Public Ownership of Water Makes Economic, Social and Environmental Sense
This is a short version of my personal views in an opinion piece in UtilityWeek:
- The response of the English private water companies to Labour's public ownership proposals has been disappointing. They have gone on the attack rather than engaging in a proper public debate. This could have led to a discussion of different models of ownership or governance, but the response has just led to polarisation and highlighted all that is wrong with the English water sector.
- The current model isn't even a proper free market. It is dominated by regional monopolies with a fixed customer base and fixed prices, it is designed to make money for the private water companies. Yet as the same time the government has to subsidise bills in the South West and underwrite the super sewer in London, this is a strange form of privatisation.
- Public ownership makes economic sense. The Government can borrow much more cheaply than the private sector and this will save ￡2.8 billion a year every year.
- Public ownership gives a additional bonus. Private companies pay dividends to shareholders, but public ownership will end this meaning that the dividends can be reinvested in the networks or shared with the public to give lower prices.
- Levels of service in the private sector are no better than in the public sector. Scottish Water is publicly owned and performs as well as the English companies. Most other countries in Europe are publicly owned and on average they perform as well as private water companies in England.
- There are claims that public ownership will hit pensions, This is pure scaremongering, yes there are small pension shareholdings but very few are UK pensions and the vast proportion of ownership is by multinational corporations or overseas family trusts. Public ownership would pay the current owners a fair price and return the assets back to the people.
- Public ownership means that water could be properly managed at catchment level, and that the whole water cycle could be considered, which is essential in terms of adapting to and mitigating against climate change. Singapore has one of the worlds most progressive water sectors with an integrated approach to water management and it can do this because it is publicly owned.
- But most of all, public ownership gives the public a say over the management of their water and restores democratic scrutiny.
These points are taken from a more detailed opinion piece written for Utility Week
https://utilityweek.co.uk/publicly-owned-water-sector-makes-economic-social-environmental-sense/
Special Assistant to the Chairman&Chief Resources Officer
3 年Dear Jacob, how can I contact you? your email? best regards. Giovanni
Delivering cost savings to commercial clients through sustainability
4 年This is a great post Jacob thank you. Unfortunatly capitalism wins out. I dont necessarily have a problem with capitalism however I dont agree with water electricity and gas being run by private companies. They should never have been privatised. If there is a profit to be made with these three it should be fed back into they're own infrastructures and they're maintanance not funnelled off into the pockets of a few or out of the country by foreign companies. Finally and now becoming more important as time goes by. There is not much will to conserve and reduce consumption as it's all about profits. Hopefully this will change.
Water Strategy Director WSP in the UK London UK
4 年I think if the title were "public ownership COULD make..." I would be in agreement. The previous version of publicly owned/operated water in England was a curate's egg (addled in parts); some good bits around regional/inter-regional planning and some bad bits around water quality and environmental performance and funding. Some of the performance issues have been improved markedly under private ownership held to account by regulators (to a greater or lesser extent) and since there is no counter-factual of relevance to the E&W context it is largely a matter of opinion/faith as to whether it has been efficient or not. Moving back to a public ownership/operation model COULD bring all the benefits - economic, social and environmental - but that too is an article of faith. Yes we need a reasoned debate around what is best for a sustainable sector providing optimal benefits to customers and the environment but at the moment we seem mired in a trench war with political posturing on both sides.
Director at Aqualytics UK Ltd
4 年Jacob you haven't gone into the blatant hypocrisy of some of the Utility Companies who are the custodians of our natural resources and portray themselves as champions of the Environment yet at the the same time their record of pollute and dump is atrocious. I recall Thames Water being fined ￡20,000,000 for polluting Thames and Southern Water also facing record fines for "wastewater spillages".?
Solicitor at Helen Smith Immigration
4 年Bravo Jacob