Thank you to everyone who has been in touch to raise concerns about water bill rises.
I share customers’ anger at the scale of water bill rises to fix a lack of investment in water infrastructure. Water companies are failing to deliver for their customers and the environment, and the public has rightly had enough.
I believe the problems we are facing with water companies and the bitter pill of higher water bills have arisen because the last Government weakened regulation, failed to invest in infrastructure and allowed water bosses to take millions of pounds in bonuses while pumping record levels of sewage into our waters.
I am proud to have supported the Water (Special Measures) Act which became law in February 2025. I care about our natural environment and want to see our waterways cleaned up.
This legislation will strengthen the powers of the regulator, Ofwat, so it can better hold water companies to account for poor performance. It will give Ofwat new powers to ban undeserved bonuses when water company executives fail to meet high standards. It will introduce stricter penalties, including where senior executives obstruct investigations by environmental regulators, and includes provisions for automatic and severe fines for wrongdoing. It also introduces mandatory monitoring of emergency overflows and pollution incidents.
I also welcome the actions the Government took immediately on coming into office. This included measures to ensure funding for vital infrastructure investment is ringfenced and to put customers and the environment at the heart of water companies’ objectives. Compensation for households and businesses when basic water services are affected will be doubled and powerful new customer panels will be able to hold water company bosses to account.
I believe the measures the Government is taking will strengthen the enforcement regime and make clear that it will not tolerate poor performance across the water sector. Change will take time, but I strongly support action to fundamentally transform how our water industry is run and restore our rivers, lakes, and seas to good health. I care for our environment, and want to see
Thank you once again for contacting me about this important issue. Please know that I, and the Government, are entirely focused on doing everything we can to clean up our waterways.
