Contribution
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon) on securing this welcome and—particularly in my constituency—timely debate on regulation, public trust and customers’ experience.
I am participating on behalf of my constituents in East Grinstead, Uckfield and the villages. Many people will know that Sussex and Kent were at the epicentre of the recent outages, despite the guidance we had on the Friday before the taps were turned off that it would be elsewhere. Today is another opportunity to welcome the new powers in the White Paper and talk about how we hold the regulator, Ofwat, to account. I put on the record my huge thanks to the Minister and her team in DEFRA for listening to me on behalf of my constituents and holding these companies to account.
What has happened over the weekend is clear. I will go through my list of experiences. Before the boundary changes, in August 2020, hundreds of homes were affected in my patch and in East Sussex. In November 2022, 30,000 people were affected, including in my part of the world, and in Kent. In December 2022, in Uckfield and in Crowborough in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Sussex Weald (Ms Ghani), 16,000 households were affected. In June 2023, thousands of homes were affected again across the Mid Sussex district. In January 2024, Sussex and Kent homes were affected by the impact of Storm Henk. Then Sussex and Kent were again affected in November 2024, and again in January 2025.
Dr Allin-Khan, you will be interested in this. I met today with Karen McDowell, the head of Sussex integrated care board, to consider the impact on the Queen Victoria hospital in East Grinstead. I thank its leader Abigail and her team for their stoicism during the outage. In the midst of the sanitation issue, with a norovirus crisis and a flu crisis in our local NHS, when we did not have water across my area, people from Surrey, where they declared an emergency, were being sent to my local hospital for treatment. It is absolutely outrageous.
People are now turning to the point of compensation. If this is caused by a storm and an act of God, that is one thing. The Minister knows that this is about a bulk supply issue linked to South East Water. Ultimately, if there is any break in service and if licence conditions are broken, it is ultimately my constituents who cannot function.
Today’s written statement mentions the need for a
“joined-up regional water planning function and framework to improve local decision making and delivery.”
I recognise the need for a broader debate on the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, building on the Environment Act 2021, to make sure that there is a proper answer.
My constituents are turning at the moment to what this means in terms of compensation. The break in service is absolutely front of mind. As I have spelled out, this is not the first time. Unless there is leadership and structural change, I truly believe it will not be the last.
Let me give the example of the Ashdown Park hotel. There are 50 staff members living on the site. It was closed for days, with no response from the Saturday of the outage through to the reopening. Birthdays, spa days, treats and celebrations were all destroyed, with frontline staff left trying to explain.
I urge my constituents and those watching today to sign up to the priority list. Many vulnerable people, particularly in our villages, were left waiting for water. I know that is an issue that both the shadow Minister and the Minister are particularly worried about.
There are also the needs of livestock. Horses need to drink 5 to 8 gallons of water every day. This situation has been tearing out people’s hearts and souls. They have been so worried. For me, these outages are a moment of crisis in the water sector. I have people cancelling their direct debits at the same time as larger bills are falling on their mats.
I am conscious that many people want to speak, so I will come to a conclusion. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on something that matters to me deeply. I ask the Minister to work with me on behalf of my constituents to hold the leadership—the chair, the chief executive and the team—to account. I hope that this new vision, with this White Paper, turns into action, change and accountability.
Colleagues have spoken about the opportunity for shareholders to do what they can. NatWest Group holds a large stake in South East Water. In today’s Telegraph, it notes that it wants the company to be held to account for supply issues, and for those issues to be “fully resolved with urgency”. Other shareholders also say they want this addressed and they want resilience in the services. So do we, so do our constituents, and so should everyone.