Green Party calls for public ownership of water to tackle pollution crisis
The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) this week said that the government and regulators – Ofwat and the Environment Agency – may have failed in legal duties to enforce clean water standards on England’s privatised water firms. The OEP has indicated that the potential legal breach relates to how sewage discharges into waterways are regulated.
The news has sparked renewed calls from the Green Party of England and Wales to end the 34 year long experiment of privatised water in England. Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said: “The government must stop defending the indefensible and act to enforce the very basic expectations the public have for clean rivers and beaches, and clean water to drink.
“The public are fed up with Ministers claiming that private companies constantly discharging sewage into rivers and onto beaches is unacceptable, but then doing nothing to enforce existing laws. We don’t need months more of legal squabbling between the regulators, government and privatised water companies.
“We need action now. That means the government forcing companies to invest rather than pay out shareholder dividends, capping excessive pay to failing water company bosses and bringing our water back into public ownership as soon as possible.”
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I was one of the voters in the water privatisation referendum some years ago in Scotland who ensured that Scottish Water remained in the public sector. They are not perfect,no human institution ever is, but they remain accountable to the people of Scotland through their elected representatives.