Daniel Francis

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. Like some other Members, I am not keen on a referendum because I know the anger of my constituents. It is incumbent on us to just get on, have the conversation and come up with a solution. Across my constituency, we currently have a wave of roadworks because of a lack of investment over years and the asset stripping of Thames Water. We have now realised that those Victorian pipes, which were not replaced because the company was asset-stripped, finally need to be replaced. That causes huge disruption for my residents, and the cost of it has been placed on my Bexleyheath and Crayford constituents, who have seen increases of 30% to 40% on their bills over the last two years. They say to me there is no better example of having no control or of people in this place being powerless than the actions of Thames Water. I just shrug my shoulders—I continually bring the matter here, but I am not able to resolve the issue. For the last five summers in Crayford town centre, we have had major leaks; the town centre has been closed for five successive summers. Let me give hon. Members an example of Thames Water’s incompetency. Last year, I wrote to them and asked them to show me a map of all the leaks and flooding in the town centre. They sent that to me and it showed the scale of the problem, yet this summer, when a constituent raised concerns about the ongoing problems and I wrote to Thames Water, they said that they had no record of any flooding in Crayford town centre over the last five summers. That shows us that we are dealing with a company that is very difficult to meet—although I am actually meeting its representatives tomorrow—and very difficult to have any control over. It is no wonder that my constituents think it is incumbent on us to resolve that. In principle, I want the company to be nationalised, but I just want a system—I hope to hear about this from the Minister later—that gives my constituents and me some accountability over bills and resolves the issues that cripple town centres and continually cause leaks, delays and roadworks.