Water needs public participatory control

Clive Lewis MP on why MPs should back his Bill to transform the water industry and end the scandal of price rip-offs, sewage pollution and corporate greed

Since the privatisation of England’s water industry in 1989, the consequences have been dire: mounting corporate debt, excessive shareholder dividends, and a crumbling infrastructure that prioritises profits over public good. The result? Consumers face skyrocketing bills while sewage spills into our rivers and reservoirs. Decades of market-driven failure demand an urgent rethink-not just of who owns our water, but how we manage it.

Yet, despite widespread public support for returning water services to public ownership, Labour’s current leadership remains hesitant. Secretary of State Steve Reed, whose department is responsible for water, recently argued that “the purity of our water matters more than the purity of our ideology”. Yet this statement is deeply ironic given that water privatisation makes England one of the most extreme ideological outliers in the world, with few countries pursuing such an aggressively market-driven model of ownership.

We cannot afford more tinkering around the edges while private firms continue to extract wealth from a natural monopoly. Water is a public necessity, not a commodity.

The argument for public ownership of water is not just about undoing Thatcher-era privatisation; it is about fundamentally changing how we see and manage essential services, particularly given the challenges of the century ahead brought on by a changing climate. Water is not just another utility, it is a common good, a human right, and a vital resource that should never be controlled for private profit. Across Europe, citizens have fought to reclaim their water systems from corporate hands, recognising that democratic control leads to better outcomes.

Take Paris, where water was brought back into public ownership in 2010 after years of mismanagement by private firms. Under municipal control, the city not only improved service quality but reinvested profits into infrastructure and sustainability initiatives. Meanwhile, Slovenia has enshrined public water rights in its constitution.

In England, water companies have accumulated over £60 billion in debt – not to invest in infrastructure, but to finance shareholder dividends. Thames Water alone has paid out billions while failing to maintain ageing pipes and treatment plants. The Environment Agency has recorded record levels of pollution, and yet executives continue to reward themselves with bonuses.

The current regulatory framework, touted as a safeguard against corporate greed, has been an abject failure. Ofwat, the industry regulator, has neither the power nor the political will to challenge systemic failures. Fines for pollution are written off as a cost of doing business, and promises of reinvestment rarely materialise beyond PR exercises. The reality is that the private sector has no incentive to prioritise long-term environmental stewardship over short-term shareholder returns.

Simply renationalising water under central government control is not enough. We must go further, embedding democratic participation at every level of decision-making. This means ensuring that water governance is accountable to the people who rely on it, not corporate boards, not Whitehall bureaucrats, but local communities, workers, and consumers.

My Private Members’ Bill provides a framework for this transformation. It proposes to deepen economic democracy, with the scope to explore models like regional water authorities which are governed by local representatives, trade unions, environmental groups, and consumer advocates. That kind of model would ensure decisions about investment, pricing, and sustainability are made transparently and in the public interest.

This approach also aligns with the principles of participatory democracy long championed by Chartist. If we are to move beyond the current economic paradigm, we must embrace models that empower people, decentralise power, and prioritise social and ecological well-being over corporate profit. Public ownership should not mean top-down state control; it should mean collective stewardship.

Labour faces a choice: it can side with the private water barons who have profited from decades of deregulation, or it can stand with the millions of people who demand change. The argument that public ownership is unaffordable is a myth. The real question is who pays – the public through ever-increasing bills, or the private corporations who have extracted billions while failing to deliver.

The cost of not acting is far greater. The climate crisis is already straining our water systems, with droughts and extreme weather threatening supply. We need investment in resilience, conservation, and infrastructure-investment that private firms have shown they are unwilling to make.

Labour must seize this moment to reimagine public services in a way that genuinely serves the people. Water should be the first step in a broader movement towards economic democracy, proving that the public can and must-have a say in how essential services are run. We trusted the public with the NHS; we must trust them with our water.

It is time for Labour to be bold. Time to embrace a democratic, community-led vision for our essential services. Time to put power back where it belongs: in the hands of the people.