‘Water firms are failing us. But Labour is already working to turn things around’

Back in May, around 50,000 local residents and businesses in my constituency of Hastings and Rye lost their water supply. Many were cut off for up to five days, unable to shower, do the washing up or even flush the toilet.

Normal life as we knew it was on hold thanks to Southern Water. Water bottle stations opened, bringing traffic gridlock in the process. Despite promises to deliver direct to elderly and disabled residents, neighbours and other good Samaritans often had to step in to help.

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Losing water was devastating for our local businesses. The May outage fell on the busiest weekend of the year, Jack in the Green, a four-day event to celebrate May Day, which attracts thousands of people. Many small businesses make enough in that weekend to cover rent and costs in the quieter seasons.

My constituency has faced repeated water outages and flooding

One incident of this scale might be written off as a freak incident. But this was the second time in under a year that Southern Water had left my constituents without water. Residents and businesses in Rye and the surrounding villages were left dry for up to nine days in October 2023.

Lessons were not learned, and our experience has been nothing short of systemic failure. To this day, residents and businesses have not been sufficiently compensated by Southern Water. In my career before politics, I worked in many places where drought and water shortages were common. Never did I imagine this experience would be relevant representing my community in 2024 Britain.

Outages are one thing, but in January 2023 and then again later in the year, Hastings saw serious town centre flooding linked to Southern Water. Homes and shops were flooded, some for the second time. One family had just replaced their kitchen after the last flood when the second flood came. To this day, many are still without compensation. We even had to pay our water bill for the five days we had no water!

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All this comes before we even mention the repeated dumping of sewage in our sea. Some living near the seafront have even had their homes flooded with sewage.

Labour is already acting to protect customers

Our new Secretary of State, Steve Reed MP, has visited Hastings and Rye twice to hear directly from residents, swimmers and small businesses about the devastating impact of these incidents. That is why I am so pleased to hear that this government isn’t looking the other way while water companies pump record levels of sewage into our seas, allow our residents to go without water and leave us prone to flooding.

This week, the Labour government announced it plans to strengthen protection and compensation for households and businesses when their basic water services are affected. Subject to consultation, the amount of compensation customers and businesses are legally entitled to when key standards are not met will more than double.

I will be keeping up the pressure on Southern Water to give residents and businesses the compensation they deserve for the historic incidents we have endured, but with this law change in future, we will have more protection.

Labour won’t tolerate poor performance by water companies

The work to clean up the water industry began within days after the election. Steve Reed summoned the water bosses and made clear that under a Labour government, poor performance would not be tolerated.

As Southern Water has failed my community, their CEO was awarded a bonus of £183,600, as part of a £764,000 pay package, and they have proposed bill increases of 73%.

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Under Labour, polluting water bosses’ bonuses will be banned. Vital funding for water infrastructure investment will be ringfenced and only be spent on upgrades benefiting customers and the environment. Ofwat will now ensure that when money for investment is not spent, companies refund customers, with money never allowed to be diverted for bonuses, dividends or salary increases.

As part of these changes, we will now also gain new powers to hold water company bosses to account through powerful new customer panels. As Southern Water customers, we will have the power to summon board members and hold water executives to account.

Labour’s plans will make a real difference for communities

Water companies including Southern Water will now place customers and the environment at the heart of their objectives. This should be achieved by requiring them to change their articles of association (the rules governing each company) to make the interests of customers and the environment a primary objective.

The work to clean up our water industry does not stop here. A new bill will soon come before parliament to put water companies under special measures and strengthen regulation as a first step to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas.

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This bill will enact the promises we made in the general election to make water bosses criminally liable for severe failure and ban the payment of bonuses if environmental standards are not met. It will end the days of the water companies marking their own homework with independent real-time monitors at every sewage outlet being required.

Turning around our water industry will not be easy, but the work has begun and these changes will make a real difference to communities like mine.

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