I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) for introducing this Bill and for his excellent speech—there are not many speeches for which those in the Gallery burst into a spontaneous round of applause.
This is a complex issue and there is no easy solution. As we have heard, the Government are doing a lot of work on this and are holding water companies to account, but the question is whether more can be done. For example, how can my hon. Friend and the Government work together on this, and what can be taken from his Bill? Ultimately, my constituents, who are struggling with the cost of living crisis, do not want to be paying for the failures of the water companies, which are taking billions of pounds for their shareholders while my constituents struggle to turn the tap on. The leaks we have in Brent East are frustrating too, because after the leaks we get potholes, so all of this is interconnected.
In 2023 there was a 54% increase in sewage spills —there were a whopping 464,056 spills in 2023. It is sometimes difficult to put such huge numbers into context, but the average person passes wind 7,000 to 9,000 times a year. I hope that puts into context just how many spills go into our waters and rivers—[Interruption.] I sense that is landing really well with people: we can imagine how many times we pass wind, and if we just double that, double that, double that, double that, double that, and double that again, that is how much spillage goes into our waterways.
The water companies do not care. As I have said, they give billions of pounds to shareholders and some of those shareholders are part of tax avoidance schemes. I am really pleased that this Government are also tackling tax avoidance schemes, because that is vital.
Infrastructure is crumbling, pollution is doubling, and my community in Brent East is paying the price—as are other MPs’ communities. I was one of 30 or so MPs who signed a letter to say that Thames Water should be put in special measures, because I do not know of any other company or organisation that can fail so many times and still be able to take money out of the system and give it to shareholders and still have a contract—it makes no sense.
My constituents cannot afford the proposed increase of over 50%. This is about profits being privatised. Sometimes people, especially politicians, talk about profits and say it is the politics of envy; it is not the politics of envy when profits are taken and put in the pockets of millionaires and billionaires while the failures have to be paid for by ordinary citizens. That is not right. It is not just about the environment but about justice, because the least wealthy communities are often hit the hardest. That is why it is so important that their voices are heard in this place.
I am not scared of citizens or of talking to people and having them inform us about the direction of travel. That is what we, as Members of Parliament, are here for, and the more people who talk to us and inform us of what they want to see us doing, the better.
The Olympic rower and legend that is Sir Steve Redgrave is calling on the Government to tackle pollution for profit in the Thames after some of our rowers were sick after competing there. He said:
“We won’t sit quietly while this catastrophe continues.”
He also said that it is “completely unacceptable” and that “urgent action” is needed to stop sewage discharges at dangerously high levels—E. coli and bacteria levels are 10 times the Environment Agency’s threshold for waters. The threshold is lower in France, so we cannot really compare our levels with theirs. At the moment, Thames Water is being taken to court by the Good Law Project, defending a staggering £3 billion bailout.
The other thing is this. The water companies are carrying too much debt, but that is how they manage their businesses. That needs to be called out, because the situation cannot continue. My hon. Friend’s Bill comes up with some of the solutions.
I have the wonderful Brent reservoir in my constituency, which is a site of special scientific interest. It keeps water pollution levels down to the extent that we can have some surviving wildlife and fish in our rivers, but it is finding that really hard, and it does not have enough money to keep going. It was recently given £55,000 of funding from the Mayor of London’s grow back greener fund—I thank him for that—and it has managed to put in a floating ecosystem to improve water quality, but that gets harder when Thames Water pumps sewage into our rivers. That cannot continue. Change has to happen, and it has to be accelerated.