Steve Reed MP: speeches 2025

266 published records · newest first.

Speeches

3 Jun 2025 · Thames Water · Hansard source
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I thank the right hon. Lady for securing this urgent question. I want to begin by making clear that Thames Water remains stable, and the Government are carefully monitoring the situation. Customers can be assured that there will be no disruption to water supply. Thames Water is a commercial entity currently engaged in an equity raise, and KKR pulled out of that process earlier today. As Thames Water has said, the company will continue to work with its creditors as part of the equity raise to improve its financial position. There remains a market-led solution on the table, and we expect the company and its directors to continue the process that is under way and fix the financial resilience of the company in the interests of its customers. I want to be clear that the Government are prepared for all eventualities across our regulated industries and stand ready to intervene through the use of a special administration regime, should this be required to ensure the continued provision of vital public services. The situation facing Thames is taking place within a wider context. Only last year, we saw record levels of pollution in our rivers, lakes and seas. It is clear that our water system is broken. We have already passed legislation so that the regulator can ban the undeserved multimillion-pound bonuses that so outraged the public, and we have further strengthened accountability through the introduction of up to two years in prison for polluting water bosses who break the law. We have increased the regulator’s resources and launched a record 81 criminal investigations into water companies, and we have followed the “polluter pays” principle, meaning that companies that are successfully prosecuted will pay for the cost of that prosecution so that further prosecutions can follow. We have worked with the water companies to secure £104 billion of private sector investment to rebuild our broken water infrastructure. That means new sewage pipes, fewer leaking pipes, and new reservoirs across the country, as we work to end the sewage scandal that we inherited from the previous Government. I launched the Independent Water Commission, under Sir Jon Cunliffe, so that it could outline recommendations for a once-in-a generation opportunity to transform our water industry and ensure that it delivers the service that the public deserve and our environment needs, and today Sir Jon published an interim report setting out the commission’s preliminary conclusions. The Government will respond in full to the commission’s final report in due course, and will outline further steps to benefit customers, attract investment and clean up our waterways. Whether we are talking about Thames Water or about other companies serving other parts of the country, the era of profiting from pollution is over. This Government will clean up our waterways for good.
3 Jun 2025 · Thames Water · Hansard source
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As I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware, there are procedures to follow that would require any regulated company to go into special administration. As things stand, Thames Water remains stable and there is a market-led solution on the table. We expect Thames Water to follow through on that.
3 Jun 2025 · Thames Water · Hansard source
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I respectfully point out to the hon. Gentleman that Reform cares so much about the problems facing our water system that it did not mention it even once in its general election manifesto. What he is proposing—nationalising the water sector—would cost in excess of £100 billion, which is money that Reform would have to take away from the services, such as the national health service, on which his constituents rely. I think they would be very ill-served by him if he were to take away that funding, and push up the waiting lists we have just started to see coming down as a result of this Government’s investment.
3 Jun 2025 · Thames Water · Hansard source
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I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question; I think what he is referring to, in the round, is the failures of the regulatory system and, indeed, the regulators. He will have seen that Sir Jon Cunliffe points to exactly the same problems in his interim report, published today. As we work towards the final report, published in about a month, Sir Jon is starting to point to solutions, and I am sure he will want to pay attention to the right hon. Gentleman’s comments.
8 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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There have been no announcements yet, and I cannot pre-empt them, but we have been crystal clear that we have red lines. We will not allow British farmers to be undercut on environmental or welfare standards in the way that the Conservatives did when they agreed a trade deal with Australia; it undercut British farmers and caused them immense damage. We will never go the way of the Tories; we will stand four-square behind our farmers, and I am delighted to hear that the Liberal Democrats feel the same.
8 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I am grateful to my hon. Friend for welcoming the trade deal with India; it is a £4.8 billion boost to the UK economy, and very good news for our whisky and gin producers—and for the producers of salmon, lamb and chocolate, which are all now tariff-free exports to India. This Government will always negotiate in the national interest, and that is exactly the approach we will take with the US trade negotiations.
8 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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As is so often the case from that particular source, that is a complete misrepresentation of the truth. Nothing of the kind is happening. Rather than trying to politicise and weaponise the matter, the right hon. Lady would help herself and people who are genuinely concerned about those issues by sticking to the facts.
8 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I express my regret that the shadow Secretary of State would seek to politicise personal tragedy in this way. It is immensely regrettable that she would seek to do that; none of us can know for sure what happens in matters of personal tragedy. It is beneath her to try to weaponise the issue in the way that she has done. This Government take issues of mental health very seriously indeed. We are setting up mental health hubs in every community, so that we can support farmers and others who are suffering from mental ill health. I gently remind her that this was a problem that escalated during her time in office as Secretary of State for Health, when she failed to address the problems that people are facing.
8 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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Fly-tipping scandalously shot up by over a third under the previous Conservative Government, and the public are rightly furious when they see their communities buried under an avalanche of rubbish. This Government will clean up our streets, towns and villages. We will support councils to identify, seize and crush waste criminals’ vehicles by closing the Tory fly-tipping loopholes that prevented tough action. We will increase sentences for dumping waste to up to five years, and we will make fly-tippers pay the cost of impounding their vehicles before they are crushed, because we believe that the polluter, not the public, should pay. This Government will call time on fly-tippers so we can restore people’s pride in their neighbourhoods.
8 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I am delighted to hear that people are enjoying the River Camel trail. It is wonderful to visit and we want to extend more of these walks across the country so that more people can enjoy them. I will of course make sure that the hon. Gentleman can meet the appropriate Minister to raise his concerns.
8 May 2025 · Water Sector Reform: Consultation · Hansard source
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We recognise the importance of that point. The hon. Lady will be aware that, at the close of the price review process, we secured £104 billion of investment now and over the next five years to improve water infrastructure and ensure that we get water to where it needs to be. We have also increased flooding funding so that we can take the water away from where it should not be. All of that will support food production as well as many other sectors of the economy.
8 May 2025 · Water Sector Reform: Consultation · Hansard source
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I of course agree with the right hon. Member. We are supporting farmers, many of whom were affected by very severe flooding recently, with the farming recovery fund. I am engaging constantly, and will be again today, with the National Farmers’ Union about those issues and many others.
8 May 2025 · Water Sector Reform: Consultation · Hansard source
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I start by acknowledging, on VE Day, the debt that we all owe to that great generation who sacrificed so much for our freedom. We will remember them and their sacrifice forever. The Independent Water Commission, led by Sir Jon Cunliffe, will make recommendations to transform our water system and clean up our waterways. The recommendations will form the basis of further legislation to fix our broken water system. A public call for evidence that ran for eight weeks and closed on 23 April received a very high number of responses. Those will be shared in detail when the commission publishes its recommendations. Sir Jon and the commission have held more than 130 meetings, including with regulators, environmental groups, campaigners, investors, water companies and consumer bodies. Engagement will continue ahead of the commission’s recommendations to the Government in a few weeks.
8 May 2025 · Water Sector Reform: Consultation · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The previous Government cut resources for regulation in half, and that is one of the ways water companies were able to get away with so much pollution. We have changed the law to allow regulators to recover prosecution costs so that they can carry out further prosecutions and stop those who have been polluting our waterways.
8 May 2025 · Water Sector Reform: Consultation · Hansard source
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I congratulate my hon. Friend on her tireless work to represent the concerns of people in South Shields about those terrible problems with water pollution. Of course, my hon. Friend voted for the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, which has given the regulator many more powers, including the power to ban undeserved multimillion-pound bonuses. I am sure she will be interested to read, as will I, the findings from the Independent Water Commission led by Sir Jon Cunliffe when they come forward in a few weeks’ time.
8 May 2025 · Monitoring Sewage Overflows: Scotland · Hansard source
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I am sure that the hon. Lady will be reassured to hear that the Government have ringfenced money that is earmarked for investment in water infrastructure so that it can no longer be diverted for payments on bonuses and dividends. If water companies attempt to do anything of the kind, the money will be refunded to their customers through a discount on their bills.
8 May 2025 · Monitoring Sewage Overflows: Scotland · Hansard source
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Officials and I continue to maintain regular engagement with the Scottish Government on many issues. While sewage overflow monitoring is a devolved matter for Scotland, we continue to share best practice wherever appropriate. The SNP Government should follow this Government’s lead and introduce robust legislation to clean up their waterways.
8 May 2025 · Monitoring Sewage Overflows: Scotland · Hansard source
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I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for highlighting the pollution and sewage on beaches that so concern his constituents. It is deeply disappointing that the SNP Government in Edinburgh are not following the UK Government’s lead in tackling sewage pollution. I agree with my hon. Friend that his constituents, like mine, and everyone else in Scotland and right across the UK deserve to enjoy sewage-free lakes, rivers and beaches. Sadly, that does not seem to be what they are getting from the SNP.
23 Apr 2025 · Sewage · Hansard source
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I will give way two more times and then I had better make some progress, or Madam Deputy Speaker will chastise me as she chastised the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale.
23 Apr 2025 · Sewage · Hansard source
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I will make some progress, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind too much. The south-east of England will face severe water shortages by 2030 if we do not act urgently, so we are supporting new infrastructure such as the Havant Thicket reservoir, which will store nearly 9 billion litres of water when it is completed. This is just the start of our wider plan to fundamentally reset the water sector so that it is fit for the future. I am grateful to Sir Jon Cunliffe, the former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, for undertaking the biggest review of the water sector since privatisation. He is supported by an advisory group of experts covering the environment, public health, investors, engineering, customers and economics. The failures of regulation and governance that allowed our water system to decline into scandalous failure must never happen again. This summer, Sir Jon will publish his findings on how we can build the robust regulatory framework that we need to clean up our waterways, build infrastructure for a reliable water supply and restore public confidence.
23 Apr 2025 · Sewage · Hansard source
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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will not take any more interventions. I hear the hon. Gentleman’s point. Public health is a priority in the reforms that we are making. The Environment Agency must consider public safety and the environment when it assesses applications for bathing waters, and remove the harmful automatic designation of bathing waters so that we can continue to invest in and improve these sites. Applications for new bathing waters will open next month, adding to the more than 450 bathing waters around the country. Details of how to apply are online. The sewage scandal ends with this Labour Government. Our groundbreaking Water (Special Measures) Act will give the regulators tough new powers to hold water companies to account. They will no longer get away with polluting our waterways and rewarding themselves with undeserved bonuses for what they have done. This is a fresh start for the water sector—a fundamental reset that will clean up our waterways, create thousands of jobs, grow the economy and give us a reliable water supply for decades to come. Exciting progress is already being made. The Thames tideway tunnel was fully activated in February—an amazing feat of British engineering and entrepreneurial spirt that will reduce sewage spills into the Thames by around 95%. Since coming into operation, the tunnel has captured enough sewage to fill Wembley stadium five times over and stopped it pouring into the river. I want to see innovation like that not just in London but right across the country, bringing investment, driving regional economic growth and cleaning up our waterways for good. Many of us cherish memories from childhood of summer holidays on the beach, exploring rock pools or splashing about in the waves. Today’s children deserve to make the same magical memories. This is our moment to give our children back the future that is their birthright, to restore pride in our rivers, lakes and seas, to end the sewage scandal and to clean up our waterways for good. That is the prize, and this is the Government who will make it happen.
23 Apr 2025 · Sewage · Hansard source
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I do not think that decisions taken by the coalition Government were the fault of the previous Labour Government. I am merely gently pointing out that the Liberal Democrats did have a chance to reset regulation in the way that this Government are now doing. Where they offer their support for that work, I am grateful for it; by working constructively right across the House, we can make sure that we now reset a water sector that has failed the public, consumers’ investment and the environment for far too long.
23 Apr 2025 · Sewage · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right, which is why we have given the regulator new powers through the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025. The Conservative party could have done so at any point during its 14 years in power, but at no point did it take that common-sense action. We passed that landmark piece of legislation, which became law in February. It gives the regulator tough new powers to hold water companies to account, bans unfair bonuses when water company bosses fail to meet high standards, and imposes stricter penalties—including up to two years in prison—if water company employees obstruct investigations by environmental regulators, as well as severe and automatic fines for wrongdoing. Environmental regulators can now recover costs for successful enforcement, meaning that the polluter pays and the regulators gain new resources to enforce more effectively.
23 Apr 2025 · Sewage · Hansard source
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If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will make a little more progress, because I have already taken up more than 20 minutes of other Members’ time. Sir Jon is looking into how we can embrace a catchment-based approach to cleaning up our rivers, and our farming road map will help farmers to make the transition to more nature-positive farming methods that will reduce agricultural run-off into our waterways. I hope that many Members have shared their views as part of the Independent Water Commission’s call for evidence, which closes at the end of today. The Government will respond and consult on the commission’s recommendations, and we intend to legislate so that we can completely reset our water sector for the future. The Water Minister has announced reforms to shake up our water bathing regulations for the first time in more than a decade, so that more people, whether they are swimmers, paddleboarders or surfers, can get outside and enjoy our waters safely. Our proposed measures would remove the fixed bathing season dates from the regulations to better reflect when people actually use our waters, and would allow greater flexibility in monitoring.
23 Apr 2025 · Sewage · Hansard source
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I will this time, because the hon. Gentleman has been very persistent.

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