WATER UK has warned against “decisions driven by political short-termism,” rather than the needs of customers and the environment.
Responding exclusively to comments raised during Utility Week’s New Deal for Utilities campaign, including the potential renationalisation, or mutualisation, of England’s water companies, the trade association’s chief executive Michael Roberts said there were at least three good reasons to “steer well clear” of such arguments.
He questioned the claim of overwhelming public support for nationalisation based on an opinion poll in September 2017, pointing instead to a new survey by ComRes, in February this year, showing only two in five (42 per cent) of British adults supported nationalising water and sewerage services in England – about half the number claimed by pro state-ownership voices.
The survey also shows, he said, how trust in water companies remains very high – with 90 per cent trusting their water company to provide a reliable service and ensure good water quality.
Secondly, in his view the nationalisation proposals “offer no practical plans for protecting the environment, improving services or dealing with the big challenges of climate change and population growth”. “Instead of building on nearly 30 years of improvements, made possible by bringing in billions of pounds of private investment to undo the problems left by nationalisation, there’s a real danger we go back to a world where decisions are driven by political short-termism rather than the needs of customers and the environment.”
Labour Party MP Gareth Thomas, Roberts added, admits that lack of investment pre-privatisation was the result of political decision-making. “Putting water back in the same constrained public sector funding pot as health, education, defence, policing and the rest risks relegating it once again to taking part in an annual competition for financial support,” he warned.
“Of course, the English private sector model is not the only way to provide services. But to suggest, as some do, that the industry needs to be publicly-owned to be run in the public good is not supported by the evidence.”
Whilst, like any model, the English system is not perfect, he said, its critics find it incredibly difficult to credit not simply what has been achieved, based on nearly £160 billion of private investment over the past 30 years, but “how far the sector is already moving on from the world they criticise”.
“The business plans now being finalised with Ofwat will commit companies to invest £50 billion over the next five years, cut bills by 4 per cent in real terms, undertake the biggest leakage reduction programme in 20 years, and make nearly twice as much help available to people who struggle to pay.” And companies’ ambitions to do the right thing go beyond these business plans, he said.
“This is a sector working energetically with its stakeholders on the most important challenges it faces. There is plenty still to do, but there should be no doubting our ability and commitment to operate in the public interest.”
Read Michael Roberts’ full column, ‘In the public interest’ here.