Clive Jones

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) on securing this debate. My constituency of Wokingham contains the Thames, the Loddon, the Emm brook and the Ashridge stream—rivers of varying size but equal beauty. The basic role of a Government is to keep their citizens safe and healthy, and protect the environment for future generations, yet the previous Government’s deference to corporate greed ahead of our waterways will remain a stain on their legacy for a long time. The Rivers Trust put it clearly in its research: “No single stretch of river” in Wokingham “is in good overall health.” That is a real scandal. The Conservatives utterly failed: they were unable to get a grip of this issue and allowed the scandal to persist. They provided no accountability or scrutiny to Ofwat—a regulator that has simply not held the worst polluters to account. Meanwhile, as my hon. Friend said, the water companies have paid out dividends of £78 billion, and yet our rivers are in the worst state they have been in for many years. I welcome the announcement earlier today of a review of water companies, but I remind the Minister that voters in Wokingham and across the country voted for change on 4 July. The review must reflect that; it cannot be business as usual for water companies. My constituents and many others across the country will not accept massively increased bills to bail out water companies that are paying massive dividends to their shareholders.