Water Bill Hikes

Ofwat have announced dramatic water bill rises for Southern Water customers – a 44% increase for 2025/26. 
 
Chichester residents are, like me, angry and shocked that it is being left up to bill payers to pick up the pieces because a large portion of this increase will be spent servicing the debt of water companies. A debt that was created by paying dividends and bonuses that were unearned and undeserved. 
 
The previous government should hang their heads in shame at letting it get this far, and the new government must listen to the Liberal Democrat calls to scrap Ofwat, and replace it with a stronger Clean Water Authority, real powers to revoke licences, enforce penalties, and set legally binding environmental targets. It would also be able to force water companies to publish the full scale of their sewage spills, and to reform water companies to put local environmental experts on their boards. Without this, we risk repeating the same mistakes. 
 
With only 15% of English rivers in good ecological health, we need a regulator that is fit for purpose. Ofwat has failed for decades to hold water companies accountable, allowing record levels of pollution while executives have pocketed £62 million in bonuses over the last four years. 

There was much to welcome in the Water (Special Measures) Bill, such as proposals to place failing companies under special measures, to require real-time sewage monitoring and a criminal liability for chief executives who are responsible for severe environmental failure. 
 
However, the Bill does not go far enough. 
 
My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I will be tabling amendments to the Bill at the committee stage, to try and give the Bill the urgency and ambition that we feel it current lacks. 
 
In particular, I am urging the Government to make it easier to implement nature-based solutions. Community-led projects such as wetlands, rewilding, and restoring chalk streams are proven to improve water quality and biodiversity. Yet unnecessary red tape makes these solutions too difficult to deliver. By cutting bureaucracy in this area, while maintaining high environmental standards, we can empower communities to lead the fight for cleaner waters. 
 
These nature-based solutions can also be led by the water companies themselves, for example those being employed at Lavant Wastewater Treatment Works have had some good results.  
 
I will be working hard to both improve the Water (Special Measures) Bill, and to fight for my constituents, who should not be bearing the brunt of the water companies’ failures.