{"id":82377,"date":"2025-05-16T07:35:54","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T06:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=82377"},"modified":"2025-05-16T09:18:56","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T08:18:56","slug":"the-water-comany-crisis-just-got-worse-thanks-to-labour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/05\/16\/the-water-comany-crisis-just-got-worse-thanks-to-labour\/","title":{"rendered":"The water company crisis just got worse, thanks to Labour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/c1b48062-0ad6-4205-a7b5-376cff7bcc35?shareType=nongift\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FT has noted this morning<\/a> (and I share this information in the pubic interest, since it is vital that this is widely known, hence the longer than usual quotation):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The UK\u2019s water watchdog has promised investors revenue guarantees, no competition and minimal risk as it tries to drum up more than \u00a350bn for projects to address water shortages.<\/p>\n<p>Investors will have the \u201cright to collect\u201d revenues from customers, \u201copportunities for upside\u201d, \u201ccapped liabilities\u201d and \u201cinvestment positive\u201d support from the government, according to an Ofwat briefing paper seen by the Financial Times.<\/p>\n<p>The document, presented to investors at a conference at the London offices of investment bank Jefferies last Friday, adds that there is \u201cno exposure to competitive or market stranding risks\u201d \u2014 referring to the fact there is unlikely to be any change in demand for water infrastructure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is absolutely absurd. The supposed reasons for once privatising water were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>To attract risk capital<\/li>\n<li>To reduce risk to the state<\/li>\n<li>To encourage competition and supposed efficiency<\/li>\n<li>To improve customer service.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What is now being offered is:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A state-guaranteed monopoly<\/li>\n<li>Guaranteed rates of return<\/li>\n<li>No incentive to be efficient<\/li>\n<li>Exploitation of consumers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Worse, the outcome will be:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>No incentive to remove pollution<\/li>\n<li>Limited, if any, real investment<\/li>\n<li>Threats to health and well-being<\/li>\n<li>Risk to life itself as water supplies fail in the face of climate change.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As policy goes, this is:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Utterly irresponsible<\/li>\n<li>A sell-out for the people of this country<\/li>\n<li>An environmental disaster<\/li>\n<li>A strategic disaster.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And all because Labour is petrified of:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Anything that looks to be left of centre, like the nationalisation of key services<\/li>\n<li>The power of the state to create money to invest<\/li>\n<li>Meeting the needs of people, rather than the City<\/li>\n<li>Policy, in general.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These people really do not deserve to be in government, and they are a threat to us every day that they are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the FT has noted this morning (and I share this information in the pubic interest, since it is vital that this is widely known,<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/05\/16\/the-water-comany-crisis-just-got-worse-thanks-to-labour\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-labour"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82377"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82391,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82377\/revisions\/82391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}