Water UK chair Ruth Kelly's performance on BBC TV News yesterday recalled reminiscences of songwriter Johnny Mercer. Sober and by day, he was the epitome of the Southern gentleman. But, as one obituarist recalled:
he was one of those drinkers whose personality changed. He had the reputation of being a "mean drunk," even to the extent of many times insulting the hostess of a party given in his honor. But the next day remorse set in, and he sent apologies in the form of roses.Apparently, one of those hostesses on receiving the latest such bouquet sent him a message to the effect: "I don't want your damned roses, just the nice you."
Sufferers from repeated sewage overflows and discharges over the years are not interested in warm words. They want long-overdue action to repair and upgrade the sewage infrastructure of England and Wales. Even Dŵr Cymru, which is not subject to shareholder pressure to maximise profit is not guiltless, though it could be argued that industrial south Wales suffered more than most from rapid unregulated building of infrastructure in the Industrial Revolution, so that the burden of correcting the errors of the past is all the greater.
Faced with the enormous bills which the modernisation of our water and sewage systems required, and wanting to keep public spending down, Mrs Thatcher off-loaded the problem on to the private sector. She may even have naively believed that private sector efficiency and access to loan capital would transform the water industry. Instead, its new masters treated it as a cash cow and we have suffered ever since. It is impractical to re-nationalise the system, but it is not too much to hope that the water regulator Ofwat takes more vigorous action over transgressions, even if it has to be given more teeth.
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Five years in to the New Labour government, the dreadful way in which water and sewerage was commercialised was confirmed. Peter Black relays the outline of a report which has remained secret for too long. Politicians from all three parties in government since 2022 must have been aware of the findings yet did nothing.
Ed Davey has called for the cost of catching up on years of neglect to fall on the shareholders rather than the consumers. It may require a change in the law which at present favours "shareholder value" in limited companies. If so, let it be done, for companies servicing a natural monopoly at least.
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