Bank Holiday weekend. But instead, people are being told to avoid them because of sewage pollution. 

Surfers Against Sewage, a leading UK marine conservation campaign charity, monitors water quality at over 450 river and coastal locations so people can swim, surf or splash without the risk of becoming ill. This week, the campaigners issued alerts that more than 25 beaches in Wales have been polluted by storm sewage or given a poor water classification.

Some of Wales’ most popular tourist destinations, including Criccieth, Tenby, Colwyn Bay, and Swansea, have been deemed as unsafe due to sewage pollution.

The campaigners warned how storm sewage had been discharged from sewer overflows within the past 48 hours at many beaches. They informed how short-term pollution is caused when heavy rainfall washes faecal material into the sea from livestock, sewage and urban drainage via streams and rivers.

Posting a report of the alerts on X, environmental campaigner Feargal Sharkey, who is vice chair of River Action, mocked: “You weren’t expecting to go swimming this bank holiday weekend anyway were you?”

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/bathers-warned-away-from-25-beaches-polluted-by-sewage-in-wales/

Continue ReadingBathers warned away from 25 beaches polluted by sewage in Wales

A ‘car crash’ of different disasters has left UK with among the worst bathing conditions in Europe, campaigners warn

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/a-car-crash-of-different-disasters-has-left-uk-with-among-the-worst-bathing-conditions-in-europe-campaigners-warn/

Campaigners are attributing privatisation, extreme weather, and politics to collectively creating the water pollution crisis.  

Almost all of Britain’s waterways are polluted. In 2023, sewage spills into England’s waterways more than doubled. Recently released figures from the Environment Agency show that there were 3.6 million hours of spills compared to 1.75 million hours in 2022.

A separate report from the Rivers Trust confirms the ‘desperate state’ of the country’s seas and rivers.

The State of Our Rivers Report concluded that no single stretch of river in Northern Ireland or England is in good overall health. The report follows an earlier damning verdict by a House of Commons Committee report in 2022, which concluded that no river in England was free from chemical contamination.

Within Europe, Britain’s polluted waterways have been described by Loughborough University as an “anomaly,” which have fallen behind other European countries in reporting significant improvements in bathing water quality in recent decades. In France, for example, authorities have spent billions of euros improving storm water and sewage treatment in an effort to clean up the River Seine for Olympic swimming events this summer.

As research lays bares the deterioration of the state of the nation’s waterway quality, anger is mounting over the dumping of untreated sewage into Britain’s seas and rivers, which are now ranked among the worse countries in Europe for water pollution.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/a-car-crash-of-different-disasters-has-left-uk-with-among-the-worst-bathing-conditions-in-europe-campaigners-warn/

Continue ReadingA ‘car crash’ of different disasters has left UK with among the worst bathing conditions in Europe, campaigners warn