‘THAMES WATER is drowning under a mountain of debt,’ GMB union National Officer Gary Carter said yesterday, in response to the privateer’s announcement of a loss of £1.65 billion for the year to March.
‘Hiking customer bills has led to a rise in operating profit, money that should go on investment but is being swallowed up by monstrous loans needed to keep the company afloat.
‘While Thames lurches from crisis to crisis – the solution is clear; it must be taken back into public ownership, with workers’ terms, conditions and pensions protected.’
The Fire Brigades Union backed the GMB demand, joining its call for the government to bring water into public ownership to ensure clean and adequate water supply that firefighters need to safely tackle fires.
The findings are contained in the final report of the Westminster and the Welsh governments’ ‘Independent Water Commission’ into the water sector chaired by Sir Jon Cunliffe (known as the Cunliffe Commission), which saw Thames Water bosses quizzed by MPs yesterday.
The Cunliffe Commission was prevented from considering public ownership by the remit imposed by ministers, a decision heavily criticised by campaigners against sewage pollution.
It is instead confined to providing comment on ‘regulation’.
A recent review by academics – the People’s Commission on Water – recommended public ownership as the best way to push down costs, limit pollution and drive investment.
In its recent report on the water sector, Parliament’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee concluded that ‘the current models of ownership in the water industry may not be bringing about the culture the sector needs’ and called for ‘strong and significant reforms’.
Steve Wright, Fire Brigades Union general secretary said: ‘The public has a right to expect that firefighters have the clean, high-pressure and high-flowing water supplies they need to extinguish fires.
‘It’s preposterous that the UK, which has high rainfall, has to endure water shortages because of poor planning and investment.
‘Private companies have siphoned off billions in profit while failing to adequately maintain water pipes, resulting in unreliable water pressure across England.
‘In rural areas, communities need assurance that sewage-polluted water from open sources won’t be used to put out crop fires.
‘The ongoing scandal of companies releasing sewage into rivers continues to put the public at risk.
‘Firefighters, on the frontline of floods and countryside fires, should not have to face the additional health risks of polluted water.
‘Our expensive, leaky and sewage-ridden system is the direct result of a failed privatisation experiment.
‘It’s time for the government to take water back into public hands. The water companies should have no entitlement to compensation.’
