Must Watch: Labour MP Grills Water Bosses Over Sewage Dumps At Committee Hearing
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- David Black, the chief executive of Ofwat, is grilled by Labour MP Clive Lewis as he speaks to the Environmental Audit Committee, in a session on water quality and infrastructure.
The MP for Norwich South opens by asking Mr Black about the standards of water quality before going onto question him about the funding of Thames Water.
'After 30 years of privatized water we find ourselves not only swimming in our own excrement ... but drinking it as well', claims Lewis.
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#water #sewagetreatment #politics #parliament
What is your view on whether water companies should be nationalised or privatised?
worth bringing it in house as that at least stops the drain on financing going to shareholders and keeps the focus on the customers...obviously need to get experienced mgt in place for it to be successful
It should be public as well as all other companies that the country needs.
Nationalised.
A basic provision that we all rely on should be provided by the state as a not for profit organisation . That should be the case for gas and electricity , but even if people dont accept that water should be a national asset .
Nationalised
I’m sick of these bastards getting away with it , forget the useless committee, where is a criminal trial? They should be prosecuted at least
thats labour plan, that and fine them till they have to sell it back to us for a quid!
@@shaun906no, it isn’t. It should be, but it isn’t.
@@shaun906labore are thatcherites and all for privatisation of everything
These committees are pointless. Nobody is ever held accountable, nobody ever gets in real trouble. It's just a way for the government to say they're taking action but nothing will come of it and the people being questioned know that.
Just look at the post office scandal. Plenty of words and committees but zero accountability. Those in the wrong still have their money and still have their gold plated pensions.
@@MrDesmondPotyeah Labour is more interested at winning Tory votes….by effectively becoming Tories v2
Who does OfWat actually work for? because it’s not the British people.
It works as a smoke screen for profiteers.
That is for sure !
Most CEOs from OfWat end up working for the water company but paid off until they get their very lucrative contract. It’s a complete joke and they’re getting away with y.
Water bisses and shareholders but not us.
Like most of them they push papers around. All the ombudsmen type things ...I went to the one for charities because they were doing dangerous things for the volunteers. I'm related to one of the volunteers so their approach was to tell the charity my name possibly endangering my relative. And they said well the charity has said they do everything right on a peice of paper they submitted to us. And I said don't you go and look and check it out? And they said no. We don't do anything like that. We just take their word for it. These people are paid good money to do absolutely nothing and the whole system is like that. The bare minimum they do and the rest is a complete charade a facade.
So Ofwat agree that Thames water is not meeting its obligations. That begs the question, what have Ofwat been doing over the last 20 years to to allow Thames to get away with this for so long. It's no use them smiling saying everything is great.
They've been taking envelopes full of cash to allow the infractions to continue
Obv making profits for shareholders
Close their eyes with their hands outstreched. And they promise to keep 'em closed as long as they feel some coin in their hands.
All public utilities should be nationalised. It’s a no brainer!
Well Labour under a Corbyn government would have done just this but alas the public voted Tories and then labour booted out corbyn
For sure !
@@chriswilliams8121 & Labour did state that nationalisation was something they are committed to during their conference.
@@-BY205 makes a big difference, doom mongers can't see it though 😅
@@-BY205 Libertarians love living in their own filth it seems
Ask the regulator if he has personal investments in these water companies
That would be a conflict of interest, and would be frowned upon. And have to be declared.
Riiiiiight. You aren’t keeping up with current affairs in corrupt UK inc.
@@coppershark1973 I’m pretty sure they’d check
You don’t need to have investments to be biased - you merely have to have a few friends who you want to keep sweet.
@@ANonymous-p5x5n Which doesn’t stop it from happening.
Look at Manchester Cities Arab owner and how the council let him buy property and rise the rents to £1800 a month!
I wonder which councillor is now sitting on the Manchester City football club board 🤔.
While national infrastructure companies are run privately for profit things will never change
And this guy is from New Zealand..............tell me how he could be possibly invested in the interests of the UK?
@@LincolnTank-StillOnTheSprue True and look how many energy providers are foreign owned and some are even owned by foreign Governments .
@@scooby1992And now it looks like the Post Office is being sold to a Czech billionaire.
We got rid of Corbyn, the man who would change it. He happened to be right about Israel too.
@@czarkusa2018 His problem is that although he had a massive following among like minded people , the vast majority of the electorate agree .Some might say ' they want change ' or to be radical , but when push comes to shove they like continuity and to stay in a familiar and safe space .
Lock these bastards up . OFWAT are in the pockets of the water companies
Do something about it it's us the British that have let this happen
Make them drink the water and swim in it. If they’re happy giving it to us, they can take it themselves
@@James-bc1jk Class system ensures this is not possible without extreme action
After making them swim in it...
Saw kids n parents swimming in sea at weekend right where its been dumped...iv warned as many locals as i can n asked them to warn others
I was just thinking with how he was talking it sounded like he wasn't talking about them but for them. He's acti g like their lawyer
The privatised water companies have failed to invest enough in the 30 years since they were given contracts. However, these companies have not delivered on the contracts they have and those companies have secured loans on the asset and that looks as though it will be picked up eventually by the British public. Looks very, very suspicious and even corrupt, private companies have been shafting the British public for 30 years, the British people just need clean clear usable drinking water and not have sewagwe pumped into every water course in the country.
thames water want to add the cost to our bills in the north
They bought it with debt then dumped that debt on the company, while paying themselves dividends with more debt. It's just wealth extraction at the taxpayers expense.
Totally agree, but no need for the word ‘enough’!! It should just read ‘failed to invest in the last 30 years’!
It’s sickening that these private companies can just siphon off public money again!! Nationalise now and repay all our stolen money so it can be invested by a publicly owned,
nationalised company to sort out this mess. The public can’t afford to pay twice.
The problem with Thatcherism is that you eventually run out of assets to sell to overseas investors so that they can rip off British consumers.
We will never recover from Thatcher
i love paying my power bills to the french!
@@TheDave1947 It is too late. The establishment has no intention of abandoning it because it has benefitted the rich spectacularly. That is why any alternative no matter how mild ( Corbyn 2017 and 2019) is demonised as extreme and dangerously radical. The gullible, profoundly ill informed UK electorate ( mostly in England) will never learn. Ever.
I think we’ve reached that point already. I can’t think of anything in Britain that is British owned but maybe someone can correct me. The next step is to charge you for something that is currently free e.g. road pricing.
The problem is weak politicians and weak regulation. We've had 34 years since Thatcher so bit lame blaming her still after 34 years. Like blaming who started WW2 in 1974!!! Pointless.
To sit in front of a committee and smile simply infuriates,
He knows whatever the outcome,the bill will be footed by us and not shareholders!
Thatchers britain has failed and utilities and transport need taking back in house
These should be court room hearings, not useless committee hearings......disgraceful.
scandalous unbelievable can not drink tap water now wow how much is not enough for these people
Why would they invest ? They’re only there to leach , they’re not in it for any benefit other than their income .
Note they have bottled water in front of them not a pitcher of tap water.
Have you tasted tap water in London? It’s awful.
@@clarecrawford9677 exactly! They’re trying to get out of their responsibilities in providing clean, safe water so, if they’re doing their job properly (which they’re not), let them drink the fruits of their labours!
@@maggietaylor9475 London tap water, even when it’s clean, tastes foul.
@@clarecrawford9677 It was horrible even 20 years ago when I lived there, even using one of those filter kettles, I dread to think how much worst its become
Thames water has gained billions of pounds worth of assets but has paid for them at the expense of the customers and on the never-never.
I would pay extra for my water if it was nationalised again. It would be in safer hands for our children and the revenue would stay in the UK.
Win win!
Water should never be there for profit and no dividends should ever be paid out until all the work has been completed to make sure our water is safe and clean, the water board should never have been sold off in the first place as the same should be said about electricity and gas but we all know who to thank for that Mrs Thatcher.
So basically the customer is being duped out of £79billion, while _still overpaying_ (an additional £196billion) for infrastructure improvements, while the investment company racks up debt which the public WILL eventually have to cover. So the question "does privatisation work" is very, very, valid - and the answer is blatantly obvious - including all the _claimed_ inefficiencies of a publicly owned model - NO, privatisation does NOT work.
We have never had such expensive water or such poor quality water.
They should be charged with intentional food poisoning
Instead of bottled water on the tables I would have made them drink tap water
Missed the bit where they were told that water on the table was brought in from Devon, especially for him. As in Erin Brockovitz.
A little drinky-poos. Literally.
You get a £15 voucher though. Should cover the extra toilet roll.
Some people started dying and others having to spend time in hospital, so they upped it to £115.
Anything that is necessary to our basic survival should NEVER be in the hands of profiteers
Sewage dumps at the Committee hearing? It's bad enough in the rivers.
This is something the people of Britain should stand up to and make a difference, Imagine that!.
Make them drink their product
It should be publically owned
Unprivatize now
This is fraud.
Sue the water companies for sending dirty water to your house and charging you for clean water.
I am sure Maggie Thatcher is looking up with smile great jobbies done
Total evasion of the questions.
Ask him why! Have him answer why there is such low investment and how that is acceptable!
I lived in Devon for 4 years, but never drank water from the tap, it always tasted bad. And after 12 months of constant rain, and for south west water to still have a hosepipe ban, speaks volumes of their system.
Tell you what cut off my supply but still send me a bill ......would that suit you better? I care about your investors getting their ever fatter dividends........I wonder what the return has been like for these investors over the years.....seems they cannot lose.
So many inquiries into corruption, so little justice.
Nationalised water is better for the country
this country is a absolute laughing stock
The powers that be is rotten to the core .
Excellent Question!
Criminals and all shareholders too
Why is it, when asked direct questions, that ciuld easily be answered "yes"or"no", did the regulator start each answer with "So..." ? Is it me or was he doing that thing that Bojo used to do, to divert and distract, answering questions he wanted to (even if not asked), continually going on about so many billion in assets - what assets, who paid for them, are they worth more now or less in line with inflation, how much did shareholders pay for their shares compared to what they've taken out? All things I would certainly like to know and why oh why were they allowed to get into si much debt. In 1989 due to someone writing off my bike, and took a year to pay I went overdrawn at the bank £450, my bank kindly stopped my card and told me this was "hard core debt"
Again why are they allowed to trade?
What is needed is huge financial penalties for sewage pollution of public waterways.
The witness sounded more like a trade body representative than a regulator to me. Is this what regulatory capture looks like?
Politicians are so thick, do they expect water for free.
The water company's are criminally corrupt and should be brought to Justice.
All is they’re interested in is lining their own pockets 😡
I LIVED DOWN IN THE WEST COUNTRY in the mid 90s..
This is NOT the first time this has happened.. the same bacteria was in the water then and thosands got sick..
This happens all the time.. no action is EVER TAKEN.
A huge gulf between who they think they are and their performance.
These regulatory bodies are captured by the industries they're supposed to be overseeing. The head honchos are invariably given cushy jobs in the sectors they are supposed to regulate. Whether it's HMRC or water, they don't rock the boat because they know they can earn massive sums from turning into a poacher from a supposed game keeper.
Don't pay your water bill, until after they stop dumping raw sewage into our rivers & sea😡😡
Their response is typically to say that theyre investing to solve a problem they created for profits, but unfortunately theyll have to charge us more in the water bills to clean up their mess THEY made. 😤
As a regulator - ban the dumping of human waste into water ways. If a company is found to have done so then prohibit the payment of dividends. It’s simple. The water companies would then make sure it didn’t happen.
This man is a mouth piece for private water companies and not a regulator.
Going to say that's not tap water on the table there😂
For every man (and a few women ffs) digging a hole to fix a leak there are around 8 'management' staff, over many levels, that enables the work to go ahead. The guy digging the hole is paid less than everyone in the chain of command. This costs a fortune in time and money. Oh, and it's reprehensible and sick!
The question I pose before everyone leaps on the water companies is: Privatisation didn’t stop government investing billions in our railways, billions in energy, billions in broadband roll out, yet water infrastructure was not invested in by government.
What condition would our other privatised sectors be in if not given billions by the state? Pretty similar to the water industry I reckon.
Railtrack didn’t invest enough in the railways when privatised and people died in train crashes. The government took over the running of that part of the railways that business didn’t want to do (because it means investing). Why doesn’t the government let the water companies keep selling us water (the easy part). But renationalise all the water treatment works? It’d be no different to the railways!
Here we go again. Confronted with the facts, the guilty party 'doesn't recognise those figures' - it is becoming pathetic! We need re-regulation, not deregulation in the UK. The shareholders are there to hoover up profits, not to risk losing money by investing.
Not really a grilling considering the dire situation. 1) Tell him to slow down, instead of gabbling, so that we can pick apart the BS, 2) What is he doing to ensure Thames and others start to improve, 3) Whataboutism especially claims which cannot be proven to be true is not satisfactory, 4) Did the water companies write their own contracts to include clauses like that a tenant can change to metered supply without telling the landlord, and this cannot be changed back to single payment, or that rainwater collection can be the highest item on a bill, and includes the rain falling on the adjacent highway in 7 out of 10 companies?
Why are they still just talking about this? ALL utilities should only ever be in public hands. Re-natinalise them now, without any buyout for shareholders, they have already stolen enough of us money.
Am I right in saying only 2 countries in the world have a privatised water system? One of them being the UK
And am I right in saying neither of them work?
No not the UK, Scotland has perfect water, and its nationalised
@@dekmackie Whoops. Sorry.....Can you send us some....Pleease.🤣
@@DesJnr Sell you some! 😂😂Saying that, it will be worth a fortune in the future.
Us and Chile have fully privatised systems that are broken. Spain apparently has privatised water as well, but it's a lot more regulated. No David Black types having dinners with the heads of water companies for example.
It must be made clear, shareholder’s dividends come AFTER keeping the rivers and coast clean.
Thats me not Paying another Penny for water !!
Nationalized.
Gosh, if only the UK population could drink, use, wash in, polluted water. But they cannot. Unfortunately the private model prefers this, because their prime function is to make money for themselves, nothing else. It is sad to think that if there are UK people running the privatised water companies then they themselves do not care for their own well being in their own use of water.
Key infrastructure such as water and power need to be publicly owned. It's clear that ownership by private companies of key assets, that are so integral to the country and its people, simply doesn't work.
Large monopolies, yes. Small scale private ownership is not a bad thing, just because it can be perverted into something corporatist.
These things are nothing more than a meeting, this government knew about this for years
Why are dividends being paid when their performance has shown that it is not deserved
Clive Lewis is a very good MP in Norwich. He is clearly familiar with his brief. I do hope he gets a good cabinet post in the new government. I am not one of his constituents but wish I was.
NATIONALISE...........IT
There attitude is corporations rule and to hell with the public. We the public are only there for bill increases.
Never trusted them. Recently they’ve put meters in the street not telling me, yet I got brown water for a week; the shower cleaned daily yet filthy. I always buy bottled water because our tap water tastes of chemicals.
And worst of all. I hate the forecast they give for my house - 3 bed and they predict I should be using 3600 litres per month and state I go over it into a red category. They don’t know I live on my own and I measure my own usage & record in a spreadsheet and use about 800-900 L per week… to which I believe is normal use for a singular human, not a 3 bed house. It’s bully tactics to get me onto a house meter.
"bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla - we've done nothing wrong - bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla" How arrogant is he!!
Test him with a glass of tap water!.., see if he drinks it...
I notice that they are drinking bottled water……
What a load of crap.
Now there's a man who's never set foot in Scotland. I've lived in London Cambridge and Bedford could never drink the water. I had moved back to Scotland the water is crystal crear. Most of our lakes and streams can be safely swam in you'd only go into a lake or stream down south with a hasmat suit on
Well now you have said it, that won’t last long. Guaranteed with the immigration issue people will be soon pitching up tents , pissing and bathing in the clear waters.
You're just talking about the difference between hard and soft water. The water in England has always been right at the top of the quality leader boards. I get this issue in Devon happened but the idea that water in England is undrinkable is nonsense
@@samuelloification2749 lived in England for 16 years I wouldn't drink the water if you paid me, no one I worked with ever drank it either.
@@willscott1171 you and everyone you worked with drank no tap water for 16 years? Okay mate. I've lived in England for 30 years and hardly know anyone who wouldn't drink the tap water, and the people who wouldn't wouldn't drink it in Scotland either. I'm not gonna pay you but you are just objectively wrong about this and do so out of ignorance which is fine.
@@samuelloification2749Believe it if you like, it doesn't bother me. It is, however true.bottled water, tea, coffee and juice. On my first day in the hospital the clinical nurse manager told me to avoid the water
If the public demand that utilities are nationalised and are not for profit then the politicians will have to listen and act accordingly.
I wonder where he getting his water from ! 😢
Have you ever wanted to throw your laptop against a wall !!!!!!
The little public school boys that are wheeled out to waffle a word salad at these hearings should all be warmly thanked for their service to themselves.
Every time we take Scouts canoeing on the River Tone I now expect a number of them to get ill, and this is now a swimming quality river 🤢
David Black: "So...in terms of...so...the facts...in terms of...so...so...in terms of...the figures...so..." the man has verbal incontinence.
The cost of GREED even at the expense of our health
Interesting, I once wort the this MP expressing my disgust at people urinating in public outside Norwich cathedral , I did get the courtesy of a reply where he told me it wasn’t their fault it was their depravation and the police had much more important things to deal with . It was running across the pavement .
Regulator? Sounds more like a defense lawyer.
OMG What a smug PUNT! Horrible Thing!
What a load of corporate clap trap in those replies. I bet executives will be collecting their bonuses whilst customers drink shit.
So what on earth has the regulator been doing???
The same thing will be happening with private NHS provision.
I think they are a absolute disgrace they have no shame and yes snouts in the trough sums them up exactly with the tax payer footing the bill as usual just a talking shop with no one held accountable or going to jail for their part in this travesty and it just seems to continue with no one making any difference in government, too many millionaires and not enough working class level represented in both Scottish and English government and we could be doing with a large reduction in the bodies in both houses.
Makes me sick, but nothing new.
Jail the water bosses
makes me sick
Until there are consequences for this despicable behaviour nothing at all will change. The regulator is absolutely useless, his response of “well, Scotland and Wales are worse” makes me think he works for the water companies rather than safeguarding the public interest.
Scottish water is some of the best on the planet, english tap water is not even in the same league.
The Public Interest is fast becoming the Enemy Of The State !
At least here in SCOTLAND we can drink water straight from the tap
Whilst borrowing against assets to invest is normal and fine - borrowing against assets to enrich directors and shareholders is embezzlement
Everything needs to be nationalised with out without compensation to the shareholders
The opening question was spot on...apart from the 'climate crisis' guff.
If the water companies remain private then it should be illegal to give dividends to the shareholders until all leaks are repaired and putting sewage into rivers is also illegal
Until the water companies do the proper thing and ensure that the water is fit to drink and swim in, then the contamination, unfortunately, will continue
Stop paying your water untill your water is clean. It's ruined by lazy greedy people.
How is it right that the bill payer is paying for the improvement within a private company? There should be no dividend until the company is running how it should.
It is NOT A CLAIM - IT IS A FACT.