MPs Urge Ofwat To Act As Water Bills Rise While Shareholder Dividends Continue

A group of Labour MPs led by senior back bencher Barry Gardiner have written to Ofwat chief executive David Black to express concern over the impact rising water bills will have on people struggling with the cost of living.

On Thursday Ofwat announced that, under its proposals, the average water bill would rise by 21 per cent over the next five years – a lower increase than the amounts requested by water companies, which have submitted their business plans to the regulator.

The companies say they need to raise extra money to pay for work to stop sewage spills.

The issue of major water firms discharging sewage into the country's lakes and rivers has grown in salience in recent years, and was a talking point during the election campaign.

While the increase is smaller than what companies wanted, the 40 Labour MPs who have signed the letter are nonetheless urging the regulator to use its powers under the Environment Act to do more to prevent poorly performing companies from making dividend payments to shareholders.

Signatories include Labour MPs elected for the first time at last week's General Election, Matt Turmaine, John Whitby, Steve Yemm, Lizzie Collinge, David Burton-Sampson, Cat Eccles, Julia Buckley and Lorraine Beavers.

In the letter seen by PoliticsHome, they have highlighted the work of select committees over the past year that has exposed how complicated company structures enable shareholders “to extract billions of pounds in dividends” while the firms make “multiple illegal discharges of sewage into our waterways”.

As an Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee member in the last parliament, Gardiner repeatedly pressed Thames Water bosses over whether it was appropriate to pay dividends while failing to meet key