MP welcomes crackdown on water companies

Hertford & Stortford constituency MP Josh Dean has welcomed major legislation introduced by the new Labour government to crack down on water bosses polluting Britain's rivers, lakes and seas.

The measures include the most significant increase in enforcement powers in a decade, including imprisonment for water executives when companies fail to cooperate or obstruct investigations.

The new legislation will also ban the payment of bonuses to water bosses if they fail to meet higher standards of protection and preservation of their local environment, as well as their consumers and their company's finances.

Other measures in the Bill include severe and automatic fines for a range of offences, including allowing regulators to issue penalties more quickly, without having to direct resources to lengthy investigations. It will also introduce independent monitoring of every sewage outlet, with water companies required to publish real-time data for all emergency overflows. Discharges will have to be reported within an hour of the initial spill.

The amount of dumped sewage in Hertford and Stortford rose by 54% in 2023 compared to the previous year.

Commenting on the new legislation, Josh said: "After 14 years of Conservative failure, raw toxic sewage is being pumped into Hertford and Stortford’s waterways.

"That is why the Labour government has introduced immediate action to end the disgraceful behaviour of water companies and their bosses.

"Under this Labour Government, water executives will no longer line their own pockets whilst pumping out this filth. If they refuse to comply, they could end up in the dock and face prison time.

"This Bill is a major step forward in our wider reform to fix the broken water system. The Labour Government will outline further legislation to fundamentally transform how the water industry is run and speed up the delivery of upgrades to our sewage infrastructure to clean up our waterways for good."